Overview
The Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley and the Graduate Group in Anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco currently offer a joint PhD in medical anthropology. Students may apply to enter the program through either the Berkeley or the San Francisco campus, but not to both. The point of entry determines the student's home base during the program. Financial aid, primary advising, and other routine services are provided by the campus through which the student enters the program. All students, however, benefit by taking required course work on both campuses and by the participation of the faculty on both sides of the program on all qualifying examinations and on the doctoral dissertation committees. The degree is the same and bears the name of both campuses.
Medical anthropology entails the exploration of humans as simultaneously physical and symbolic beings in both contemporary and evolutionary contexts. As such, medical anthropology participates in anthropology as a whole, encompassing theory and practice from sociocultural, psychological, biological, biocultural, symbolic, and linguistic anthropology. It is concerned with questions of both theoretical and applied significance, and with research that is of relevance to the social sciences, as well as to medicine and the biological sciences. Courses in bioevolutionary dimensions of disease are accompanied by seminars that explore pain, suffering, madness, and other human afflictions as a social language speaking to the critically sensitive or contradictory aspects of culture and social relations. Anthropological epidemiology asks the questions, "Who gets sick with what ailments?" (differential risks, forms of medical knowledge, and medical systems) and "Why?" (what social arrangements, cultural features, and biotechno-environmental forces account for these risks). Medical anthropology interprets individuals as actively constructing their medical realities and not simply adjusting to or coping with them.
Given the broad definition of medical anthropology, the joint graduate program at Berkeley-UCSF is extremely flexible, allowing for the individual needs and interests of each student. During the first year of training, students are required to take core courses in both sociocultural and biological aspects of medical anthropology, taught at both campuses. After the first year and successful completion of the preliminary qualifying examination, medical anthropology students develop a more specialized and individually tailored program under the supervision and guidance of their adviser.
For students entering Berkeley with a BA, the doctoral program is estimated to take between five and six years: three years of course work, one to two years of dissertation research, and one to two years of writing the dissertation.
For a complete list of faculty, consult the Medical Anthropology brochure available at the Program Office in 232 Kroeber Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-3710, the Berkeley Guide, or the UCSF catalogs.
Applications to all graduate programs are considered once each year for admission the following fall semester. The application period opens in early September, and the deadline for receipt of both department and Graduate Division applications is December 15. Applications are screened by the anthropology faculty; selections are made on the basis of academic excellence, letters of recommendation, GRE scores, relevant experience, and a strong statement of intellectual and professional purpose.
The minimum requirement for admission to the Berkeley doctoral program in anthropology and in medical anthropology is a BA. The UCSF program in medical anthropology requires a master's degree in anthropology or a related discipline, or a postbaccalaureate professional degree.
Undergraduate Program
While is no undergraduate major or minor in Medical Anthropology, undergraduate courses in the field of Medical Anthropology are regularly offered by the faculty. See the course catalogue for details.
Graduate Program
Medical Anthropology: PhD
Faculty and Instructors
Faculty
Sabrina C. Agarwal, Associate Professor. Bioarchaeology, skeletal biology, gender research, biological and evolutionary anthropology, osteology and osteoporosis, health and disease, paleopathology.
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Charles L. Briggs, Professor. Linguistic and medical anthropology, social theory, modernity, citizenship and the state, race, and violence.
Lawrence Cohen, Professor. Social cultural anthropology, medical and psychiatric anthropology, critical gerontology, lesbian and gay studies, feminist and queer theory.
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Terrence W. Deacon, Professor. Neuroscience, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary biology, neurobiology, semiotics, primates, linguistic theory.
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Nicholas Dirks, Professor. History and anthropology of South Asia, social and cultural theory, history of imperialism, historiography, cultural studies, globalization.
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Mariane C. Ferme, Associate Professor. Material culture and agrarian landscapes, gender, historical anthropology, Sierra Leone, contemporary Africa, political culture, transitional justice in post-conflict societies.
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Daniel Fisher, Assistant Professor. Social Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Media, Aboriginal Australia, Music and Sound, Art and Expressive Practice, Photography, Ethnographic Film and Video, Citizenship and the State, Bureaucracy.
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Junko Habu, Professor. Japan, anthropology, archaeology, climate change, sustainability, East Asia, Jomon hunter-gatherers.
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William F. Hanks, Professor. Social and cultural anthropology, linguistics, shamanism, language, Yucatan Mexico, Maya culture.
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Christine Hastorf, Professor. Anthropology, archaeology, paleoethnobotany/archaeobotany, ancient plant use, foodways, Andean South America, ritual, agriculture.
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Cori Hayden, Associate Professor. Latin America, Mexico, social and cultural anthropology, kinship, anthropology of science, technology, and medicine, post-colonial science, gender, queer studies.
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Charles Hirschkind, Associate Professor. Islam, anthropology, religious practice, media technologies, political community, Middle East, Europe.
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Seth Holmes, Assistant Professor. School of Public Health, Director of Medical Anthropology Joint Ph.D. Program.
