Anthropology, The Department of,

Anthropology, The Department of, was established at Princeton in 1971; the main emphasis was placed on the study of cultural and social anthropology including linguistics, and because it was a small department, neither archaeology nor physical anthropology was stressed. Within a few years, the department developed a reputation as a place for specialized work in the theoretical problems of symbolism and cultural change -- areas of research within cultural anthropology that were undergoing a good deal of ferment and development during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Faculty and graduate research focused on such topics, among others, as religious systems; ritual performances; political ideologies; language and its relation to culture; myth and folktales; cultural conceptions of kinship; and psychological aspects of culture, drama, art, and folklore.

Princeton's first course in cultural anthropology was given in 1946 by Sociology Professor Kingsley Davis; this introductory course was subsequently taught for ten years by Sociology Professor Melvin Tumin, and then at various times until 1965 by anthropologists Lloyd A. Fallers, Paul J. Bohannan, Peter Kunstadter, and David W. Crabb -- all frontiersmen of Princeton anthropology, who were responsible for developing additional undergraduate and graduate courses in the field.

Originally, anthropology was a part of the curriculum of the Department of Economics and Social Institutions. This department divided in 1960, when the Department of Sociology and Anthropology was established. In 1965 a separate Program in Anthropology was launched; it was directed by a faculty committee under the chairmanship of Cyril E. Black (1965-1966), David W. Crabb (1966-1970), and Martin G. Silverman (1970-1971).

In 1971 an independent Department of Anthropology was established, with Martin Silverman as first chairman. He was succeeded by Hildred Geertz in 1973, and by James W. Fernandez in 1978. Hildred Geertz

From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).

Go to Search A Princeton Companion