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Archaeology

The principal objectives of the graduate program in archaeology are to provide:

• Informed, critical examinations of core issues in archaeology 
• Comprehensive training in principal methods and theories of anthropologically oriented archaeology 
• Direction and support for Ph.D. candidates preparing for research and teaching positions in a wide variety of domains of archaeological practice. 

In addition to a primary area of specialization, all students are expected to acquire a basic understanding of archaeology around the world as well as general knowledge of those aspects of ethnography, and biological anthropology that have particular relevance to their area(s) of interest in archaeology. 

In certain cases, joint programs of study in archaeology and either biological anthropology or social anthropology can be arranged. The expectation is that the student will be able to complete the program in six years. 

Each student will have faculty advisors whose research interests overlap with those of the student. For the first four semesters student’s progress will be overseen by an Advisory Committee, normally consisting of three archaeology faculty members. After the fourth semester, a dissertation committee will be formed based on the student's domain(s) of specialization. 

The progress of each student will be assessed annually by the archaeology program faculty, and this appraisal will be communicated to the candidate. An overall B+ average is expected of the student. Ordinarily no student whose record contains an Incomplete grade will be allowed to register for the third term (semester) following receipt of the Incomplete. 

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• PhD Program in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies

Admissions to the PhD in Anthropology and MES has been paused and will not be accepting applications for fall 2024.

The joint program in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies is designed for students interested in enriching their program of study for the PhD in Anthropology with firsthand knowledge about the Middle East based on literacy in its languages and an understanding of its cultural traditions. As a student in an interdisciplinary program you are a full member of the Department of Anthropology cohort, but also have an intellectual home at CMES and access to CMES faculty, facilities, and resources.

Students in the joint PhD Program in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies fulfill all the  requirements for the PhD in Social Anthropology  in addition to the language and area studies requirements established by the Committee on Middle Eastern Studies.

Language Requirements

Each student must demonstrate a reading knowledge of one of the following European languages: German, French, Italian, or Russian. This requirement may be fulfilled either by a departmental examination or by satisfactory completion of two years of language study. The student must also demonstrate a thorough knowledge of a modern Middle Eastern language: Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish. Depending on the student’s specialization, another Middle Eastern or Islamic language (e.g., Kurdish, Urdu) may be substituted with the approval of the Committee on Joint PhD Programs. The expectation is that the student learn the languages necessary to teach and work in his or her chosen field.

Program of Study in Anthropology and MES

The graduate program in social anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies requires a minimum of sixteen half-courses, three of which are in Middle Eastern history, economics, religion, or political science, and twelve of which are in anthropology. The twelve required anthropology half-courses include the proseminar “History and Theory of Social Anthropology” (2650a and b); a half-course on the ethnography of one’s area of specialization is recommended but not required. A half-course in archaeology is recommended but not required. First-year students must attain at least a B+ in each half of the proseminar.

A list of current Middle East–related courses is available on this site at the beginning of each semester ; the Anthropology Department courses are available at my.harvard.edu .

Social anthropology PhD candidates are required to take written and oral examinations toward the end of their third term of study. Candidates must pass these examinations before they may continue their PhD work. More details are available in the Department of Anthropology’s  Program Guidelines for students .

Dissertation

The dissertation prospectus must be read and approved by a committee of three faculty members no later than the end of the third year. The dissertation will normally be based on fieldwork conducted in the Middle East, or in other areas of the world with close cultural ties to the region, and should demonstrate the student’s ability to use source material in one or more relevant Middle Eastern languages. Satisfactory progress of PhD candidates in the writing stage is determined on the basis of the writing schedule the student arranges with his or her advisor.

Timeline for Student Progress and Degree Completion

• Coursework: One to three years.
• Examinations: General exams must be passed by the end of the second year of study.
• Dissertation Prospectus: Must be approved by the end of the third year.
• Dissertation Defense and Approval: The candidate’s dissertation committee decides when the dissertation is ready for defense. The doctorate is awarded when the candidate passes a defense of the dissertation.
• Graduation: The program is ideally completed in six years.

For more details on these guidelines, see the Middle Eastern Studies section  of the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS) Policies site and the Department of Anthropology’s guidelines for PhD students in social anthropology . Admissions information can be found in the Applying to CMES  section of this site and on the Harvard Griffin GSAS website .

• Applying to CMES
• Concurrent AB/AM Program
• PhD Program in History and Middle Eastern Studies
• PhD Program in History of Art and Architecture and Middle Eastern Studies
• Recent PhD Dissertations
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• Middle East-related Courses
• Harvard Griffin GSAS Policies

Anthropology Degree Requirements

The  Master of Liberal Arts, Anthropology degree field is offered online with 1 on-campus requirement at Harvard University. Weekend on-campus courses are available.

Getting Started

Explore admissions & degree requirements.

• Course curriculum and the on-campus experience
• Admissions: eligibility and earning your way in
• Completing your degree

Begin Your Admissions Path This Upcoming Spring

Enroll in your first admission course. Registration is open November 4, 2024–January 23, 2025.

Learn how to register →

Required Course Curriculum

Online core and elective courses

On-campus Engaging in Scholarly Conversation course

Capstone or thesis

12 Graduate Courses (48 Credits)

Many of our anthropology offerings focus on identity and social justice, making it an ideal option for professionals in the fields of education, community development, public service, public health, NGOs, as well as management and diversity, inclusion and belonging.

As part of the program curriculum, you pursue either a thesis or capstone track. You can further customize the program by choosing the anthropology and elective courses that meet your learning goals.

The primarily synchronous online format ensures real-time engagement with faculty and peers.

Required Core & Elective Courses View More

• SSCI 100A Proseminar: Introduction to Graduate Studies in Anthropology and Psychology
• 4 anthropology courses
• 1 anthropology seminar
• This 4-credit requirement is fulfilled by completing 2 two-credit Active Learning Weekends or 1 three-week summer course.
• EXPO 42b Writing in the Social Sciences is an elective option.

Browse Courses →

Thesis Track View More

The thesis is a 9-month independent research project where you work one-on-one in a tutorial setting with a thesis director.

You enroll in the following additional courses for the thesis track:

• ANTH 497 Crafting the Thesis Proposal in Anthropology Tutorial
• ANTH 499AB ALM Thesis in Anthropology (8 credits)

Recent Thesis Topics:

• Maya Vase Rollout Photography’s Past, Present, and Potential in a Cross-Discipline Digital Future: A Proof-of-Concept Study
• When Witches Mourn the Dead: Grieving Rituals of Contemporary Witchcraft in New England
• From Memes to Marx: Social Media as the New Frontier of Ruling Class Dominance

Capstone Track View More

The capstone track focuses on a capstone project and includes the following additional courses. You choose between two precapstone and capstone topic areas.

• 1 anthropology elective
• SSCI 597B Identity Precapstone: Theory and Research
• SSCI 599B Identity Capstone: Bridging Research and Practice
• GOVT 597A Precapstone: Strategies to Advance Social Change
• GOVT 599A Social Justice Capstone: Equity and the Struggle for Justice

Capstone experience. First, in the precapstone, you gain foundational preparation through critically analyzing the scholarly literature. Then, in the capstone, you execute a semester-long research project with guidance and support from your instructor and fellow candidates.

Capstone sequencing. You enroll in the precapstone and capstone courses in the same topic, in back-to-back semesters (fall/spring), and in your final academic year. The capstone must be taken alone as your sole remaining degree requirement. Capstone topics are subject to change annually.

Recent Capstone Topics:

• Addressing Sexism in Video Game Culture: Empowering Female Players through a Mobile Application for Inclusivity, Visibility, and Support
• Bermuda Wrecks Conservation Through Public Archaeology, Technology and Ease of Access: The “Bermuda Wrecks” Smartphone Application
• Advocating for Healthy Habits in the Digital Age of Education

Optional Graduate Certificate View More

You can choose to concentrate your degree studies to earn a Social Justice Graduate Certificate along the way.

Harvard Instructor Requirement View More

For either the thesis or capstone track, 8 courses (32 credits) of the above courses need to be taught by instructors with the Harvard-instructor designation. The thesis courses are taught by a Harvard instructor.

On Campus Experience

Choose between the accelerated or standard on-campus experience.

Learn and network in-person with your classmates.

Nearly all courses can be taken online, but the degree requires an in-person experience here at Harvard University where you enroll in Engaging in Scholarly Conversation (ESC).

Join your fellow degree candidates for this interactive course that highlights the importance of true graduate-level analysis by training you in the skills of critically engaging the scholarly literature in your field of study.

Choose between two on-campus experience options:

• Accelerated on-campus option: ESC is offered in two, 2-credit Active Learning Weekends. We strongly advise you complete the two weekends in the same academic year with same instructor (part one in fall and part two in spring).
• Standard on-campus option: ESC is offered in one 3-week Harvard Summer School session. This option is ideal for those who want a more traditional on-campus experience. HSS offers, for an additional fee, housing, meal plans, and a prolonged on-campus experience here at Harvard University. Learn more about campus life at Harvard .

You register for ESC after completing the proseminar with a grade of B or higher and prior to either the Crafting the Thesis Proposal tutorial or the precapstone to support your final research project. Ordinarily, students wait until they are officially admitted before enrolling in this requirement, as it does not count as one of the three, 4-credit courses required for admission.

You have two attempts to earn the required grade of B- or higher in ESC. A withdrawal grade (WD) counts as an attempt.

Whether working on a paper at one of the libraries or shopping at the Harvard Coop, I always felt like I belonged.

On attending Engaging in Scholarly Conversation in the active learning weekend format.

International Students Who Need a Visa View More

To meet the on-campus requirement, you choose the Standard on-campus option and study with us in the summer. You can easily request an I-20 for the F-1 student visa for Harvard Summer School’s 3-week session. For more details, see International Student Study Options for important visa information .

In-Person Co-Curricular Events View More

Come to Cambridge for Convocation (fall) to celebrate your hard-earned admission, Harvard career fairs offered throughout the year, HES alumni networking events (here at Harvard and around the world), and, of course, Harvard University Commencement (May).

Confirm your initial eligibility with a 4-year bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent.

Take three courses in our unique “earn your way in” admissions process that count toward your degree.

In the semester of your third course, submit the official application for admission to the program.

Below are our initial eligibility requirements and an overview of our unique admissions process to help get you started. Visit the Degree Program Admissions page for more details.

Initial Eligibility View More

• Prior to enrolling in any degree-applicable courses, you must possess a 4-year regionally accredited US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent. Foreign bachelor’s degrees must be evaluated for equivalency.
• If English is your second language, you’ll need to prove English proficiency before registering for a course. We have multiple proficiency options .

Earning Your Way In — Courses for Admission View More

To begin the admission process, you simply register — no application required — for the following three, 4-credit, graduate-level degree courses (available online).

These prerequisite courses are investments in your studies and help ensure success in the program. They count toward your degree once you’re admitted; they are not additional courses.

• Before registering, you’ll need to pass our online test of critical reading and writing skills or earn a B or higher in EXPO 42b Writing in the Social Sciences.
• You have 2 attempts to earn the minimum grade of B in the proseminar (a withdrawal grade counts as an attempt). The proseminar cannot be more than 2 years old at the time of application.
• 1 Anthropology course
• 1 Anthropology course or elective (e.g., EXPO 42b)

While the three courses don’t need to be taken in a particular order or in the same semester, we highly recommend that you start with the proseminar (or the prerequisite EXPO 42b). All three courses must be completed with a grade of B or higher, without letting your overall Harvard cumulative GPA dip below 3.0.

Applying to the Degree Program View More

During the semester of your third degree course, submit the official application to the program.

Don’t delay! You must prioritize the three degree courses for admission and apply before completing subsequent courses. By doing so, you’ll:

• Avoid the loss of credit due to expired course work or changes to admission and degree requirements.
• Ensure your enrollment in critical and timely degree-candidate-only courses.
• Avoid the delayed application fee.
• Gain access to exclusive benefits.

Eligible students who submit a complete and timely application will have 9 more courses after admission to earn the degree. Applicants can register for courses in the upcoming semester before they receive their grades and while they await their admission decision.