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James Holston, Professor. Citizenship, Brazil, architecture, law, planning, the United States, cities, democracy, political and social anthropology, urban ethnography, the Americas.
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Rosemary Joyce, Professor. Latin America, anthropology, gender, archaeology, sexuality, museums, cultural heritage, ethics, Central America, feminism.
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Kent Lightfoot, Professor. California archaeology, coastal hunter-gatherers, North American archaeology, archaeology of colonialism, indigenous landscape management.
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Xin Liu, Professor. History and/of anthropology, contemporary trends in social theory, social/cultural anthropology, comparative societies, capitalism and culture, America and China/East Asia.
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Lisa A. Maher, Assistant Professor. Archaeology, hunter-gatherers, prehistory, geoarchaeology, landscape use, stone tools technology, emergence of social complexity.
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Donald S. Moore, Associate Professor. Ethnicity, development, cultural politics, race, and identity, spatiality and power, governmentality, environment, postcolonial theory, Africa.
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Laura Nader, Professor. Latin America, Mexico, social anthropology, comparative ethnography of law, dispute resolution, conflict, controlling processes, comparative family organizations, the anthropology of professional mind-sets, ethnology of the Middle East, contemporary U.S.
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Karen Nakamura, Professor. Cultural anthropology, Disability Studies, LGBT movements, minority social movements and identity politics, visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking, Japan.
Aihwa Ong, Professor. Cultural anthropology, anthropology, transnationalism, citizenship, global cities, migration, Southeast Asia, urbanism.
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Stefania Pandolfo, Professor. Cultural anthropology, Islam, Middle East, theories of subjectivity, postcolonial criticism, anthropology and literature, the Maghreb, mental illness.
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Paul M. Rabinow, Professor. Cultural anthropology, social thought, modernity, biotechnology, genome mapping, France, Iceland.
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Jun Sunseri, Assistant Professor. Historical archaeology, zooarchaeology, ceramic material science, GIS, landscape archaeology, experimental archaeology, community-engaged scholarship, outreach, foodways, actualistic research.
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Sarah Vaugn, Assistant Professor. Cultural Anthropology, (Post)colonial Science Studies, Environment, Expertise, Climate Change, Vulnerability, Critical Theories of Race and Racialization, Theories of Liberalism, Caribbean/Latin America.
Laurie Wilkie, Professor. Anthropology, historical archaeology, oral history, material culture and ethnic identity, family and gender relations, North America, Northern California, Caribbean. Bahamas, African consumerism, creolization, multi-ethnic community.
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Alexei Yurchak, Associate Professor. Language, Discourse, power, social theory, late socialism, theories of ideology, subjectivity, popular culture, ideology, Soviet and post-Soviet culture and society, post-socialism, telecommunications, linguistics, speech synthesis.
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Lecturers
Christopher J. Ames, Lecturer.
Nathan Kwame Braun, Lecturer.
Kimberly E. Christensen, Lecturer.
Mather M. George, Lecturer.
Ruth Goldstein, Lecturer.
Emeritus Faculty
Overton B. Berlin, Professor Emeritus.
Stanley H. Brandes, Professor Emeritus. Cultural anthropology, ritual and religion, food and drink, alcohol use, visual anthropology, Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Spain, Mexico.
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Margaret W. Conkey, Professor Emeritus. Anthropology, gender, archaeology, prehistoric art, hunter-gatherers, feminist perspectives, Paleolithic art, rock art.
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Phyllis C. Dolhinow, Professor Emeritus. Anthropology, development, ecology, physical anthropology, primate social behavior, human behavior, evolution.
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Nelson H. Graburn, Professor Emeritus. Social and cultural anthropology, kinship, art, tourism, Japan, circumpolar, China, Heritage, Inuit.
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John A. Graham, Professor Emeritus.
Eugene A. Hammel, Professor Emeritus. Kinship, social anthropology, stratification, statistical and formal analysis, computer applications, peasant society and culture, demography, Balkans.
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Patrick V. Kirch, Professor Emeritus. Historical anthropology, Oceania, ethnoarchaeology, Melanesia, Polynesia, environmental archaeology, prehistoric agricultural systems, human paleoecology, ethnobotany.
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Herbert P. Phillips, Professor Emeritus.
Jack M. Potter, Professor Emeritus. Anthropology, social anthropology, U.S., Thailand, classical social theory, peasants, change, ethnographic film, China.
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Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Professor Emeritus. Critical medical anthropology, violence, genocide, inequality, marginality, childhood, family, psychiatry, deinstitutionalization, medical ethics, fieldwork ethics, globalization medicine, social/ political illness, disease, AIDS, Ireland, Brazil, cuba.
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M. Steven Shackley, Professor Emeritus. Northwest Mexico, anthropology, archaeology, North America, geochemical analysis.
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William S. Simmons, Professor Emeritus.
Ruth Tringham, Professor Emeritus. Archaeology, Central European, Eastern European, Mediterranean, Anatolian prehistory, early agriculturalists, neolithic, bronze age, prehistoric architecture, household archaeology, feminist practice of archaeology, multimedia (hypermedia).
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