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Minors

General Anthropology Minor

Anthropology is the integrative study of human beings at all times and in all places. Anthropological expertise has special application for hidden histories and the ancient past; the intersection of human biology and ecology; and the way communities create and use meaning, values, and history in everyday life. We support studies, research, and professional applications in these areas with three programs of foundational training:

  1. archaeology
  2. human biology, ecology, and evolution
  3. sociocultural anthropology

The minor in general anthropology consists of five three-hour courses taken in the department and is a viable option for students who have heavily demanding major requirements. A maximum of two courses may be numbered below 200. Credit hours for independent study or independent field research may not count towards the minor, including ANTH 195, 196, 295, 296, 393, 395, and 396. Students must have a grade of C or better in at least four of the five courses, and at least three courses must be taken at UNC-Chapel Hill or in a program officially sponsored by the University. Students planning on a minor in anthropology should inform the department’s director of undergraduate studies.
For more information and a full list of courses that can satisfy this minor, please visit the UNC Catalog.

Heritage and Global Engagement Minor

The heritage and global engagement minor offers students the opportunity to engage two critical issues of our times: globalization and heritage. Students will learn a wide range of culturally aware approaches to understanding the role of globalization and heritage in the modern world. Emphasizing experiential learning, the minor offers students guided training in a range of anthropological methodologies including ethnography, oral life-history, heritage conservation, and community-based, participatory research. Through designated engagement courses, student completing the minor will have developed a portfolio of extended cases studies, ethnographic projects, and designs for participatory heritage and globally-concerned projects. This emphasis on engagement—i.e. first-hand anthropological research—teaches students to connect new ideas about culture, history, globalization, and identity with real communities. This course of study therein prepares students to navigate the complex issues of globalization and heritage that they will encounter in their personal and professional lives beyond UNC. The minor is designed to complement other majors and careers, where cultural awareness is a must. Affording undergraduates the opportunity to anthropologically engage their world, the heritage and global engagement minor brings together UNC faculty, students, and communities—both abroad and here in North Carolina—to create locally grounded, globally aware understandings of an increasingly interconnected world.

For more information and a full list of courses that can satisfy this minor, please visit the UNC Catalog.

Medical Anthropology Minor

Medical Anthropology addresses the biological, cultural, and political-economic dimensions of health, illness, and healing historically and at present. Research includes attention to the body as a site of symbols and evolutionary processes, suffering and healing as interpretive processes, and the multiple facets of affliction at individual and collective levels.

Biomedicine and a range of other healing systems come under scrutiny as social phenomena shaped by the impact of history, social organization, and dynamic relations of power. Thus, health issues are considered in relation to broader, intersecting systems of environment and ecology, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, nation, and class subjectivities. A central contribution of medical anthropology is the critical analysis of how knowledge about health is constructed, deployed, and contested in various social arenas and for various purposes.

Programs of Study

Students may combine a focus in medical anthropology with one or more of the 3 departmental concentrations. The minor in Medical Anthropology is open to undergraduates who have chosen any major field of study in the university; many students who take premedical coursework have chosen to minor in our program. At the graduate level, students may apply for the PhD in Medical Anthropology.

Other units at UNC that may complement study in medical anthropology include: Social Medicine, School of Public Health, Carolina Population Center, the Center for Genomics and Society, the Shepps Center for Health Services Research, Occupational Sciences, Frank Porter Graham Institute for Child Development, the Institute for the Environment.

The Medical Anthropology option is especially appropriate for those planning for careers in medicine and health professions.

For more information and a full list of courses that can satisfy this minor, please visit the UNC Catalog.