Prospective ALM students can expect acceptance into the program by meeting all the eligibility and academic requirements detailed on this page, submitting a complete application, and having no academic standing or conduct concerns.

The Office of Predegree Advising & Admissions makes all final determinations about program eligibility.

Search and Register for Courses

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) offers degree courses all year round to accelerate degree completion.

• You can study in fall, January, and spring terms through Harvard Extension School (HES) and during the summer through Harvard Summer School (HSS).
• You can enroll full or part time. After qualifying for admission, many of our degree candidates study part time, taking 2 courses per semester (fall/spring) and 1 in the January and summer sessions.
• Most fall and spring courses meet once a week for two hours, while January and summer courses meet more frequently in a condensed format.

Completing Your Degree

Maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher.

Complete your courses in five years.

Earn your Harvard degree and enjoy Harvard Alumni Association benefits upon graduation.

Required GPA, Withdrawal Grades, and Repeat Courses View More

GPA. You need to earn a B or higher in each of the three degree courses required for admission and a B– or higher in each of the subsequent courses. In addition, your cumulative GPA cannot dip below 3.0.

Withdrawal Grades. You are allowed to receive two withdrawal (WD) grades without them affecting your GPA. Any additional WD grades count as zero in your cumulative GPA. See Academic Standing .

Repeat Courses. We advise you to review the ALM program’s strict policies about repeating courses . Generally speaking, you may not repeat a course to improve your GPA or to fulfill a degree requirement (if the minimum grade was not initially achieved). Nor can you repeat a course for graduate credit that you’ve previously completed at Harvard Extension School or Harvard Summer School at the undergraduate level.

Courses Expire: Finish Your Coursework in Under Five Years View More

Courses over five years old at the point of admission will not count toward the degree. As stated above, the proseminar cannot be more than two years old at the time of application.

Further, you have five years to complete your degree requirements. The five-year timeline begins at the end of the term in which you complete any three degree-applicable courses, regardless of whether or not you have been admitted to a degree program.

Potential degree candidates must plan accordingly and submit their applications to comply with the five-year course expiration policy or they risk losing degree credit for completed course work. Additionally, admission eligibility will be jeopardized if, at the point of application to the program, the five-year degree completion policy cannot be satisfied (i.e., too many courses to complete in the time remaining).

Graduate with Your Harvard Degree View More

When you have fulfilled all degree requirements, you will earn your Harvard University degree: Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies, Field: Anthropology. Degrees are awarded in November, February, and May, with the annual Harvard Commencement ceremony in May.

Degree Candidate Exclusive Benefits View More

When you become an officially admitted degree candidate, you have access to a rich variety of exclusive benefits to support your academic journey. To learn more, visit degree candidate academic opportunities and privileges .

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

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Insecurity and Democracy in Haiti

Erica Caple James, PhD '03, on the roots of the Caribbean nation's current unrest

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Erica Caple James, PhD ’03, is a medical and psychiatric anthropologist whose first book, democratic insecurities: violence, trauma, and intervention in Haiti, documented the psychosocial experience of Haitian torture survivors targeted during the 1991–1994 coup period, analyzing the politics of humanitarian assistance in “post-conflict” nations making the transition to democracy. Currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, James outlines the roots of the country’s current unrest and says that ultimately, stability and security must come through governance that is accountable to Haiti’s people.

What does the Creole word ensekirite mean?

In a word, “insecurity” but of a particular kind. It’s very much like what the social scientist Anthony Giddens calls ontological insecurity—insecurity at the level of being from one moment to the next. Many in Haiti can’t assume a normative level of security from the built environment, social institutions, or family—none of the aspects of life that help humans develop psychologically and otherwise. Ensekirite in Haiti plays out in almost every area of life— including the physical bodies of the people there. Almost invariably, when Haitians described ensekirite and outer social space to me during my research, they also linked it to back pain, frequent headaches, and stomachaches. Their psychological experience had been somaticized: fear was ar ticulated and experienced in the body. It was almost embedded at the cellular level.

How did it start?

A native Haitian person would understand ensekirite specifically as connoting political and criminal violence between 1991 and 1994 after the coup that overthrew then-President JeanBertrand Aristide, but it began under the hereditary dictatorship of the Duvalier family that ruled Haiti from 1957 until its overthrow in 1986.

After his election in 1957, Francois Duvalier—“Papa Doc”—declared himself president for life and established a paramilitary force, the Tonton Macoute, to consolidate power. At first, it targeted more elite families that tended to be of mixed heritage. Then the use of repression spread to the general population and became indiscriminate, extending to women, children, and the elderly—populations that were formerly considered untouchable or innocent. The strategy was to control everyday life through a sort of violence that violated ethical and moral norms. Keep in mind that the government of Haiti throughout this time was viewed as a friend to the United States, which felt that its business interests benefited from having a strong authoritarian leader in control.

Ensekirite in Haiti plays out in almost every area of life, including the physical bodies of the people

The election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president was a moment of hope for Haiti. Then the coup you mentioned forced him to flee in 1991. In 1994, US and UN forces intervened to provide aid and restore democracy. Why weren’t these efforts successful?

The way that US aid was distributed was often governed and structured by a specific goal that was intended to benefit US business interests abroad. International development assistance was a means to create favorable economic relations, so the institutions supported didn’t necessarily have the autonomy, sovereignty, or authority of Haiti as their primary goal. Additionally, aid was funneled through so-called independent institutions—nongovernmental organizations—because it was thought that Haitian institutions of governance could not be trusted. These programs usually had a grant cycle—I call it a grant economy—in which the provision of aid was intended to meet particular deliverables. And so, whether it was a citizenship education initiative or a police-community relations program or, in rare cases, housing, the gaze of the person in charge of the funds was back to the donor and less to the people they were meant to serve. The fulfillment of the deliverable was, in part, the goal—along with the hope of renewed funding.

The second iteration of the US Agency for International Development-supported Human Rights Fund, for instance, aimed to promote human rights and democracy and also to reduce the negative psychosocial symptoms that Haitian victims of human rights abuses experienced. During my research, I found that the process of providing psychological support was often shaped by the need to make it empirically legible to the larger donor institution. The need to manage funds and to fulfill a certain set of results within a specific grant cycle or calendar put a tremendous amount of pressure on those delivering aid. But the time frame didn’t necessarily accord in any way with the path of Haitians toward greater security, lower symptomatology, greater capacity to find stable employment, etc. And, of course, this all occurred in the larger context of ensekirite.

Is there any end in sight to the extreme unrest in the country?

I think the biggest challenge is disarmament. If the gangs don’t disarm then there will be no ability to create conditions in which folks are not afraid of kidnapping or violence. There’s the possibility of integrating the gangs into civil society as political actors, but, again, are they going to remain armed? There was an effort to incorporate gang members into the national police force in the 1990s and it created divisions and conflicts that recurred for years afterward. There needs to be a Haitian-initiated plan for security and the sustainability of democracy that is supported by the population. That’s the best way to build institutions that can move beyond governance by force and build a civil society.

Curriculum Vitae Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor of Medical Anthropology and Urban Studies, 2023-Present Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Urban Studies, 2017-2023 Assistant/Associate Professor of Anthropology, 2004-2017 Harvard Medical School Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, 2015-2017 Harvard University PhD in Social Anthropology, 2003 Harvard Divinity School MTS, 1995 Princeton University   AB in Anthropology, 1992

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Alumni Relations

The Office of Alumni Relations encourages connections between alumni and the University, partnering with alumni leaders, students, and administrators to develop opportunities for engagement. 

HUMS manages various mail centers throughout the Cambridge and Allston campuses. Please find more details about additional mail centers below.

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The DCE Mail Center serves 51 Brattle Street and satellite DCE offices. The HUMS mail operation provides sorting, delivery, and processing of outgoing mail.  

The DCE Center Mail Center can be reached at   [email protected] . 

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences expand_more

The GSAS Mail Center, located in the basement of Perkins Hall, serves the following dormitories of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences:

• Child Hall - 26 Everett St. 
• Conant Hall - 36 Oxford St. 
• Perkins Hall - 35 Oxford St. 
• Richards Hall - 24 Everett St. 

The address of residents receiving mail at the GSAS Mail Center should be formatted as follows: 

<Full Name>   <Mailbox Number><Hall>   GSAS Mail Center   Cambridge, MA 02138  

So, for example, 

John Harvard   123 Child Hall   GSAS Mail Center   Cambridge, MA 02138  

This is the best way to address your mail. However, some carriers will require a street address, which are listed above. 

The GSAS Mail Center is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to noon, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

All mail is sorted into mailboxes and residents are notified via email when a parcel is received for them. Residents may drop off mail or parcels they wish to send out via USPS, UPS, or FedEx – provided postage or prepaid labels are already attached. Due to the high turnover rate at these dormitories, the GSAS Mail Center works closely with the Harvard Student Mail Forwarding Center to help ensure that any mail for former residents is forwarded to them.

Harvard University Housing expand_more

HUMS provides limited package services to Harvard University Housing residents at the following locations: 

• 10 Akron St. 
• 5 Cowperthwaite St. 
• 29 Garden St. 
• Peabody Terrace 
• Soldiers Field Park 
• 1 Western Avenue 

Please direct inquiries to your local building management or [email protected] . 

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The mail center at the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) serves all the buildings which house the center. Our staff provides sorting, delivery, and processing of outgoing mail as well as advice to CGIS staff on USPS policies and HUMS services.

The CGIS Mail Center can be reached at (617) 495-8659 or [email protected] .

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The mail center at Littauer is open from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. HUMS sorts and delivers mail and forwards mail for staff and faculty who no longer have offices in the building. 

The Littauer Mail Center can be reached at  [email protected] . 

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HUMS provides full-service loading dock and mail center management at the Science and Engineering Complex, 150 Western Avenue in Allston. 

The SEC loading dock can be reached at (617) 496-0444 or  [email protected] . 

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The Smith Campus Center (SCC) houses many of Harvard’s Central Administration offices. The HUMS SCC mail operation provides sorting, delivery, processing of outgoing mail, courier deliveries to other parts of campus, and some specialized work specific to individual departments. The mail center at the Smith Campus Center is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. 

The Smith Campus Center Mail Center can be reached at (617) 495-4183 or  [email protected] .

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The GSE Mail Center serves the buildings and offices of the Graduate School of Education, including Gutman Library, Longfellow Hall, and Larsen Hall, as well as the various satellite offices located around Harvard Square. We receive, sort, and distribute all incoming USPS mail and parcels and deliverables arriving through private carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and DHL. We also prepare outgoing USPS mailings and ensure that outgoing items prepared by offices are received by the appropriate carriers. 

As the GSE Mail Center is part of the HUMS system, the Graduate School of Education has access to various other HUMS services beyond the ones provided strictly by the GSE Mail Center.  These include tracking of all incoming parcels from the time of receipt at the University through delivery, an on-call, desk-to-desk courier service, and a customer service line dedicated to HUMS constituents. 

To reach us, 

HUMS Customer Service (7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.):  Phone: (617) 496-6245  Emaill:  [email protected]  

GSE Mail Center:  Phone: (617) 495-7751 

To help us ensure quick and accurate delivery of your mail and parcels, please include all relevant address details in any items you have shipped or mailed including name, department, building, street address, and room/floor number. 

House Mail Centers expand_more

HUMS maintains the mail centers for the 12 undergraduate Houses, where most undergraduate students live. 

These mail centers are: 

• Adams Mail Center - 26 Plympton St. 
• Cabot Mail Center - 60 Linnaean St. 
• Currier Mail Center - 64 Linnaean St. 
• Dunster Mail Center - 945 Memorial Dr. 
• Eliot Mail Center - 101 Dunster St. 
• Kirkland Mail Center - 95 Dunster St. 
• Leverett Mail Center - 28 DeWolfe St. 
• Lowell Mail Center - 10 Holyoke Pl. 
• Mather Mail Center - 10 Cowperthwaite St. 
• Pforzheimer Mail Center - 56 Linnaean St. 
• Quincy Mail Center - 58 Plympton St. 
• Winthrop Mail Center - 32 Mill St. 

