Updates on the activities of the Department of Anthropology by Chair Karen-Sue Taussig

“I’m using every facet of what I’ve learned.” By combining the skills learned in her anthropology degree, design, and her interest in health care, Monica Looze has found her ideal profession at Mayo Clinic.

Anthropology involves the comprehensive study of human experience. The most basic questions anthropologists ask are “How are humans the same, and how are they different in all times and in all places on earth?” but also “What distinguishes the human from other species and how do different humans understand that difference?” Anthropologists explore these questions by examining people through biological, archaeological, linguistic, and social lenses.

Cultural anthropologist Karen Ho has recently been appointed director of CLA’s Race, Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies initiative, which involves the cultural and social frameworks she has used in her research on the culture of finance. “[There are] a lot of intellectual and social synergies between anthropology and the study and critique of power, race, ethnic, and gender studies.”