Circumpolar Program at Brown University
Beginning with the 2010 academic year, two graduate fellowships (stipend and tuition) are available for qualified applicants into the program in anthropology at Brown. Applicants must be highly qualified for graduate study in anthropology (including general social-cultural anthropology and archaeology), high GRE scores, excellent letters of recommendation, and broad theoretical interests in anthropology or related fields. Prior fieldwork experience in the high latitudes is desirable, though not required.
Circumpolar Studies is one of the Department of Anthropology’s special offerings embedded within its general M.A. and Ph.D graduate programs. In addition to providing a core of research faculty with expertise in Arctic archaeology and ethnography, it offers relevant theoretical, methodological and substantive courses in anthropology and research opportunities for graduate students focusing on northern social sciences.
Circumpolar Studies personnel also includes faculty and staff of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, located in Bristol, RI. Facilities there include the Laboratory for Circumpolar Studies housing important archaeological collections from the Arctic, a faunal reference collect, and an Arctic library.
The focus emphasizes comparative social and natural scientific analytical approaches to the study of northern circumpolar issues both as a means to prepare students for their particular Arctic specialties and as a vehicle for integrating into their educational program multiple social scientific, historical, geological and ecological research methods and theory. Although the program is centered in the Department of Anthropology and includes the department's general requirements for a Ph.D degree in Anthropology, students are encouraged to incorporate studies in geology, biology, and history at Brown and elsewhere. To prepare students to meet new challenges in research and teaching on high latitude topics, the students also integrate into their graduate studies theoretical or topical specialties from the department's other strengths, such as ethnic studies, the anthropology of colonialism or gender, ethnohistory, or historical archaeology.
Beyond its coordinating role for graduate training, the focus offers a series of lecture courses, seminars, and independent reading and research courses that stress comparative approaches to the analysis of high latitude issues. Comparisons focus on case studies derived from a wide range of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecological zones (riverine, maritime, forest and tundra) across the entire Circumpolar region. Topics include issues of prehistoric and historic archaeology, the anthropology of hunting, fishing, and gathering peoples, inter-ethnic relations, modern problems of northern indigenous peoples, paleoecological and ecological approaches to culture and culture change, and the analysis of material cultural and ethnohistorical materials.
At the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, exhibits and publications on northern topics is part of the broad ongoing activities in the museum devoted to educating students and the public about peoples of the world.
Fieldwork in circumpolar regions is encouraged and facilitated through research grants and linkages with other institutions and agencies with research interests in the Arctic.
Douglas Anderson, Director, Laboratory for Circumpolar Studies