Mail for residents of the House system should be addressed as follows: 

<Full Name>   <Mailbox Number> <House> Mail Center   Cambridge, MA 02138  

John Harvard   123 Adams Mail Center   Cambridge, MA 02138  

This is the best way to address your mail. It is not necessary to include the street address. However, some carriers will require a street address, which can be found above. 

HUMS delivers all USPS and interoffice mail and parcels to these mail centers. Parcels from private carriers such as Amazon, UPS, and FedEx are delivered directly to the Houses by those carriers. All parcels are received by the House building managers’ office, which notifies residents and manages the distribution of these parcels. 

Because of the high turnover rate at the Houses, all the House mail centers work closely with the Harvard Student Mail Forwarding Center to help ensure that any mail for former residents is forwarded to them, whether internal or external to the University. Additionally, if mail is mistakenly sent to a student’s first-year address, HUMS will forward it to the proper undergraduate house mailbox. To avoid delivery delays, please use the correct address.

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The mail center at William James Hall (WJH) primarily serves the psychology, sociology, and anthropology departments. HUMS staff sort, deliver, and process outgoing mail and advise WJH staff on USPS policies and HUMS services. The WJH Mail Center is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to noon. 

The WJH Mail Center can be reached at (617) 496-3808 or  [email protected] . 

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Harvard Staff Writer

For the more than 1,650 first-year students who moved in last week, College has already started amid excitement and occasional jitters. We asked faculty to share advice with members of the Class of 2028 on how to make the most of their first year. Here is what they had to say, in their own words.

‘Just about everyone feels overwhelmed, or lonely, or stupid, or unprepared for College at some point’

Alison frank johnson professor of history, department of history.

My first recommendation for new students is to take at least one risk academically. I don’t mean a course that seems like it’s going to be “hard” so much as something off the beaten track for Harvard first-years. There’s a lot of passed-down knowledge about what to do: take a freshman seminar, Ec 10, a big gen ed, expos, and maybe Math 1. Hundreds — literally — of your classmates will choose four out of those five options in the fall. And you might think that if everyone does it, it can’t be the wrong thing to do. Fair enough. But I would still say: Consider doing something else. Consider taking a class in a discipline that didn’t even exist in your high school but that you’re curious about. Maybe anthropology.

My second recommendation is to go to office hours, but I figure everyone says that, so I probably don’t have to elaborate.

As for as things to avoid — I guess I would say suffering in silence. It’s easy — especially at Harvard — to assume that everyone else is having a great time, that everyone else thinks classes are easy and has a ton of friends and is just having the best time ever and so if you are struggling with anything, it’s because you don’t actually belong at Harvard. But I would bet that, whether you know it or not, just about everyone feels overwhelmed, or lonely, or stupid, or unprepared for College at some point. Whatever you’re struggling with, there’s someone who wants to help you with it. There are tutors, and teaching fellows, and faculty; there are counselors, and proctors, and peer advisers, and coaches. Somewhere in that group of people is at least one person who deserves your trust and will help you. Reach out!

Dig deep when picking classes. Don’t overpack schedule.

Jie li professor of east asian languages and civilizations, department of east asian languages and civilizations.

In my last year of high school, I came across a memorable quotation from Arthur Miller at my public library. He recalled his university experience as “the testing ground for all my prejudices, my beliefs, and my ignorance.” I took this as my motto for what I wanted to get out of College as well. College is a space to meet kindred spirits, but this doesn’t necessarily mean spending time exclusively with people like you. Rather than the comfort of any echo chamber, you learn much more from people from different backgrounds. Be an empathetic listener and refrain from making quick judgments.

Don’t be afraid to take risks and venture out of your comfort zone in your choices of classes and extracurriculars. Apart from continuing what you excel at, follow your curiosity and try something new. Browse through lists of courses by department rather than only search for keywords you are already familiar with. Before classes began in my freshman year at Harvard, my roommate and I spent hours reading through a thick printed course catalog and sharing our discoveries of interesting classes and fields unavailable to us in high school. Had I only relied on algorithms to choose classes, I may not have ended up studying anthropology or film studies. Take some small classes. You will get to know your professor and classmates much better, feel more invested in the class, and thus participate more actively. Don’t overpack your schedule. Drop a class or extracurricular commitment if you no longer have time for fun, friends, meals, exercise, or sleep.

Attend events on campus and across the Charles. Explore library treasures.

Joseph blatt senior lecturer in education, harvard graduate school of education.

My daughter Talia graduated from the College last year; I graduated so long ago that I no longer divulge the year. But despite the time lapse, we find that our advice for first-years is quite similar. Our joint recommendations:

Your academic experience will be far richer if you make the effort to get to know some of your professors. Take advantage of office hours — they are often shockingly underattended — and don’t be shy about engaging in conversations that go beyond the boundaries of the course. You can even invite them to dinner, and Classroom to Table will pay!

Think of Harvard as your fifth course (or sixth for the overzealous). The torrent of talks, performances, and other events that flow across campus every week will offer some of the most powerful learning you’ll experience here — along with the chance to meet new people, exercise your body and mind, and indulge in an unbelievable amount of free food.

Explore Harvard’s more than 60 libraries, where you will find treasures not available on screen: wonderfully obscure books, an amazing historical map collection, precious manuscripts, famous people’s recipes … along with brilliant reference librarians who are unfailingly eager to help.

The Red Line, with all its faults, is your ticket to downtown Boston. Don’t miss the Freedom Trail, art museums, music venues, and cuisines from around the world. And that way, when people ask, “Where do you go to college?” and you respond “er … Boston,” you’ll be closer to telling the truth.

This is starting to sound too much like “Let’s Go,” so we leave you with two thoughts focused on your studies: Pay attention to how you learn and choose courses and classrooms that make you happy; and don’t compare yourself to your peers — be pleased for their success, not threatened by it.

Ask for help. Study abroad.

Gabriela soto laveaga professor of the history of science, antonio madero professor for the study of mexico, department of the history of science.

I would definitely tell first-year students to think of asking for help as a necessary part of being successful at Harvard and beyond. Time and again, I see that the most successful Harvard students are the ones who not only reached out for help (either with writing, math, mental health, for instance), but knew who or where to ask. First-years need to explore the support network that is offered to them and use it. It is there for them.

Also, they must all do a study abroad while they are students.

Try everything. Share projects. Requirements can wait.

Stephanie burt donald p. and katherine b. loker professor of english, department of english.

Starting with academics, and moving into the rest of your life:

DO: Take classes that look interesting, especially if they’re small. Your first year can let you explore your actual interests, even if they’re not connected to your planned concentration, grad school, or career. You might even change those plans to reflect a talent, or a power, or a strong interest you didn’t know you had!

DO: Shop. We’ve got an add-drop period for a reason. Listen to the professor and see if you vibe with that teaching style. Speak with the professor if you like! And talk to non-first-years who’ve taken courses with that professor before.

DON’T: Try to get all your requirements out of the way early. You can take the requirements that don’t matter to you (for most people those are gen eds) junior or senior year when your other classes are big-deal, high-effort courses in your concentration. There’s no reason to take more than one gen ed in a term: Especially curious or ambitious first-years might take none.

DO: Study the past. Don’t confine yourself to the present as you choose courses in the arts and humanities. A lot of fascinating people died a long time ago. Some of them made some cool stuff.

DO: Try everything, including stuff you didn’t think you were good at. Many of us got to Harvard by choosing, in high school, mostly to do stuff we considered ourselves very good at. You got into Harvard. You have room to experiment. Comp or do something you never thought you could do.

DON’T: Stay on campus all day every day. The musical, literary, theatrical, gamer-nerd, ethno-cultural, culinary, recreational, and technical offerings of the Greater Boston area far exceed what you can find on campus, even though campus has a lot to offer. You may find your favorite new band at the Middle East (the rock club in Central Square, not the geographic region). You could find your new best friend at MIT.

DO: Look for people like you. Intense Dungeons and Dragons players, fashion plates, curling obsessives — Harvard’s big enough that you can probably find at least a few peers.

DON’T: Assume people unlike you won’t hang out with you. Some of the friends you make this year will have backgrounds much like yours. Some very much won’t.

DON’T: Spend all your time studying. Honestly, Harvard students probably spend less time on average studying — especially if you exclude future doctors — than students at some other super-elite colleges, and that’s a feature, not a bug, for Harvard: You’ve got time to meet students who share your ambitions, and take part in massive shared projects, and build what you want to build, and discover what you want to discover, both with, and far away from, classrooms and grades and professors like me.

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Ph.D. Job Placement

Students receiving a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale go on to teaching and research positions around the world, at a wide variety of institutions—both academic and non-academic. This page lists the dissertation topic, graduation date, and current employment (if known) of Yale Anthropology Ph.D. alumni who received their degrees since 2010.

If you’re an alum and our information about you is incomplete or out of date, please send a note to the department chair and we will be happy to update it.

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In Memoriam

Robert paynter, professor emeritus of anthropology (1949-2023).

It is with sadness to share the news of Professor Emeritus Bob Paynter’s passing on April 30, 2023

For those who didn’t know him, Bob was a historical archaeologist who made profound contributions to this department, as well as to the discipline.  He received his PhD from UMass in 1980 and taught here between 1981-2015 after a stint at Queens College and the Graduate Center at CUNY. 

In terms of his intellectual legacy, Bob is best known for his use of critical theory and social activism within his investigation of the past. He made important contributions to the archaeology of capitalism, undertaking extensive historical archaeological research at two important sites - the W.E.B. Du Bois’ Home site and Deerfield Village.

On campus, he undertook critical work on repatriation and was deeply involved in the faculty union (MSP).

Those of us who knew him remember him as a tireless, kind, and generous mentor and colleague.  His passing is a tremendous loss on so many levels and he will be greatly missed. 

Obituary Berkshire Eagle "Remembering Bob Paynter"

Oriol Pi Sunyer, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology  (1930-2023) 

Authored by Jackie Urla, for Inside UMass 

Emeritus Professor Oriol Pi Sunyer passed away Tuesday, April 11, 2023, in Amherst. Professor Pi Sunyer had a long and distinguished career at UMass (1967-2008) and was one of the founding members of the Anthropology Department.  

Oriol Pi-Sunyer was born in Barcelona on January 16, 1930, to a family of intellectuals, scientists, writers, and politicians. His father, Carles Pi i Sunyer was trained as an engineer and became a noted political leader in Catalonia, including Mayor of the city of Barcelona (1934-37) and Minister of Culture, in the Catalan Govern de la Generalitat, 1937-1940. 

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) sent Oriol and his family into exile, first to France, then to England, and finally to Latin America.  He received his primary education in England, his undergraduate education at Mexico City College, and his PhD from Harvard in 1962.  He did his dissertation fieldwork in Oaxaca, Mexico, on rural economy and social change. His first teaching position was at the University of New Brunswick, then he moved to what was then the Case Institute of Technology.  He joined the University of Massachusetts in 1967, as a founding member of the newly formed anthropology department.  Within the department, he helped to co-found the unique European Studies field school and supervised many cohorts of students in learning the fundamentals of ethnographic research. 

Throughout his career, Professor Pi Sunyer turned his focus to the study of nationalism and collective identity in Catalonia.  He made influential contributions to the study of ethnic nationalism while also continuing his interests in political economy.  One of these was deeply influential not only in the US but in Europe as well: The Limits of Integration: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Modern Europe, Oriol Pi-Sunyer, ed., Department of Anthropology Research Reports Number 9, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, 1971. He was also a pioneering figure in the creation of tourism studies.  With his colleagues UMass Brooke Thomas and Henry Geddes, and the late Mexican anthropologist Magalí Daltabuit, in the late 1980s he embarked on what became a 20-year longitudinal study of the Yucatan town of Tulum, now a fashionable tourist destination but all those years ago a ramshackle Wild-West sort of place. 

One of the things that distinguished Oriol as a teacher was the care he put into the supervision of MA theses and Ph.D. dissertations, and his students remember him with great affection for this. He retired in 2008.  In 2018, the Department created the Oriol Pi Sunyer Dissertation Prize in his honor.  His passing is a profound loss to all who knew him. 

