About the Dept. of Anthropology
Our Faculty
Our professors are highly accomplished anthropologists who enjoy national and international reputations as top scholars, amazing teachers and friendly colleagues. Anthropologists at John Jay conduct research and write about important issues in the world, such as ethnic violence, inequality, genocide and war; urban poverty, homelessness, illicit drug dealing, tobacco and e-cigarettes, and teenage prostitution; urbanization, mass transit systems, and neighborhood revitalization; political prisoners and the Military-Enforcement Normal; international development and resource extraction projects; and oil production, timber, mining, environmental politics and microfinance.
Our professors are engaged in research projects that take them from Palestine to Poland, from the streets of New York and courtrooms in the U.S. to the transit systems of Taiwan, and from post-communist Eurasia (Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Georgia, and the Czech Republic) to the Indian Ocean republics of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Puerto Rico, and Colombia.
Our Students
Kiaria Roache '21 is the author/director/producer of Covid's Wake-Up Call. She is a senior at John Jay College where she is majoring in Culture and Deviance Studies (one of the majors offered in the Department of Anthropology) with a minor in criminology. Born and raised in Far Rockaway, Queens, Kiaria has witnessed systemic barriers contributing to racism, poverty and the disparities within the criminal justice, education and healthcare systems.
In her first semester of college, she learned that these social constructs directly and indirectly impact everyone. Understanding that, she has chosen to put her passion forward in committing to educating others on the importance of addressing these barriers. From the start of her college career, she has done extensive research surrounding the flaws within the criminal justice system, intergenerational trauma, COVID-19 and its effects on impoverished communities, drug use and abuse, homophobia, and cultural rituals. She completed this ethnographic study of the impact Covid-19 had on her community in her course, Writing for a Multicultural World: Ethnographic Writing.
The Department of Anthropology is dedicated to nurturing responsible, skilled, multicultural citizens of today’s urbanized, globalized, transcultural world. We prepare students for the social complexity and cultural changes associated with globalization, exploding social media use, and urbanization.
Ethnographies written by our students!
Our Majors
The Department of Anthropology hosts two majors and one minor
The Anthropology major emphasizes cultural, urban and linguistic anthropology, language and culture, global political economy, cultural formations of inequality and social justice, and active engagement with evidence-based social policy.
The Culture and Deviance Studies major is designed to provide students with a basic interdisciplinary understanding of important social problems and institutional responses to treat and control them.
The Anthropology minor allows students to complement other areas of study.
Contact: Barbara Cassidy, Departmental Administrator - Tel. (212) 237-8286 Email: bcassidy@jjay.cuny.edu