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ANTHROPOLOGY

"The most scientific of the humanities, the most humanistic of the sciences"

UCL Anthropology studies humanity in all its aspects - from our evolution as a species to our relationship with the material world and our vast variety of social behaviours.

UCL is one of the world's top universities and our department is the highest ranked broad-based department in the UK.  Our research expertise covers over 60 countries and the whole human story from our earliest origins to today's digital age.

With over 30 academic staff, 400 students and 16 different courses on offer, UCL is a great place to learn the art and science of studying people.

UCL is consistently considered to be amongst the top universities in the world, as indicated by the QS World University Rankings (2012: rank 4, 2011: rank 7, 2009: rank 4).

Studying research people

In the Media

Birth Order

Ruth Mace was on Bringing Up Britain with Mariella Frostrup on Radio 4, looking at the evidence and experience of how important your place in the family pecking order is, and its potential consequences. Catch up the episode on BBC Radio 4.

Events

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Anthropological Perspectives on the Crisis in Southern Europe

The workshop provides an arena for comparative discussion on the impact of socioeconomic crisis in southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain). Contributors will consider issues of historical consciousness, temporality, social movements, suffering and material poverty in the context of eurozone crisis and fiscal austerity. More...

Published: Jun 14, 2013 4:18:43 PM

Seminar

We are plurally rational and inherently relational: causes, corroborations and consequences

for researchers interested in developing and applying the legacy of the late Professor Dame Mary Douglas
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Published: May 29, 2013 10:36:26 PM

Global Citizenship

UCL Global Citizenship Programme


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Published: May 22, 2013 10:55:09 AM

Will Self

Travel, Imagination and Experience

A discussion on the pleasures of armchair anthropology and the suffering of travellers with
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Published: Apr 25, 2013 12:19:38 PM

APE Poster

Asian Philosophical Encounters

This workshop hopes to bring together a range of themes, including ideas of sameness and difference, temporality, comparison, and cosmology, drawing on philosophical and religious texts from Chinese, Japanese, and inner Asian traditions to inform anthropological perspectives.  In particular, we are interested in discussing and exploring how and to what extent ideas from these traditions can help problematize ethnographic concerns with cross-cultural translation.
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Published: Apr 24, 2013 10:25:05 AM

News

Logo Adaptable Suburbs

UCL MRes in Anthropology –  Studentship in Adaptable Suburbs

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21st Century Body Reloaded

Call for papers - 21st Century Body Reloaded

Exciting developments in the life sciences and their application in biotechnology are helping to provide pioneering cures and therapies for inherited and degenerative diseases. Consider genomics and genetic based therapies, neuroscience and neuropharmacology, ICT implants and prosthetics, nanomedicine and the required socio-cultural accommodations to ageing and you will see how the way in which we perceive ourselves and those around us is slowly being recast.  As our knowledge and its application continues to grow and expand, the range, scope and magnitude of what we are able to achieve seems to be limitless. More...

UCL Portico

Opportunities for Brazilian students to study at UCL

Venham para Londres estudar no Departamento de Antropologia na UCL- estamos prontos para receber vocês aqui!! More...

labuk

Call for papers - LabUK 1st Workshop

Originally, the discipline of anthropology focused on the ethnography of isolated or distant indigenous societies, mainly grouped under the category of “non-western”. The particularity of the anthropological object set the boundary between this and other disciplines, such as sociology and social geography. Following from that, the few ethnographies conducted in “western” societies remained a secondary anthropological enterprise, the focus of researchers who had already done ethnography abroad and had returned to their homeland. However, post-colonial studies problematized the understanding of isolated and distant indigenous societies forcing us to re-evaluate the dichotomy between “western” and “non-western”. If this dichotomy was called into question, the discipline of anthropology was forced to reorganize its agenda in order to overcome such division. One direct consequence is the re-introduction of the so-called “western” societies as a primary site for fieldwork, forcing anthropology to re-define itself and overcome the spatial particularity that used to characterize the field. More...

Anthropolitan 8 cover

The latest issue of ANTHROPOLITAN is available online

The academic year 2012/13 has been busy for staff and students alike. We have had a very successful visit by the Internal Quality Review, commending the Department for its openness and inclusivity, for our enthusiastic and articulate students, for the accessibility of the staff, the effective pastoral support provided to the students, and the commitment of staff to teaching. All the students the IQR team met were very positive about the Department and were appreciative of the high quality teaching delivered by staff. More...