Courses and structure

Year 1

You take two Sociology Core Courses:

• Critical Readings: The Emergence of Sociological Rationality (30 credits)
  
• Modern Knowledge, Modern Power (30 credits)
  

and three Anthropology Core Courses:

• Introduction to Social Anthropology (30 credits)
  This course introduces basic anthropological concepts of kinship, politics, economics, and religion and the history and theoretical schools of anthropology. Assessed by: one three-hour unseen written paper.

• Anthropological Methods (15 credits)
  This course explores aspects of anthropological methods. You study the following areas: data collection techniques and implications of type and quality of data; participant observation: techniques involved, its evolution and change; analytical approaches to primary data, re-analyses of secondary sources; the philosophy of science; value free social science, interaction between observer and observed, perception and ‘fact’. Assessed by: one 2,500-word report.

• Ethnography of a Selected Region I (15 credits)
  You'll study the linguistic and cultural groupings of a particular region. The region studied may vary from year to year, but is taken from one of the following: Africa, the Caribbean, the Andes, Lowland South America, Europe, and South Asia. Assessed by: one two-hour unseen written paper.

Year 2

You take two Sociology Core Courses:

• Central Issues in Sociological Analysis (15 credits)
• The Making of the Modern World (15 credits)

plus:

• one Sociology Option
• Methodological and Philosophical Issues in Sociology and Anthropology (15 credits)
  This is a ‘link’ course, taught jointly by the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology. It introduces the basic issues of analytical method within anthropology and sociology with reference to philosophies of both the natural sciences and humanities Assessed by: one two-hour unseen written paper.

plus three Anthropology courses:

• Anthropology of Religion (15 credits)
  The course focuses on ‘classic’ theories and key anthropological texts on religion, magic, myth, ritual, morality, symbolism and belief. Using ethnographic examples from various parts of the world, it looks at how religious identity is inscribed in the body, spatial and temporal orders, and at the relationship between religion and secularism, mass media and the internet, transnationalism, power and resistance. Assessed by: one 4,000-word report.

• Anthropology and the Visual (15 credits)
  This course provides a critical introduction to the many ways anthropologists engage with the visual from their use of visual methodologies and analysis of representations to their ethnographic study of everyday visual forms. Focusing on a wide range of visual media from photography, museum exhibitions and popular representations on TV to dress, body art, architecture and other everyday visual and material forms, the course raises issues about the significance of visibility, the politics of representation, the social life of visual and material forms and the relationship between seeing and other senses. Assessed by: one 4,000-word report.

• Politics, Economics and Social Change (30 credits)
  This course outlines the scope and approaches of economic and political anthropology and development studies. Issues of aid, populism, marginality, nationalism, fundamentalism, globalisation and other phenomena which do not fit easily into definitions of the ‘economic’ or ‘political’, are critically evaluated. Assessed by: one three-hour unseen written paper.

Year 3

You select two Anthropology Options from the following list:

• Psychological Perspectives in Anthropology (15 credits)
  
• Health, Medicine and Social Power (15 credits)
• Urban Anthropology (15 credits)
• Anthropology of Art (15 credits)
• Anthropology and the Environment (15 credits)
• The Anthropology of Development (15 credits)
• Anthropology and Gender Theory (15 credits)
• Gender Theory in Practice (15 credits)
• Anthropology of Europe (15 credits)
• Anthropology of Human-Animal Relations (15 credits)
• Anthropology of Rights (15 credits)
• Anthropology and the Visual: Production Course (15 credits)

and the Sociology Core Course:

• Theorising Contemporary Society (15 credits)
  

plus two Sociology Options.

The balance of Year 3 is made up of Options chosen from Departments. You may also choose to do a Dissertation in Sociology or Anthropology. College regulations determine the exact balance of courses between the departments and these are explained carefully when you make your third-year choices.