UMass New Article Obituary

Machmer Hall 240 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003-9278 Tel: 413.545.2221 Fax: 413.577.4217

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The entangled human being – a new materialist approach to anthropology of technology

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• Published: 02 September 2024

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• Anna Puzio   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8339-6244 1  

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Technological advancements raise anthropological questions: How do humans differ from technology? Which human capabilities are unique? Is it possible for robots to exhibit consciousness or intelligence, capacities once taken to be exclusively human? Despite the evident need for an anthropological lens in both societal and research contexts, the philosophical anthropology of technology has not been established as a set discipline with a defined set of theories, especially concerning emerging technologies. In this paper, I will utilize a New Materialist approach, focusing particularly on the theories of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, to explore their potential for an anthropology of technology. I aim to develop a techno-anthropological approach that is informed and enriched by New Materialism. This approach is characterized by its relational perspective, a dynamic and open conception of the human being, attention to diversity and the dynamics of power in knowledge production and ontology, and an emphasis on the non-human. I aim to outline an anthropology of technology centered on New Materialism, wherein the focus, paradoxically, is not exclusively on humans but equally on non-human entities and the entanglement with the non-human. As will become clear, the way we understand humans and their relationship with technology is fundamental for our concepts and theories in ethics of technology.

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1 Introduction

The swift pace of technological progress has rekindled interest in anthropology, meaning that, in light of new technologies, we reflect on what it means to be human. Technological advancement gives rise to several questions in society: What sets humans apart from technology? What capabilities are unique to humans? Will technology replace humans? Can robots possess consciousness or intelligence that were previously attributed only to humans? And how will humans and technology differ in the future? Particularly, humanoid robots prompt us to revisit the foundational question of what it means to be human [ 1 ].

Moreover, in AI research and the ethics of technology, many anthropological themes are addressed, such as anthropomorphism, human or computer metaphors, the relationship between humans and technology, the differences between them, and their collaboration in various areas of life [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Additionally, many anthropological statements serve as the basis for ethical reflections. For example, claims about how we should morally interact with new human-like technologies, such as social robots, are derived from definitions of what constitutes human consciousness or intelligence [ 1 ]. That is, what it means to be human today plays a significant role in the philosophy and ethics of technology.

Even though there is a fundamental need for anthropological orientation in society and research, the philosophical anthropology of technology does not exist as an established discipline, at least not in relation to emerging technologies. Anthropological concepts from famous thinkers like Plessner [ 11 , 12 ], Scheler [ 13 ] or Gehlen [ 14 ] were developed many years ago, referring to different societal situations and entirely different technologies. Therefore, in this paper, I will develop a contemporary approach to the anthropology of technology that considers current conceptions of the human and present-day technologies. To this end, I will apply a New Materialist approach, referring especially to the theories of Haraway and Barad, and will demonstrate how New Materialism can contribute to a contemporary philosophical anthropology of technology.

Why New Materialism? When I entered the Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford, I encountered an abundance of books about non-human entities. Even though not all explicitly relate to New Materialism, they share its language and thoughts: titles discussing “Entangled Life. How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures” [ 15 ], “Other Minds” [ 16 ] of octopuses, “The Mind of a Bee” [ 17 ], “The Inner Life of Animals” [ 18 ], “Metazoa: Animal Minds and the Birth of Consciousness” [ 19 ], “When Animals Dream” [ 20 ], “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” [ 21 ], and “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate” [ 22 ]. Studies on the non-human are on the rise, and there is a growing accumulation of insights that environmental studies, animal studies, and many other fields have long highlighted: we need to think and speak differently about the non-human, its capabilities, its place in the world, and our relationships with it than we are used to do. To reflect on the human being, it is crucial to reflect on the non-human. New Materialism does precisely this by reconsidering the relationship between humans and non-humans, bringing the non-human and our relationship with it into focus. I will thus propose an anthropology of technology with New Materialism at its core, where paradoxically, the focus is not solely on humans but equally on non-human entities and their entanglement with the human.

Another reason why New Materialism is suitable for a contemporary anthropology of technology is that it draws attention to power relations, discrimination, and the diversity of humans and bodies, which is highly relevant for today’s philosophy of technology as well as contemporary society.

Given how well New Materialism aligns with certain social movements and the current philosophy of technology, it is not surprising that it is gaining increasing popularity. There are already several introductions to New Materialism [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ], and New Materialism has been received by a wide variety of disciplines, such as political science, psychology, theology, gender studies, health research, sociology, education studies, environmental studies, animal studies, social work, and science and technology studies (e.g., [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]). The engagement with New Materialism is fundamentally interdisciplinary. Moreover, a New Materialist perspective has already been applied to specific technologies and several technological ethical questions [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Haraway has played an important role in feminist approaches to the philosophy of technology and robot ethics [ 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ].

What is still missing from the discourse so far is the application of New Materialism to the philosophical anthropology of technology. Footnote 1 Although New Materialism itself does not offer a fully developed anthropology, it reflects extensively on the human being and traditional concepts of the human, the human body, and the relationship between humans and the co-world. Additionally, New Materialism is highly theoretical and abstract, resulting in few concrete practical applications. Like other relational approaches, it faces the criticism of being too vague for applied ethics and concrete practice. For example, in robot ethics, it has been debated whether relational approaches should be applied at all or remain subjects of theoretical philosophical discussions [ 47 , 48 ]. Therefore, this article not only aims to provide an anthropological approach informed by New Materialism but also to offer guiding perspectives on how this approach could be concretely applied.

First, in Sect.  2 , I introduce the anthropology of technology and New Materialism, explaining their origins, intellectual traditions, themes, and tasks. In Sect.  3 , I elaborate on and explain key concepts and insights of New Materialism that are particularly relevant to anthropological questions. Based on this, in Sect.  4 , I develop a New Materialist approach to the anthropology of technology, demonstrating what an anthropology of technology informed by New Materialism might look like. To make the highly theoretical New Materialism as applied as possible, I develop a methodological compass for orientation and guidance in anthropological questions, illustrating this with examples of contemporary technologies. Finally, I summarize my findings in the conclusion in Sect.  5 and identify questions for future research.

2 Introducing Anthropology of Technology and New Materialism

2.1 anthropology of technology.

Philosophical anthropology of technology reflects on the human being within the context of technology. A look at the history of technology reveals that the understanding of what it means to be human is related to the technologies of the time and changes in relation to and interaction with them. The respective inventions of the time, such as the clock, the steam engine, or the computer, have always influenced how humans understand themselves and their bodies. For example, Descartes understood the human body as a clockwork mechanism, and later, computer models gained significance in understanding the human mind [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. Today, it is human brain interfaces, generative AI, large language models, self-tracking technologies and humanoid robots that pose new challenges to our understanding of what it means to be human.

Therefore, a task of anthropology is to investigate how our understanding of humans and the human body is being transformed due to technology. How are robots, the metaverse, self-tracking, generative AI, digital twin technology, and advanced medical technologies changing how we understand the human and the body? And moving into the field of ethics: What futures for human beings do we want? How we understand humans influences how we perceive ourselves and our fellow human beings, how we act, how we make decisions, and how we shape society [ 55 , 56 , referencing 57 ].

Moreover, in the ethics of technology, certain anthropological assumptions are often explicitly or implicitly presupposed. Ethical concepts like autonomy and agency frequently rely on our understanding of human traits, such as specific notions of human intelligence and social behavior. These anthropological assumptions need to be identified, made explicit, and critically examined [ 1 ]. This reveals that anthropology and ethics are closely linked: ethical reflections often contain implicit assumptions about the human being, and anthropology also encompasses normative aspects. This article primarily focuses on anthropology, but the close connection to ethics will become evident, especially in New Materialism, which closely ties ethics to ontology and epistemology.

Furthermore, conceptions of the human being are present not only in ethics but also in technology. Technologies such as humanoid robots embed and embody our interpretations of human appearance and behavior. AI conveys a particular notion of intelligence, and emotional AI reflects a specific perception of emotions. In this way, discriminatory, ableist, sexist, and racist assumptions can be identified and critically scrutinized within technology, for example, when certain technologies are not designed for people with disabilities because an idealized notion of the human was taken as the standard. This engagement with conceptions of the human also includes those implicitly present in science fiction [ 58 , 59 ] and in technological movements like transhumanism and posthumanism. For instance, consider the reductionist view of humanity in transhumanism, which reduces humans to mere information and contains ideological elements [ 53 , 60 ].

Even though anthropology is clearly important for ethics and technology, philosophical anthropology or the philosophical anthropology of technology does not yet exist as a fully established discipline with a distinct set of theories and methods. The beginnings of anthropological reflections date back to antiquity, for example with Plato and Aristotle, and even earlier to the earliest sources of human history. In 1798, Immanuel Kant’s “Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht” (“Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View”) [ 61 ] was published. Particularly influential were the approaches called “Philosophical Anthropology”, which were notably shaped in the 1920s by Helmuth Plessner [ 11 , 12 ], Arnold Gehlen [ 14 ], and Max Scheler [ 13 ]. During this period, anthropology took on a more defined form with theories and concepts [ 62 ]. The handbook “Technikanthropologie” (“Anthropology of Technology”) [ 63 ] refers to “anthropologies of technology” as early as the 17th and 18th centuries with Descartes and La Mettrie and continues to discuss the approaches of Ernst Kapp, André Leroi-Gourhan, Arnold Gehlen, Helmuth Plessner, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Günther Anders, Hans Blumenberg, Gilbert Simondon, Gotthard Günther, and Marshall McLuhan in the 19th and 20th centuries. Footnote 2   

Today, the concepts of these thinkers are often applied to new technologies and questions. For example, concepts introduced by Plessner, auch as “eccentric positionality”, and his three “anthropological laws” are applied to contemporary technologies [ 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ]. Footnote 3 This article, however, takes a different approach, arguing that new contexts require new philosophical concepts and new ways of thinking. Authors from earlier periods, such as Plessner, were not acquainted with modern technologies such as smartphones or brain-computer interfaces. Therefore, they conducted their reflections and developed their concepts in a socio-technological context that was significantly different from today’s. A New Materialist approach, as I will argue, can provide better answers to today’s technological challenges, offering insights into considerations regarding the role of humans in interaction with contemporary technology and the impact of technology on human existence. Hence, in this article, I will set aside the wealth of anthropological reflections in history, even though much can be learned from them, and instead focus on a New Materialist approach.

2.2 New Materialism

New Materialism is an interdisciplinary and heterogeneous current of thought that emerged in the 1990s, intersecting philosophy, social sciences, cultural studies, natural sciences, and technology studies. Key themes in New Materialism include a re-conceptualization of matter, viewing it as active, effective, and dynamic, rather than passive and stable [ 24 ]. Additionally, it involves reflections on ontology, knowledge production, and the subject-object relationship. Its thinkers criticize anthropocentrism, humanism, and focus on non-human entities, and rethink the relationship between nature and culture. New Materialism draws on various theories and intellectual traditions, notably posthumanist, feminist, and poststructuralist approaches from thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Michel Foucault. Footnote 4 Proponents of New Materialism include Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Lucy Suchman, and Jane Bennett. New Materialism is closely related to intellectual currents such as (Critical) Posthumanism Footnote 5 , Ecofeminism, Cyberfeminism, and Technofeminism, with the boundaries between them often blurring [ 42 , 74 , 75 , 76 ]. Haraway [ 77 ] distances herself from the term “posthumanism”, while Barad [ 78 ] aligns themselves with posthumanism. Haraway [ 77 ] (p. 97) says: “We are compost, not posthuman; we inhabit the humusities, not the humanities. Philosophically and materially, I am a compostist, not a posthumanist.”

Additionally, New Materialism is also closely related to relational approaches in ethics of technology, for example post-phenomenology [ 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 ], actor-network-theory [ 83 , 84 ] and more-than-human approaches [ 36 , 85 ], which have long been integrated into the philosophy of technology. New Materialism shares with other relational approaches an interest in embodiment, human-technology relations, technological agency, and the impacts of technology on the human being.

