Anthropology and Sociology includes the topics of religions, politics, kinship, gender,

education, health, migration, landscapes and the media. This major incorporates the
study of the cultures, institutions, social behaviours, economies and systems of
meaning of all human societies. As a student you'll investigate cultural theories and a
range of studies on behaviours and beliefs that are used to explore the great diversity of
past and present human societies.

The four fields in American anthropology are usually classified as physical, cultural (or
ethnology), linguistics and archeology.

Cultural Anthropology deals with the aspects of human lives that are learned. It
examines the way different groups keep societal control, delegate responsibilities and
other such learned behaviors.

Physical Anthropology studies the way humans have evolved over time and how
different environmental and cultural influences affected human evolution.

Archeology is the study of things humans have created in the past.

Linguistics is the study of how languages are formed, evolve and how culture and
language interact with each other.

The divisions are made this way for three main reasons. The first is obvious in that it is
impossible for a single anthropologist to be well versed in all four at the same time. To
the contrary most anthropologists will spend their entire lives studying one small part
of one subfield of one of the above main fields. The four groups although they interact
and are helpless without each other makes it much easier to determine where and when
one group of anthropologists must pass control to another group of specialists.

The second reason is that there are many different ways to study human behavior and
one single discipline cannot cover them all. The only real link between linguistics and
archeology is that humans created both and both are products of a single culture.

The third reason is the simplistic. Prior to the creation of a field of Anthropology the
groups already existed as separate disciplines. An archaeologists would receive a
degree in archeology; not a degree in anthropology with a specialization in archeology.
Still not all scientific cultures agree with this method. Universities in England, for
example, still awards degrees specifically in Archeology keeping it separate from
Anthropology.

However, there are other classifications that categorize each sub field into either
physical or cultural. In this approach the first three items listed below in both Physical
and Cultural anthropology are pure research, while the last item in both lists is applied.

Physical

Microevolution
Evolutionary
Primology
Forensics

Cultural

Archeology
Ethnology
Linguistics
Medical Anthropology

The Linguistics department is known internationally for its strength in the areas of second language
acquisition, applied linguistics, TESOL, and American Indian languages. Like many linguistics programs in
the United States, the department is centrally concerned with core areas of linguistic theory. It also
emphasizes the importance of the applied and descriptive endeavors. The areas of expertise of the
faculty are theoretical and descriptive linguistics, Hispanic linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
and second language acquisition. The department has a good student-faculty ratio and prides itself on
its collegial atmosphere and close cooperation between faculty and students. A major in linguistics gives
students a solid foundation in the central areas of linguistic theory and analysis. The structure of human
language (its sounds, word structures, and syntax) is the focus of the linguistics courses required for the
major. Additionally, the majors language requirement ensures that students acquire a perspective on
linguistic structures outside of their native language, and that they receive some exposure to at least
one language that is structurally unlike English. Students considering a major in linguistics should take
the introductory linguistics course (LING 1000, formerly LING 1950) at their earliest opportunity to
gauge if the major is right for them. In addition to formal instruction provided by the department,
students are encouraged to take courses in related departments such as anthropology and psychology.
Students who wish to combine their work in linguistics with training in a specific cultural area may
simultaneously earn a certificate in Asian, Latin American, Russian and East European, West European,
or European Union Studies through the University Center for International Studies (UCIS). The
department is also home to the English Language Institute, the Robert Henderson Language Media
 Center, and the Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center. Careers in linguistics include teaching English
as a second language and other languages including American Sign Language; computational linguistics
research in industry and public agencies; field research on endangered languages and cultures; research
and teaching at the university level; careers in publishing and advertising; speech pathology and
rehabilitation; translation and interpreting; law; and governmental consulting on language policies.
Most careers in linguistics require graduate training.

Goal 1:
Students will learn to see human cultures whether in texts, religious rituals, or
political or economic behavior from an anthropological perspective. These insights
can be applied both to cultures separated from students own cultures by time or
space as well as their own cultures.