Teaching

Teaching is by lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials. You're assigned a personal tutor, who also acts as an academic tutor. Tutors oversee your academic work and progress over the year. In the third year, most students undertake a Dissertation on a subject of their choice, for which they receive supervision.

Assessment

Assessment is through a combination of examinations, pre-released examinations, assessed course work and projects.

Skills and careers

Skills

The BA Anthropology and Sociology programme will help you develop the following skills:

• an understanding of human behaviour and organisation
• an understanding of current and emerging concepts and theoretical approaches that are central to sociology and anthropology
• the ability to examine how social, public and civic policy can be influenced by sociological knowledge
• the ability to investigate, appraise and communicate empirical information
• research and problem-solving skills
• communication skills

Careers

This degree enables graduates to go on to a wide range of careers, covering areas including:

• social and community work
• teaching
• business and management
• the media
• the public sector
• the voluntary and charitable sector

More information

• Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths
• Our alumni

About the departments

The Department of Anthropology

• Anthropology at Goldsmiths is an exciting, multi-disciplinary department, with specialists in a variety of areas of research not undertaken in other Anthropology departments in the UK or abroad.
• We are one of the most consistently innovative departments in Britain. Instrumental in the development of new fields and directions in the discipline, the department continues to be at the forefront of a number of areas, including visual anthropology, medical anthropology, the anthropology of development and rights, cultural politics, political economy, and the anthropology of media.
• Anthropology at Goldsmiths has above all a contemporary orientation, and contributes both to the development of the academic discipline and to the world outside it, through policy- oriented research and advocacy in a range of areas. What you learn in the classroom will be relevant in a variety of public domains – in Britain and elsewhere – as all of our teaching refers to relevant contemporary social issues.
• The department currently has 16 permanent members of teaching staff and three administrative staff. We have a large group of visiting tutors, and several research fellows working on a range of projects funded by bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the British Academy. We have approximately 250 undergraduate students, plus 80 Masters and 40 research postgraduate students.
• We also have close links with other departments and research centres at Goldsmiths, including the Centre for Cultural Studies, the Centre for Urban and Community Research, the Centre for Balkan Studies, Sociology, Psychology, History, and Media and Communications, and the Community and Youth Work section of the Department of Professional and Community Education.
• As a part of the University of London, Goldsmiths’ students have opportunities to attend seminars and courses throughout the University’s colleges and institutions, and can make use of the excellent library facilities at Senate House and fellow colleges.

Our areas of specialisation include: the environment, peasantries, post-socialism, kinship, gender, animals, medicine health and the body, anthropology of science and biotechnology, visual anthropology, development and rights, representation, material and popular culture, cultural politics, neo-colonialisms, postcolonialisms, and history.

Staff research interests cover many geographical regions including Latin America, North America, Africa, the Pacific, Asia, and Europe, including Britain.

The Department of Sociology

The Department of Sociology is nationally and internationally recognised as one of the UK’s leading university departments in the discipline. We have an excellent reputation for teaching and achieved the highest rankings for research in the latest Research Assessment Exercise 2008, coming joint top in the UK. We play a key role in the development of contemporary social and cultural understandings and innovative social science research methodologies.

Research strengths

Our research strengths are wide and include:

• inequalities
• sociological theory
• art and literature; education
• culture and communication
• science, technology and health
• globalisation, cities and economic life
• racism, religion and nationalism
• social and political movements
• citizenship
• design
• class
• the body and society
• new media and the internet
• psychoanalysis
• human rights, law and citizenship
• visual sociology

Staff

The Department has 28 full-time academic staff, including nine Professors and nine professional staff, as well as part-time and research staff. We also have a number of visiting tutors. We publish widely in the form of books, contributions to journals, and press articles. This means that you'll be taught by staff who are actually shaping the discipline.

Find out more about staff in the Department of Sociology.

Facilities

In addition to extensive computing facilities, the Department co-ordinates a programme of talks featuring visiting lecturers from other universities. These talks cover specific areas of interest, and supplement events held by academics within the Department.