Since New Materialism represents a diverse line of thought and its stances on various aspects of technology, anthropology and ethics differ greatly, this paper will focus on the theories of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad. Haraway and Barad are among the most popular proponents of New Materialism and have significantly influenced its conceptual framework.

Donna Haraway is particularly known for her interdisciplinary approach as a biologist, philosopher of science, literary scholar, and technology researcher, which is evident in her writings. In her research, she combines various methods and types of texts (e.g., narratives and mythological elements). Characteristic of her thought is the questioning of boundaries, dualisms, and anthropological categories. These blurring of boundaries is illustrated in the figure of the cyborg, which she developed in her famous “Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) [ 86 ]. There, she states: “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.“ [ 86 ] (p. 7) The cyborg represents both an epistemological and ontological position, and serves as an “ethical and political figure” [ 45 ] (p. 37).

Karen Barad adopts an approach different from Haraway’s, yet it exhibits many similarities. They also work interdisciplinarily, intertwining philosophy with quantum physics, particularly that of Niels Bohr. Barad advocates for a radical “relational ontology” Footnote 6 , meaning that for them, there are no prior entities with fixed properties, nor are there pre-existing subjects and objects [ 88 ]. Humans, bodies, and non-human entities do not pre-exist but instead come into being “only in and through relationships” [ 24 ] (p. 128). They emerge from what are called “intra-actions” and “agential cuts”. While the familiar term “interaction” presupposes pre-existing, independent entities that interact with each other [ 88 ], the concept of “intra-action” emphasizes that these entities only arise from the multitude of relationships and actions. Agential cuts refer to the way in which boundaries and distinctions between different entities are created and how phenomena in the world are categorized [ 88 ]. “[I]n contrast to the Cartesian cut”, which Barad describes as “an inherent distinction […] between subject and object”, “the agential cut enacts a resolution within the phenomenon of the inherent ontological (and semantic) indeterminacy” [ 89 ] (p. 333f). Barad refers to their “ontoepistemological framework” as “agential realism” [ 90 ] (p. 44). Barad’s radical relational ontology is not framed individualistically, but rather, “phenomena” form the fundamental ontological unit. “Phenomena”, as relations, precede relata such as entities, things, humans, non-humans, and bodies [ 87 , 88 ].

3 Key Concepts and Insights of New Materialism: Haraway and Barad

New Materialism offers various insights for anthropology, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, ontology, political philosophy, and more. Additionally, both theories, by Haraway and Barad, are complex, challenge many traditional assumptions in philosophy (such as those concerning responsibility, the subject-object dichotomy, and causality), and raise various questions in research due to their often vague nature. Therefore, this exploration is limited to 5 key concepts and insights that can be derived from Haraway’s and Barad’s New Materialist approach, which have particular relevance for questions of what it means to be human. However, as will become clear, in New Materialism, questions concerning humans and technology are always closely tied to ontology, epistemology, and politics.

3.1 Hybrid, dynamic human identity: the cyborg and a relational ontology

Human identity in New Materialism can be well described through Haraway’s cyborg figure and Barad’s relational ontology. The cyborg figure has been widely received and utilized by researchers across various disciplines (e.g., 45 , 91 , 92 , 93 ). The hybridity of the cyborg rejects a fixed, definitive identity [ 59 ] and opposes essentialisms and universalisms [ 45 ]. Instead, her Footnote 7 identity is “fragmented, partial, and incomplete” [ 94 ] (p. 30). In addition to the cyborg, Haraway introduces many other figures of resistance in her work, such as domestic pets like her dog Cayenne, coyotes, and the laboratory mouse OncoMouse.

Haraway [ 86 ] demonstrates how, at the end of the 20th century, the boundaries between human and animal, organism and machine, physical and non-physical have become fragile. She criticizes dualisms such as self and other, woman and man, mind and body, reality and appearance, nature and culture. She demonstrates, including historically, how “certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions; they have all been systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of color, nature, workers, animals– in short, domination of all constituted as others , whose task is to mirror the self.“ [ 86 ] She critiques the aforementioned boundaries and encourages the questioning of existing borders while responsibly redefining them [ 86 ] The hybrid cyborg questions “ontological hygiene” [ 59 ] (p. 203). On the one hand, the cyborg can serve as a “critical tool” to expose structures, hierarchies, and dichotomies [ 50 , p. 242, referencing 95 , p. 326]. On the other hand, she is part of societal reality; for example, numerous cyborgs, which are connections between the human organism and machines, can be identified in today’s medicine. Due to the multiple linkages between humans and technology, Haraway concludes: “we are cyborgs” [ 86 ] (p. 8).

Barad proposes a relational ontology, assuming that what constitutes the human being– and also non-human entities– emerges from relations. Thus, human existence is not inherently present beforehand, is not universally given over the years, but is dynamic and continuously reconfigured: Footnote 8

“[H]umans are part of the configuration or ongoing reconfiguring of the world— that is, they/we too are phenomena. In other words, humans (like other parts of nature) are of the world, not in the world, and surely not outside of it looking in. Humans are intra-actively (re)constituted as part of the world’s becoming. Which is not to say that humans are the mere effect, but neither are they/we the sole cause, of the world’s becoming.” [ 96 ] (p. 206).

What it means to be human is constituted through relationships and otherness, not derived from the humans themselves, yet the human is also not “the mere effect” of the world [ 97 ]. Barad argues that “the boundaries and properties of the components of phenomena become determinate” “through specific agential intra-actions” [ 88 ] (p. 139), meaning that humans, as phenomena, do not possess a fixed set of characteristics or determinable boundaries; rather, these emerge in a second step from intra-actions. This indeterminacy of the human also means that what it means to be human remains open to change and diversity: “Holding the category ‘human’ (‘nonhuman’) fixed (or at least presuming that one can) excludes an entire range of possibilities in advance […].” [ 88 ] (p. 178) Furthermore, in Barad’s work, as in Haraway’s, the non-human comes to the forefront. The relations are not limited to human relations; rather, human and non-human entities mutually constitute each other [ 88 ]. What it means to be human is thus also brought forth by the non-human.

3.2 Non-human entities und relationality

It becomes apparent that in Haraway and Barad’s work, being human cannot be separated from relations and the non-human. In Haraway’s conception, the identity of the cyborg is fundamentally relational: The cyborg requires connectivity and relationships– she is “needy for connection” [ 86 ] (p. 9f). Haraway particularly emphasizes the interconnectedness with non-human actors. This can include (laboratory) animals, viruses and bacteria, machines, and other objects. Laboratory animals play a significant role for Haraway. Animal experiments reveal that, on one hand, we acknowledge a kinship between humans and animals, yet on the other hand, we negate this connection to justify the freedom to treat animals as we wish: “They are us insofar as we can learn from them and their bodies; they are not us, so we can do what’s necessary to their bodies in order to learn from them.” [ 45 ] (p. 39) Haraway expresses her connection and kinship by referring to the OncoMouse as her sibling: “OncoMouse™ Footnote 9 is my sibling, and more properly, male or female, s/he is my sister.” [ 97 ] (p. 79)

For Barad, being human is also fundamentally relational, as has already been made clear by Barad’s relational ontology. This relationality is captured by Barad in the term “entanglement”, which for them signifies more than just a “connection”. It is much deeper, involving ontology, materiality, and causality [ 88 ] (p. 160). Both Haraway and Barad aim to question and critically reflect on the boundary between human and non-human. They demonstrate how, through biological insights, this boundary has long become fluid, since properties considered typically human can also be found in non-humans. Footnote 10 However, both explicitly argue not for erasing all boundaries and distinctions but rather for taking responsibility for these boundaries and renegotiating them responsibly. Footnote 11 [ 86 , 99 ]

Both critique anthropocentrism and speciesm. Barad views humans simply as phenomena akin to non-human entities [ 89 ], placing humans back into nature and the world [ 89 ]. Consequently, human exceptionalism is also criticized [ 88 , 99 ].

3.3 Non-human agency and active matter

With the revaluation of the non-human also comes the attribution of “agency” to non-human entities. Haraway’s and Barad’s conception of “agency” diverges from those in traditional philosophical interpretations. Haraway broadens the concept of agency to include non-human entities and actors like animals and machines, emphasizing their performative nature and ability to produce meanings [ 94 ]. For Barad, “agency is a matter of intra-acting; it is an enactment, not something that someone or something has” [ 96 ] (p. 214). Agency is not tied to subjectivity and intentionality. Thus, agency is distributed over both human and non-human entities [ 96 ]. In this context, Barad addresses an objection to actor-network theory, which is criticized for uncritically assuming a dichotomy between human and non-human [ 96 ]. It is important to note that non-human agency does not come at the expense of human accountability; rather, Barad is concerned with being accountable for previously hidden power structures [ 96 ].

Both turn away from the inert understanding of nature inherent in Cartesian tradition and conceptualize matter as dynamic: it is not a fixed, passive, and unchangeable substance or characteristic but is active and productive [ 88 , 89 , 94 ]. The material and the discursive are not set against each other, cannot be reduced to one another, or are not antecedent but imply each other mutually [ 88 ]. Barad [ 96 ] highlights the power relations in materialization processes, reflects on “what matters and what is excluded from mattering” (p. 220) and notes that humans are also constituted differently through material-discursive practices.

For anthropology and ethics of technology, Barad’s concept of the “apparatus” is particularly interesting, as it allows for a better understanding of technologies. Apparatuses are “material-discursive practices” [ 89 ] (p. 335) that can encompass both human and non-human intra-actions [ 88 , 90 ]. Barad rejects the notion that apparatuses and machines are observing instruments and measuring devices [ 88 ], which influence humans or others or have a “‘mediating’ role” for us [ 100 ] (p. 231). Instead, they constitute phenomena such as human, non-human, and body [ 100 ]. However, Barad’s concept of the apparatus remains relatively vague; the boundaries of the apparatus and what is included or excluded remain blurred [ 88 ].

3.4 Bodies and their diversity

The body plays a significant role in New Materialism. The identity illustrated by the cyborg figure is embodied. The hybridity of the cyborg is specifically a material and multiply embodied one. Through her hybridity, she addresses the “multiple possibilities of embodiment” [ 45 ] (p. 80f). She highlights the “ontologically confusing bodies” [ 101 ] (p. 186). Haraway’s New Materialism also considers the differences between bodies. For example, women are embodied differently than men, and among women themselves, there are differences in embodiment [ 45 ]. “The cyborg’s hybrid embodiment is not a generic universality, but a specificity, and a multiplicity.” [ 45 ] (p. 81).

In Haraway’s view, cells, organisms, and bodies are not pre-existing entities merely to be discovered by the natural sciences; rather, they are made and produced [ 94 , 102 , 103 ]. Technologies, (natural) sciences, culture, society, commercial strategies, capitalism, along with metaphors (such as those of machines and computers), and narratives, together produce the body and define what a body is [ 86 , 53 ]. While Foucault [ 104 ], with his concept of “biopower”, highlighted the influence of politics on the body, Haraway [ 105 ] adds the technological discourse: “techno-biopower” refers to the power over the body exercised through technologies, companies, and the economy (pp. 2, 9, 12).

In Barad’s [ 88 ] framework, (human and non-human) bodies “are not objects with inherent boundaries and properties; they are material-discursive phenomena” that acquire their boundaries and properties through intra-activity (p. 153). Drawing on disciplines such as physics and neurophysiology, as well as disability studies, science studies, postcolonial, and feminist research, Barad [ 88 ] questions the boundaries of the body, as has been done in phenomenology by scholars like Maurice Merleau-Ponty [ 106 , 107 ]. Barad [ 88 ] points out that the boundary of the body, the inside and outside of the body, where the body ends and the prosthetic begins, are not as clearly delineable from a scientific perspective as one might think. They [ 88 ] emphasize that how these body boundaries are established is not just a matter of experience but is ontological.

