Universities and Online Degrees Guide

University of the Witwatersrand

Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology

The Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in Arts is offered by University of the Witwatersrand.

Program Length: 3 YEARS.

Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology offered by the University of the Witwatersrand

Anthropology is the study of humankind in social and cultural contexts. The first step towards becoming an anthropologist is the three-year BA major, which starts with a general, broad-based introduction to this intriguing field and builds toward more specialised knowledge.

The anthropology curriculum at Wits encourages critical and informed debate about the ways that vital social issues - problems of inequality, power, justice, violence, health, identity, intimacy, or ethics - have taken shape and been argued about in modern African lifeworlds.

In the first year of our undergraduate programme, we investigate how questions about humanity, diversity and identity have been framed and debated in modern African thought.

In the second year, we introduce the experience of fieldwork as a technique to explore both the lifeworlds of African cities, such as Johannesburg, and the ways in which our bodies become so important to our experiences of social life.

In the third year, we explore the global history of modern anthropological thought, examine critical concepts for thinking through questions of race and racism, survey important sub-fields such as medical or legal and political anthropology, and introduce students to the practice of presenting social research in public fora, such as our own Anthropology Museum.

Most of our undergraduate courses are also writing-intensive, our main aim being to cultivate students’ abilities to write about the insights that they develop in their reading, discussion, and thinking.