Rice University Research covers work in socio-cultural anthropology and archaeology.

For more on RdA's research tradition, read George Marcus' Provost Lecture on the history of the department...

Research @ RdA

Our graduate program in social and cultural anthropology achieved a distinctive identity following the 1986 publication of Writing Culture (ed. James Clifford and George Marcus) and Anthropology as Cultural Critique (George Marcus and Michael M.J. Fischer), signalling what in retrospect was a historic turn in the development of anthropology itself. This turn has taken, and continues to take, new directions. Our distinctive past serves as a stimulus for thinking about both old and new ideas in novel contemporary contexts of research. Amid the variety of projects that our students and faculty undertake, there is a sense of coherence, increasingly rare in anthropology departments, as to what we as a graduate program think we are doing and what we think anthropology should be doing now. Our program takes the principles of a reflexive, critical, and experimental anthropology as its framework, the interdisciplinary movements of the past two decades as its inspiration, and the emergence of new forms of society and culture across anthropology's traditional areas of interest as its primary objects of study. We look to recruit students who value independence, come with interesting experiences and ideas for research in mind, and who will benefit from the collegial relations with our faculty that we engender from the outset.

Graduate research in the Rice program is self-directed and encourages both traditional and cross-disciplinary approaches. The course of study includes introductory core classes and the student's choice of electives followed by two to three years of fieldwork and writing, with an emphasis on long-term in-depth ethnographic research. We especially support and foster projects that connect systems and everyday life, and that contribute to debates across diverse contemporary audiences of social and cultural research. Over the last 10 years, the department has built up a focus on the study of elites and intellectuals, poetics and aesthetics, religion and popular religious discourses, science and technology studies, risk and security, biopolitical formations, new transnational networks, and biomedical anthropology. In addition to acquiring classical training in the history of anthropology, social theory and philosophy and fieldwork methods, students are encouraged to attempt innovative projects and to develop their own academic networks to supplement the departmental focus. All students admitted to the program are supported by tuition waivers and stipends. Students have been very successful in finding funding for fieldwork and dissertation writing, and Rice provides some additional support for attending conferences and organizing events.