In Barad’s work, queerness plays a significant role, which they identify in nature and then apply to our anthropological conceptions and ideas of embodiment, challenging ontological and epistemological assumptions [ 99 , 108 ]. Barad [ 99 ] presents many examples from nature, viewing nature as inherently queer. For instance, they illustrate how traditional assumptions are questioned through the example of the Brittlestar: it lacks eyes and a brain but perceives through its nervous system, and it exhibits “diversity in sexual behavior and reproduction” [ 99 ] (p. 377). They describe various phenomena of nature and showcase the diversity regarding gender, sexual orientation, and bodies. For Barad [ 89 , 99 ], queerness also encompasses humans, academics, quanta, atoms, and much more. The term “queerness” for Barad does not only refer to gender identity and sexual orientation but signifies a queering that “cut[s] across the cuts that define these terms” [ 99 ] (p. 33), a “radical openness […] [and] differentiating multiplicity” [ 99 ] (p. 29), “the un/doing of identity” Footnote 12 [ 89 ] (p. 247).

3.5 Knowledge production: situated knowledge and ethico-onto-epistem-ology

Haraway [ 111 ] speaks of “situated knowledge”, emphasizing the contextuality of knowledge and one’s own position and arguing against purportedly objective viewpoints, such as those represented in the natural sciences. Haraway demonstrates that knowledge and scientific research are always embedded in a context, dependent on a specific position, and within this, questions of power play a significant role. In Haraway’s view, knowledge is contingent, historically formed, bound to contexts, and interpretative [ 94 ]. According to her, humans, bodies, and non-human entities are not pre-existing; rather, the knowledge about them is discursively produced. Just as cells and viruses in biology are not simply discovered, but are constructed, so are they [ 102 ].

Barad posits a close, necessary connection between ethics, epistemology, and ontology, which they call “ethico-onto-epistem-ology” [ 88 ]. What being is, is always dependent on our explorations of it [ 112 ] and thereby on power relations and politics. Therefore, for Barad, “being […] is political” [ 78 ] (p. 207). Scientific findings are not discoveries of something that pre-exists; rather, scientific knowledge is contextualized, akin to Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledges”. This knowledge is not produced independently but is shaped by gender, politics, history, racism, and more [ 112 ]. In this way, “knowledge is not […] innocent” [ 112 ] (p. 188). With the previously mentioned shifts in boundaries that Barad addresses, hidden power dynamics can be revealed. For Barad, these “[b]oundaries have real material consequences” [ 112 ] (p.187). The boundary between human and non-human plays a significant role in Barad’s work: They argue that determining what is human or non-human always involves exclusions and is “open to contestation” [ 88 ] (p. 183). Who do we even attribute the ability to die to? Who can live and die? [ 78 ] Barad also presents their famous example that biting into a California raisin is not just biting into sunshine and grapes but also into laws, colonialism, racism, bacteria, labor conditions of the workers, advertising, capitalism, and climate change [ 78 ].

For Barad, epistemology and ethics are inseparably linked, and responsible scientific practice is always connected to justice [ 99 ]: “Questions of natural science are questions of justice.” [ 78 ] (p. 205) Through this close intertwining of being, knowledge, and ethics [ 88 ], Barad also transforms the understanding of ethics. Instead of ethics being something that is added afterwards, ethics starts much earlier, not only in a second step. It is a more practicing “ethics of worlding” [ 108 ] (p. 392): “Ethics is an essential part of the sedimenting patterns of world-making, not an (super)imposition of human values onto the fabric of the world.” [ 78 ] (p. 183).

4 Developing a New Materialist Approach to Anthropology of Technology

4.1 an anthropology of technology informed by new materialism.

Based on the key insights and concepts of New Materialism, I will develop a New Materialist approach to the anthropology of technology in the following sections. Weaknesses and criticisms of New Materialism have already been pointed out in the research [ 87 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 ], which is why a comprehensive evaluation of the approach is not conducted here. Instead, the main contribution of this article to research lies in concretely exploring how the concepts of New Materialism can be applied to the anthropology of technology.

The approaches of New Materialism should not be understood as a systematic, unequivocal theory of anthropology, as New Materialism does not formulate a unified position and resists fixed theories and labels [ 75 , 86 ]. Nonetheless, New Materialism offers many starting points for the further development of anthropological and ethical thinking. These points are not elaborated in New Materialism itself; rather, I attempt to derive them from the previous analysis.

In Sect.  4.1 , I will organize the results around 4 key insights and perspectives from New Materialism for the anthropology of technology and at the end of each, develop a methodological compass in the form of guiding questions that can guide the anthropology of technology. In Sect.  4.2 , I will present examples to concretize the New Materialist approach.

(1) Human identity is open, dynamic, embodied and diverse.

For Barad and Haraway, what constitutes the human being is open and dynamic. This contains two important aspects for the anthropology of technology. First, the openness of the cyborg lends itself well to advocating for a “radical indeterminacy” [ 120 ] (p. 285) of humans and supporting an open, not once-and-for-all defined understanding of the human being. The cyborg can “harbor subversive potential” by advocating for resistance against “any reontologization of the human being” in technologies [ 120 ] (p. 286).

This entails that the understanding of humanity advocated by New Materialism pleads for diversity. The cyborg and her body, which cannot be universalized, stand for a plurality of understandings of humans and bodies. The figure of the cyborg broadens the perspective for many genders, for queer bodies, various skin colors, or people with disabilities [ 45 ]. This means that technology must also be open to diversity, designed for diversity, and not define and reduce humans. However, this suggests not merely a criticism of technology but also its potential to actively promote inclusiveness and more effectively embrace diversity. With New Materialism, it can be said that we need queer-feminist approaches in the anthropology and ethics of technology– with a focus on gender but also in the broader sense of Barad’s queering– that constantly question traditional assumptions.

As observed, for New Materialism, being human is fundamentally embodied. In the development of AI, there is a particular focus on intelligence, thereby viewing significant cognitive achievements as separated from the body. However, intelligence always encompasses social, emotional, and bodily intelligence. With New Materialism, it can be emphasized that all our perceptions, achievements, relationships, and being are always tied to the body.

Alongside the open understanding of humanity advocated by New Materialism, there is another important aspect: the concept of the human is undergoing change, and New Materialism remains open to the human capacity for change. In this way, New Materialism also counters arguments that claim certain technologies are against “human nature” [ 99 ], which have been extensively challenged in research [ 53 , 121 , 122 ]. Especially, in the case of brain technologies and reproductive technologies, it is likely that arguments will be made in favor of this perspective [ 123 ]. Technologies can change humans, and the future of humanity is open.

Methodological Compass:

The New Materialist approach therefore resists an understanding of the human being that is defined and reduced by technologies or by opponents of technological change, who do exactly the same by wishing to maintain a certain, fixed understanding of humanity. It instead offers a critical toolkit. The cyborg (or also Barad’s approach) can serve as a crucial tool in the anthropology and ethics of technology. For the methodological compass of the anthropology of technology, the following questions arise:

What assumptions about the human do we presuppose? Where do we fix the definition of the human, and what exclusions do we thereby produce? Who gets overlooked?

Turning to a positive angle and practical implementation: How can we design in a more fluid and dynamic way?

Recognizing that there is no one universal human being, how do we embrace the diversity of human beings in technologies?

What role does the body play in human-technology interaction, and how does technology affect bodily well-being? Is the body sufficiently considered in technology development?

(2) Anthropology of technology needs a relational and more-than-human approach.

Anthropology of technology can be enriched through reflection on (1) the boundary between human and non-human, (2) the relationship to and entanglement with the non-human, and (3) the agency of the non-human:

With ever-improving technologies, we find ourselves questioning what could still distinguish humans from technology, often striving to draw a strict boundary. New Materialism points out that the boundary between human and non-human is not pre-existing, always in flux and will change. Thus, the boundary between humans and technology is likely to be different in the future. This becomes most evident where technology is integrated into the body, for example, with pacemakers, prostheses, brain-computer interfaces, where humans need technology for interaction or even survival. Where does the boundary between body and technology lie? Can technology be perceived as part of the human body? Disability studies demonstrate that users view prostheses as parts of their bodies [ 124 ]. Scholars like Thweatt-Bates [ 45 ] and Graham [ 125 ] seize the concept of the cyborg as an opportunity to argue for a broad conception of “embodiment” that also encompasses wheelchairs, prostheses, and physical abilities and sensations. This illustrates how modern technological developments can be an opportunity to broaden the current understanding of the body towards a more inclusive concept. Another example is the virtual body of my avatar, which is not completely separated from me but part of my body insofar as I experience feelings and violence in the virtual space as a bodily experience. The examples of contagion in gaming, i.e., that our perceptions and actions change after leaving the digital space, also serve as evidence for this [ 126 ].

Haraway [ 86 ] presents the blurring of boundaries between animals, technology and humans as “pleasure” and thus positions herself against the usual “border war” and the associated fears that exist in the demarcation between humans and the non-human (p. 8). Haraway [ 86 ] appeals to us to not be “afraid of […] [their] joint kinship with animals and machines” (p. 13). Promoted by media and science fiction, a distinction between humans and technology is made, imagining technology as an independent, powerful counterpart, for example, as an undefined superintelligence that could replace us, take away our jobs, and potentially annihilate us. The same strategy is also employed by technology enthusiasts, for example in transhumanism, when they refer to “existential risks” [ 127 , 128 ] and a “control problem” [ 129 ] of technologies, from which they alone can protect us. Footnote 13 Instead, New Materialism appeals to us to view technology as something with which we have always been fundamentally connected.

In these attempts at demarcation and the search for human specificity, we also find that, especially with humanoid robots, we tend to develop catalogs of characteristics– such as consciousness, intelligence, and sentience– and decide on that basis how to morally engage with them. Footnote 14 In the past, we distinguished ourselves from animals by attributing to them too strong, uncontrolled emotions and instincts; today, we differentiate ourselves from technology by saying that it lacks emotions [ 133 ]. This so-called “properties-approach” [ 132 ] has been widely criticized in research, and various relational approaches have been proposed instead [ 1 , 131 ], which show that we form close bonds with technology, we even grieve for social robots [ 134 ], and that our properties and actions are fundamentally interwoven with the non-human. How do these relationships change our ethical concepts like autonomy, agency, and responsibility?

In the discourse on technology, human-centered approaches are emphasized, for example, the notion that technology should serve humans. Instead, the New Materialist perspective emphasizes interconnectedness with the non-human: with bacteria, viruses, animals, plants, microchips, the internet, tubes, and cables, computers. The New Materialist perspective calls for taking relationships with non-humans seriously and considering how they co-constitute us and our actions. Without many non-human entities, such as bacteria, insects, and plants, we cannot survive, and technologies form a fundamental condition for our food production, safety measures, water supply, and energy provisions. In the medical field, we are largely dependent on technology, also for life-saving measures. This means that it is their data, algorithms, design, structures, and logics that fundamentally shape our human existence and ourselves.

In New Materialism, we are not merely entangled with the non-human, but there is also non-human agency, and matter is active. This means that technology is not just a mere object or tool for our actions. In human-robot interaction, for example in robot-assisted surgery, we see how the robot and the surgeon and the rest of the surgical team collaborate, enabling interventions that would not have been possible without the robot and transforming the whole actions of the surgery into a co-action of human and non-human, or more aptly, a hybrid action [ 1 ]. Lupton [ 36 , 135 ] also views various self-tracking apps as new “human–nonhuman agencies” or “assemblages” because understanding of humans, actions, and decisions here are produced through both human and technology.

For guiding the methodology in the anthropology of technology, the following questions emerge:

What assumptions do we make about the boundary between human and non-human, and what constitutes the non-human? The goal is to question traditional boundary demarcations, as has long been done in disability studies and environmental ethics.

Instead of focusing solely on individual actions, we should ask: In what relationships do we find ourselves? How do the non-human and our relationships with it shape us and our actions?

Which non-human agents are involved, and what human/non-human assemblages occur? This involves first considering the plethora of agents involved and then analyzing which of these are relevant in the specific situation or interaction.

(3) The anthropology of technology requires a critical reflection on knowledge production, ontology, and materialization, identifying power discourses.

