Anthropology

The enhancement in the social sciences at Rice is seen nowhere better than in the Department of Anthropology. Its 10 faculty members—increased from only two in 1980—have earned it a distinctive and highly influential reputation since the mid-1980s, when they shook up the entire field by shifting their focus from examining exotic and so-called primitive cultures to cultural anthropology, which looks at the rapid changes shaping contemporary society around the world.

Some of these changes are due to advances in technology, some come from transformations within prominent cultural institutions such as business and government, and some are the results of shifting demographics. Still others are the consequence of unprecedented cultural phenomena, such as internationally linked economies, environmental issues, and terrorism. One branch of cultural anthropology where Rice has become a leader is social and linguistic anthropology, which focuses on the ways myth, ritual, and language shape cultural ideals and mores.

Rice faculty have gained international recognition in related fields as well. Some 25 years ago, archaeologists Susan and Roderick McIntosh recognized a region of low hills and mounds located outside the city of Jenne in Mali as the ruins of the lost city of Jenne-jeno, one of the earliest urban civilizations on the African continent. Since then, they have made significant discoveries about this important early civilization, and their interests have led them to become leading international experts on the problem of the destruction of cultural history resulting from the pillaging of artifacts from archaeological sites.