An anthropological perspective entails:

1. Recognizing that cultures exist in time and space and are unique to that time and
that space. Cultures are distinctive and understanding them requires accepting
and negotiating otherness.
2. Appreciating that cultural forms from rituals to class relations to ones self-
understanding are socially or culturally constructed and enacted by symbolic
process.
3. Understanding that politics is intrinsically cultural and culture intrinsically
political.
4. Appreciating the influence of the environment in enabling and constraining
social life.
Objectives for Goal 1:
1. Students will be able to carry out ethnographic research beginning in
Anthropology S10 or archeological fieldwork, informed by an anthropological
perspective, in Anthropology S32. S10 will provide majors with direct exposure
to the central role politics and economy play in shaping the lives of refugees and
asylum seekers in Lewiston.
2. Exposure to class exercises in Anthropology 103 and 104 will give students an
understanding of the role the environment and human biology have played in
shaping human behavior over the course of human biological evolution.
3. Most students have the opportunity to be immersed in another culture and to
conduct an individual fieldwork project when they participate in a study-abroad
program during their junior year.
4. Having had a transformative cross-cultural experience either abroad or at home
and in either an academic or service-learning context, most students will develop
some aspect of that experience as a senior thesis. Others will take up a new
project, building on objectives nos. 1 and 2.
Goal 2:
Students will learn that anthropology as a discipline has a strong commitment to
issues of social justice.

Objectives for Goal 2:

1. Students will demonstrate an ability to respect other cultures without abandoning
their own points of view both in their coursework and, more specifically, in
fieldwork encounters they have during their college careers.
2. Students will be able to explain and apply ethnographic and archeological ethics
in these encounters.
3. In Anthropology S10 and courses that follow, students will recognize that
fieldwork is both a human and an academic enterprise, entailing the need to
reciprocate with their interlocutors. S10 serves as both an introduction to
fieldwork and an occasion for students to realize that learning is possible through
service, and that independent of that learning service is a value in itself.
Goal 3:
Students will understand the process of anthropological interpretation and
representation.

Objectives for Goal 3:

1. Students will acquire the ability to make sense of that is, describe, interpret,
and analyze an anthropological account or an archaeological data set while
recognizing cultural contradictions, complexity, and ambiguity.
2. Students will understand major anthropological theories and be able to use them
effectively to interpret and analyze ethnographic or archaeological material.
3. Students will learn to write according to disciplinary standards, the more so as
they proceed through the major.
4. Students will achieve high levels of clarity of thought, skepticism, and
willingness to correct their own assumptions.
5. In Anthropology 333, students will carry out a project that confronts the
problems of interpreting and representing the lives of others. In Anthropology
339, students will construct a literature review for an anthropological issue,
 giving them some understanding of the way anthropological controversies take
form and evolve.
6. In Anthropology 441, students will write a proposal for a senior thesis as a
capstone for the work that has gone before, reviewing the literature, laying out a
theoretical perspective, and envisioning how that perspective clarifies the issue
under analysis.
7. The senior thesis itself will serve as a vehicle to bring all of these skills to bear
on an anthropological/archaeological problem.
Political science is a social science which deals with systems of governments, and the
analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behaviour.[1] It deals extensively
with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the
distribution of power and resources. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing
the relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these revelations they
attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works."[2]
Political science comprises numerous subfields, including comparative politics, political
economy, international relations, political theory, public administration, public policy and political
methodology. Furthermore, political science is related to, and draws upon, the fields
of economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, and anthropology.
Comparative politics is the science of comparison and teaching of different types of constitutions,
political actors, legislature and associated fields, all of them from an intrastate
perspective. International relations deals with the interaction between nation-states as well as
intergovernmental and transnational organizations. Political theory is more concerned with
contributions of various classical and contemporary thinkers and philosophers.
Political science is methodologically diverse and appropriates many methods originating in social
research. Approaches include positivism, interpretivism, rational choice
theory, behaviouralism, structuralism, post-structuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism.
Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds
of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary
sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies,
experimental research and model building.