New Materialism shifts the focus to understanding that knowledge about humans, bodies, and the non-human is not pre-existing but is produced. By not viewing the human and non-human (and the boundary between them) as given, it becomes possible to analyze how they are produced, to detect discriminations, and to identify power relations [ 88 ]. Definitions of humans and non-humans are also about power. They change over the years, for example, slaves and women were previously not attributed personhood. Technologies (and the actors associated with them such as designers, developers, tech companies, Big Tech, regulatory laws, and politics) also produce a version of the human, body, and non-human. In this way, an ethics of technology from a New Materialism perspective does not start only at the development or use of a technology but already at the production of knowledge about what being human and non-human means, at historical, medical, and political developments, social and cultural influences, constraints, and structures that are reflected upon.

New Materialism draws attention to the materializations and power relations that are already deeply embedded in ontological and epistemological structures: Barad addresses the materialization of both human and non-human bodies: While Foucault has investigated “the materialization of human bodies”, Barad criticizes him for neglecting “the processes of materialization through which nonhuman bodies are materialized” [ 96 ] (p. 204) [ 88 , 90 ].

Furthermore, New Materialism can serve as a starting point to highlight the “plurality of ontologies” Footnote 15 and to integrate non-Western ontologies. Consider Ubuntu and sub-Saharan African approaches [ 137 , 138 ], many of which argue that personhood can also apply to robots and that personhood is not possessed but rather achieved, with relationships (including those with non-humans) playing a significant role [ 138 ]. For Japanese approaches, consider, for example, Shinto-inspired techno-animism, which does not separate matter and spirit and has much potential to recognize non-human agencies and to view robots as animated [ 139 , 140 , 141 ].

For the methodological compass, the following questions arise:

Which “human”, “body”, and “non-human” are produced by technologies? What knowledge is generated?

Who and what produce this knowledge? Where can power structures be identified?

Where do ontological and epistemological injustices occur, and what forms of discrimination arise?

How can we do justice to the plurality of ontologies in technology and the anthropology of technology?

(4) Technology anthropology must work in an inter- and transdisciplinary manner and can benefit from new methodological approaches.

In a New Materialist-inspired anthropology and ethics of technology, inter- and transdisciplinary work is indispensable. It is not just about a mere dialogue between disciplines, but rather that ethics cannot be conducted without the natural sciences. An ethicist must also be able to work scientifically, and questions of natural science always also concern justice [ 78 ], because colonialist, racist, and sexist histories are present in scientific work, for example. In consideration of the non-human, collaboration between environmental ethics and ethics of technology would be beneficial and necessary, as exemplified by Gellers in his book “Rights for Robots” [ 142 ], where he refers to relational approaches.

An anthropology of technology inspired by New Materialism can also venture into new forms of storytelling, creating new narrations and figures such as the cyborg. In the discourse on technology, certain narratives are particularly prominent; for example, in the context of the aforementioned “border war”, technology is depicted in Western societies as a threat, Footnote 16 a powerful counterpart to humans, whereas New Materialism emphasizes kinship and “making kin” [ 77 ].

The anthropology of technology must fundamentally rely on empirical studies, and New Materialism can also be fruitfully applied to empirical research [ 143 , 144 ]. Lupton [ 36 , 135 ], for instance, utilizes New Materialism to enrich empirical health research. Lupton highlights the importance of examining people’s personal experiences with and their relationships to technology, such as in self-tracking (what motivates them, what experiences they have, emotions, why they use it, etc.).

Methodological compass:

The anthropology of technology must develop inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and experiment with new methods.

Consider the power of the story: Which narratives and stories dominate the discourse on technology, and what new narratives and resistant figures can be introduced? [ 93 , 145 ]

The anthropology of technology must rely on empirical work and research into people’s experiences with technology and their relationships to it.

4.2 Examples

In the final step, I present some examples from various technologies to illustrate how the New Materialism approach can be fruitfully applied:

4.2.1 Open conception of the human being: body scanners and medical technology

An example of a non-dynamic conception of the human being hidden in technology is body scanners. Even though they seem harmless because they only scan the body, a certain image of the body is embedded in them. They classify transgender individuals as dangerous because their bodies do “not fit the pre-programmed algorithmically-identified male or female gender shapes” [ 146 ] (p. 518). The same applies to facial recognition technologies, which fail to recognize black faces [ 146 , 147 , 148 ]. Similarly, body scanners exclude people who rely on medical technology, such as the elderly and people with disabilities.

Ultimately, every technology produces a specific image of a human and can never provide a holistic representation of humans. This does not mean that technology should not be used, but rather that this critical perspective must always be made clear, and technology can be improved. Especially imaging techniques and visualization technologies in medicine suggest that they offer an insight into a pre-existing body. However, they are based only on specific statistical calculations, medical values, and only represent certain aspects of humanity [ 149 , 150 ]. With New Materialism, the question arises: what does medical technology not capture here? Which bodily or non-bodily parameters are ignored? Similarly, self-tracking designs an image of the human, body, and health that tracks only certain parameters (e.g., counting steps) and assigns no value to others. Similarly, digital twin technology, which aims to provide a digital representation of the patient in their digital twin in the future, from the perspective of New Materialism, must always consider what is reduced in the patient and what is not represented in the digital twin. Footnote 17 Just as twins are not identical, digital twins are not either.

A positive development would be steps towards personalized medicine, which can individually consider the various peculiarities of individuals– even though this would also come with limitations. Other approaches would include the co-design of technology by diverse user groups, using diverse data sets, and enabling more autonomy for users in the technology.

Another promising approach is queering data. Since technology is fundamentally based on data, which is binary, there arises the task of making the data, its collection, analysis, and use more diverse. There are already promising approaches inspired by a rhizome to decentralize data (“RhizomeDB”), including a “BYOA (Bring Your Own Algorithm) approach” [ 151 , 152 ]. Footnote 18 And there are various attempts to queer data [ 153 ], for example, “the queering of collection methods” [ 154 ]. Consequently, a New Materialist approach to data is needed.

4.2.2 Non-human agency and hybrid agency

A good example of hybrid agency is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which can be used by people with neurological disorders such as Locked-in syndrome. People can envision the act of flipping a light switch; the BCI analyses and sends their brain signals, thereby activating the light switch. Similarly, concentrating on particular letters or phrases displayed on a monitor allows the BCI (and the human) to navigate a cursor for selection [ 155 , 156 ]. BCIs facilitate movement and speech; the interaction has to be learned, and both parties have to adapt to each other. Consequently, communication and interaction are enabled and changed, thinking and behaviour are restructured. So the action is not just human, and the action is not just technologically mediated. Here, one can speak of a hybrid action of human and non-human: The actions of both are not just added together but create a new action. When these brain-computer interfaces become bidirectional, they can provide somatosensory feedback, including perceptions of pressure or warmth, or even disable fear, and could also be used for the enhancement of non-disabled individuals [ 155 , 156 ].

To reflect on non-human agency, one does not even need advanced neurological technology; generative AI already shows us how non-human and hybrid agency are effective in all our lives. Furthermore, generative AI is being explored for the creation of visual and performance art, as well as for multiple medical fields (especially radiology, mental health, and drug development) [ 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 ]. We are even more familiar with the “agency of the algorithmic feed” Footnote 19 in social media. Through the algorithmic feed, which itself is entangled with human agency, data, and algorithms, something new emerges that shapes our decisions, purchases, fashion, diet, trends, knowledge, our self- and body image, and our understanding of our health [ 161 ].

4.2.3 Knowledge production: reproductive technologies

The most illustrative example of how knowledge about the boundary between human and non-human, what it means to be human, and where life begins is produced can be found in reproductive technologies. The ultrasound image once constituted the fetus as an entity, making it a patient with rights [ 149 , 162 , 163 ]. In ectogestative technology (also known as artificial womb technology), where part or the entire maturation process of the fetus is supposed to occur ectogestatively, outside the uterus, the question becomes pressing again as to when the ectogestative entity is human and alive [ 164 ]. A New Materialism-inspired anthropology of technology emphasizes that this is not pre-given and does not just need to be discovered by the natural sciences, but that this knowledge is produced. Laws, historical developments, technologies, political structures, capitalism, feminist and racist structures, and much more will determine what is life and non-life, what is human and non-human. Footnote 20

5 Conclusion

In this paper, I have developed a techno-anthropological approach informed by New Materialism. This New Materialism-inspired anthropology of technology assumes an open, dynamic, and changing identity, accommodates diversity, is relational, and considers humans as fundamentally entangled with the non-human. Furthermore, it highlights the formation and power structures of ontologies, materializations, and epistemologies, as well as non-human and hybrid agency, and underscores that technology produces humans and bodies. Through examples and a methodological compass, I have concretized the approach for application and developed questions to guide the anthropology of technology.

Although it became clear that a New Materialist approach is well-suited for a contemporary anthropology of technology and offers many advantages, several limitations of a New Materialist approach remain. Among these limitations are the vagueness of many New Materialist concepts and the challenge of their application to ethics and politics [ 113 , 114 , 115 ]. For example, Buhr argues that in New Materialism, there exists a “gap” “between the ontological subject and the ethical and political subject” [ 87 ] (p. 87). This affects questions such as how responsibility [ 169 ] or autonomy can be understood. Much of this translation work still needs to be done in the future.

This also extends beyond ethics and philosophy. For example, Frauenberger explores what New Materialism means for human-computer interaction and design. Footnote 21 Frauenberger argues that with the design of technology, we are designing “configurations” in which humans and technology are in a relationship and interacting, and we should consider “how to design meaningful relations” [ 170 ] (p. 19).

Nevertheless, this paper has also identified the strength of New Materialism for the anthropology of technology precisely in the vagueness and indeterminacy of New Materialist concepts, as this approach keeps the concept of the human open and never definitively determines it. Or, in other words, the task of anthropology can be described in Haraway’s [ 77 ] words as: “staying with the trouble”. This means that the task of anthropology is to bear the complexity of human beings without fixing or unifying this complexity into a specific image of humans. In this regard, the very openly formulated concepts of New Materialism are well-suited for an anthropology of technology.

Another important limitation or question for future research is the understanding of relations or relationships used by New Materialism. According to a certain understanding of relationships, everything can be relational. It needs to be examined what kind of relationship New Materialism refers to in different contexts and which relationships are valuable or normatively significant. To what extent can normative statements be derived from relationships at all? More empirical research is needed to explore the relationships we enter into with the non-human and how these differ from human-human relationships. Empirical studies that explore people’s lived experiences with technology are central to a New Materialism-inspired anthropology of technology.

A key aspect of this techno-anthropological approach informed by New Materialism is that the non-human and the human entanglement with the non-human come into the focus of anthropology: an anthropology (from ancient Greek: ἄνθρωπος, human) that deals with humans but focuses on the non-human– isn’t that paradoxical? A paradox is not a contradiction but consists of contradictory elements that together form a statement, which, upon closer inspection, is not absurd but makes sense or points to a deeper truth [ 171 , 172 , 173 ]. Footnote 22 The assertion of this New Materialist approach to the anthropology of technology is that it does not require a focus on humans , or rather, can only succeed if the human entanglement and co-shaping with the non-human are considered. We cannot think of humans without considering the non-human. Haraway [ 77 ], possessing a deep ecological awareness, views human existence as fundamentally earthly: “Remembering that humanity meant humus, and not Anthropos or Homo.“

Furthermore, the question arises as to how anthropology as a discipline or field of study changes with the deeply transformative assumptions of New Materialism. Researchers have critically asked whether such relational approaches mean a departure from anthropology, as it is replaced by relations and the non-human [ 64 , 75 ]. I argue that it is not a departure from anthropology, and as was made clear at the beginning, an anthropology of technology is of high relevance. It remains important to reflect on what it means to be human, how the human being changes through technology, and what statements about humans we make in ethics, science fiction, or movements like transhumanism. However, it must be an anthropology that acknowledges the role of the non-human while reflecting on the human. Against the backdrop of changing conditions, developments in technology, and the environment, relational approaches such as New Materialism mark a caesura in anthropological thinking.

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The focus of the article is on the philosophical anthropology of technology as a field within philosophy. The article does not deal with cultural, social, or theological anthropology, or other branches, as these differ in their methods, among other aspects. For these other fields, see [ 45 , 46 ], which also establish valuable connections between posthumanism and anthropology.

