Graduate Program in Anthropology

The Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Anthropology Program at George Mason University has three major areas of emphasis:  (1) advanced training in sociocultural anthropology; (2) culture, health and bioethics; and (3) transnational and global issues.  The program offers students the opportunity to learn how to use participant observation fieldwork methods, as well as interdisciplinary, comparative, and holistic knowledge and research methods.  Courses are offered in the analysis and understanding of nationalism and transnationalism; bioethics; social movements, ethnicity and identity; conflict and violence; migration, displacement, and refugees; regional ethnography; and political economy and globalization.  George Mason University's distinguished anthropology faculty cover a broad spectrum of world regions--Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Asia--and various theoretical specializations. The salient features of our epoch-global communications, a world market, mass migrations, and intra- as well as international conflict-underscore the importance of understanding cultures in all their complexity and variety.  The M.A. in Anthropology at GMU is intended to prepare students for employment in venues where anthropological training is useful, or for further advanced graduate study at the doctoral level.  While some graduates will go on to pursue a doctorate in anthropology, others will become teachers, and many will return to or pursue employment in local, state, and national government, in non-governmental organizations, in international institutions, in health, law, and social justice and humanitarian assistance agencies.

Society for Applied Anthrpology article on the program, by two current MA students (see p. 36)

Admission Requirements

Graduate Faculty

Thesis Services

Anthropology Graduate Program Handbook

For more information, contact:

Dr. Linda Seligmann
Robinson B, Room 323
(703) 993-1334
lseligm2@gmu.edu