Translated by the author, A. P. The only three “anthropologies of technology” that Heßler and Liggieri identify for the 21st century are indeed Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Lucy Suchman, with the latter two belonging to New Materialism. However, Heßler and Liggieri [ 64 ] remain critical as to whether it is still appropriate to refer to these as “anthropology” (see Sect.  5 ).

Many other anthropological approaches, such as those of Aristotle [ 70 ], Hannah Arendt [ 71 ], Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon [ 72 ], or pragmatist anthropological approaches, like that of John Dewey [ 73 ], have also been applied to new technologies. In this context, the boundary blurs as to which approaches can genuinely be considered “anthropological”.

Haraway and Barad, for instance, draw upon and engage with the works of Butler, Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, and each other. They extend or criticize these thinkers’ ideas, and distance themselves from Newton and Descartes.

This does not refer to the technological posthumanism closely related to transhumanism.

The term is also used by Buhr [ 87 ] (p. 82) and Hoppe and Lemke [ 24 ] (p. 18): “radikal relationale Ontologie”.

Haraway’s Cyborg figure is feminine.

See also [ 88 ] (p. 168). This is also echoed in Haraway [ 77 ] (p. 12f): “Ontologically heterogeneous partners become who and what they are in relational material-semiotic worlding. Natures, cultures, subjects, and objects do not preexist their intertwined worldings.”

“TM” stands for “trademark”, signaling the commercialization of life; the OncoMouse is a product and a property owned by Harvard [ 97 , 98 ].

Haraway [ 86 ] refers, for example, to “language, tool use, social behavior, mental events”.

Note: Haraway uses the term “responsibility”, while Barad employs the term “accountability”.

Also consider the German translation, which emphasizes the “opening” and “deconstruction” of identity: “ queer steht für das Öffnen und De/Konstruieren [ un/doing ] von Identität” [ 109 ] (p. 81). Moreover, Barad [ 110 ] refers here to “quantum dis/continuity”: “[…] [Q]uantum dis/continuity troubles the very notion of dicho-tomy – the cutting into two– itself (including the notion of ‘itself’!).” (p.246).

A similar observation can be made in the superintelligence debate. OpenAI [ 130 ] claims that developments like ChatGPT could lead to a superintelligence and constructs a strategy on how (only) they can protect us from this superintelligence. However, this raises the critical question: What exactly is a superintelligence, and what does it look like?

See what is referred to as the “properties approach” in robot ethics, as explained by Gunkel [ 131 ] and Coeckelbergh [ 132 ].

I am referring here to the work of Patricia Reyes Benavides [ 136 ].

Non-Western societies, for example in Japan, are indeed more open and optimistic towards technologies and have a closer relationship with them.

I refer here to my work with Jose Luis Guerrero Quiñones. I am grateful to Jose for discussions on this topic.

I am grateful to Ben Hawken for discussions on Queer Data and many literature recommendations.

This idea was coined by Amy Gaeta during our discussion following my presentation at the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University. I am grateful to Amy for many discussions on this topic. See also [ 161 ].

Moreover, a New Materialist perspective has already been applied to many other ethical questions regarding reproduction and reproductive technologies [ 38 , 101 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 ]. New Materialism appears to be particularly well-suited for the topic of reproduction due to its reflections on human and non-human entities (life and non-life), the body, and its consideration of power relations.

I am grateful to Michaela Honauer for this literature reference.

By referring to a paradox, I do not mean a philosophical method of logic that I use to develop the article.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the many inputs from the research programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT) and the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at University of Cambridge, especially Julia Hermann, Amy Gaeta, and Ben Hawken. I presented this research at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Cambridge and received valuable feedback, for which I am very thankful.

I am a researcher at the University of Twente in the research programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies. This research programme is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.004.031).

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Puzio, A. The entangled human being – a new materialist approach to anthropology of technology. AI Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-024-00537-z

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The international children festival of theatre arts “Long Break”

What is the international child festival of theatre arts “Long Break”? It is a real holiday for young spectators and their parents. The international child festival of theatre arts “Long Break” will be hold from the 30th of April to the 5th of May. It will be in Perm and Lysva. It will be hold under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Culture, Youth Politics and Mass Communications of Perm Krai. The program of the festival is prepared by Russian and foreign experts of child theatre. There are the most interesting for children events of the world arts. The “Long Break” familiarizes children with actual artists. It is the platform where people communicate with people using the language of modern arts which is understandable for a new generation.

The festival “The White Nights in Perm”

• The participants of the festival of land art “Ural Myths” will create art objects using natural materials. The objects will have the same mythological idea.
• During the festival of bears “MedveDay” the masters Teddy-makers will tell gripping stories about a symbol of the city. They will organize some exhibitions of teddy bears and they will give master classes.

• The exhibition “Mammoth’s track” will gather mammoths from different corners of Russia on Perm’s territory. There will be even a famous mammoth Dima.
• And at last the international festival of street arts «Open sky» will represent the various program: carnival processions, a 5-day master class «Mask Art», street shows and performances, performances of Russian and foreign street theatres.

The IX International festival “Heavenly Fair of Ural”

From the 26th to the 3rd of July the IX International festival “Heavenly Fair of Ural” takes place in Kungur. There will be a fight for the I Privolzhski Federal Disctrict Cup for aerostatics and the VII Perm Krai Open Cup for aerostatics.This year Kungur won’t hold rating competitions which results are taking into general account of the pilots. They counted on creating entertainment activities “Air battles over Kungur”. There will be the representatives of sub-units of ultralight aviation, detachment of parachute troops and water means. All the battles will take place straight over the city. And natives will take part in the festival too.According to initial data 15 aeronauts and about 50 ultralight aviation pilots expressed willingness to take part at the festival. And a dirigible pilot confirmed his participation.Ultralight aviation pilots will take part in the “Air games” within the festival. As last year a campsite of ultralight aviation will base in an area near a village Milniki.

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Roma communities in Perm Krai: historical and ethnical aspects

Two large groups of Roma are settled in the territory of Perm Krai, the Ruska Roma and Kalderari. Roma live both in cities and countryside. Roma living in the countryside keeps elements of traditional culture. In Perm Krai we can find different families of the Ruska [Russian] Roma: Gorbovichi, Nemzengery, Bashnengery, Polyaki, Sapuny, Gubany. In contrast to the Kalderari the community of Ruska Roma is based not only on family-territorial principle. Sometimes community is based on ethnic-territorial ground when the Ruska Roma living in an urban area despite family ties can be a part of the community. Traditional activity of Ruska Roma living in countryside is a seasonal grazing of livestock. One of the main sectors of activity is trading. Roma sell cars and jewelry. Kelderari live in compact groupings in Perm. They call themselves Moldavska Roma and consider themselves to be part of Ruvoni [wolf in Romani language] family. Traditional activity of Kelderari is metal work (especially tin-smith’s work) which impact also their modern business. The main work activity of men till now is working with metals such as base metal trading and metal items repair. Traditional women activity is fortune-telling. Bilingualism, traditional way of living, ethnic isolation, unique and particular material and spiritual culture are common for all of Roma. The main problems for Roma nowadays are safeguarding of ethnicity and as well as some educational and social issues.

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Where children of the past 13 US presidents attended college

• Many children of US presidents attend their parents' alma maters.
• Others choose to chart their own paths at a different school, or they skip graduating altogether.
• Barron Trump recently began his first year at New York University.

Deciding where to go to college is a big moment for any teenager, but when you're the child of a president and the entire world is watching to see where you'll end up, the pressure is even greater.

The announcement of where Barron Trump, Donald Trump's youngest child, would be attending college has been highly anticipated ever since his father teased that he had made his decision in July.

Unlike his siblings, Barron isn't attending his father's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Instead, he'll be at NYU this year, which costs $72,080 as a commuter student. ( The New York Post reported that Barron is expected to live at Trump Tower and commute.)

Here's where every child of a president has attended college as far back as JFK's children, Caroline and JFK Jr.

Joe Biden's two living children, Hunter and Ashley Biden, attended Georgetown University and Tulane University for their undergraduate degrees, respectively.

Hunter attended Georgetown for his undergraduate degree and then matriculated to Yale Law, graduating in 1996.

The president's daughter , Ashley, obtained a degree in cultural anthropology from Tulane and a master's degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania.

Biden's other son, Beau, who died in 2015 , attended the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad before continuing his studies at Syracuse University's College of Law.

Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Tiffany all graduated from their father's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

Three of President Trump's children followed in his footsteps and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Ivanka and Donald Jr. took it one step further and also attended the Wharton School of Finance. Tiffany, on the other hand, graduated with a degree in sociology.

Eric attended undergrad somewhere else — he went to Georgetown University — but he earned a similar degree in finance. Ivanka had also started her college career there, but she later transferred to Penn.

Tiffany also ended up attending Georgetown, but for law school. She graduated in 2020 .

Their younger brother, Barron, is starting his freshman year at NYU.

Trump first teased at a campaign rally in July that his son Barron had decided where he was going to go to college, but did not specify which one.

On September 4, he confirmed to the Daily Mail that his youngest child would be attending NYU — specifically, the Stern School of Business.

"It's a very high-quality place. He liked it. He liked the school," Trump said.

Paparazzi spotted Barron heading to the first day of classes accompanied by his Secret Service guards.

Malia Obama graduated from Harvard University in 2021. Her sister, Sasha, graduated from the University of Southern California in 2023 after transferring from the University of Michigan.

Malia took a gap year after graduating high school in 2016 before attending Harvard University. She graduated in 2021 with a degree in visual and environmental studies, according to E! News. Malia made her directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

Sasha started her college career at the University of Michigan in 2019, but she later transferred to the University of Southern California. She graduated in 2023 with a degree in sociology.

George W. Bush's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, respectively.

The Bush twins graduated from college during an election year — 2004 — and their parents opted to skip their graduations due to concerns about their security, according to NBC .

Barbara graduated from her father's alma mater, Yale, with a humanities degree, while Jenna left UT Austin with an English degree.

Chelsea Clinton graduated from Stanford University before attending the University of Oxford and Columbia University for post-grad education.

Chelsea moved across the country from the White House to attend Stanford in Palo Alto, California, during her father's second term.

She then moved even  further  away to get a master's degree in international relations at the University of Oxford in London. Chelsea also holds a master's in public health from New York City's Columbia University.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president, is the son of a president himself: George H. W. Bush. The younger Bush graduated from Yale.

During his time at Yale, Bush was a member of the cheerleading team and a part of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

After graduating with a history degree in 1968, he attended Harvard Business School and obtained a master's in business administration, making him the only US president with an MBA, per The New York Times.

His four siblings each attended a different college.

All of the Bush children attended different colleges. As previously stated, George, the eldest, attended Yale like his father.

Next up was Jeb, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Latin studies. Then came Neil, who attended Tulane University for both undergrad and grad school. The third Bush brother, Marvin, graduated from the University of Virginia.

Dorothy, or Doro, graduated from Boston College.

None of President Ronald Reagan's children graduated from college, though all four attended for various periods of time.

Reagan's oldest child, Maureen, whom he shared with his first wife, Jane Wyman, attended Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, but didn't graduate. She died in 2001.

Michael, who was adopted by Reagan and Wyman, attended Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, but he didn't graduate from either.

Patti Davis, the first child of Reagan and his second wife, Nancy, attended both Northwestern University and the University of Southern California, but he also didn't earn a degree from either.

His youngest son, Ron, matriculated at Yale but also never graduated.

Jimmy Carter's son Jack graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology, his daughter Amy graduated from Brown University, and his son Jeff graduated from George Washington University.

Carter's oldest son, Jack, earned a degree in nuclear physics from Georgia Tech and then attended the University of Georgia for law school.

His son Donnel, who goes by Jeff, graduated from George Washington University with a degree in geography.

His daughter, Amy, attended Brown University for undergrad and then moved to New Orleans to obtain her master's in art history at Tulane.

Carter's second-oldest child, Chip, decided to forego college to work for his family's peanut business.

President Gerald Ford's eldest son, Michael, graduated from Wake Forest University. Two of his other three children attended college, but they didn't graduate.

The eldest Ford child, Michael, graduated from Wake Forest University in 1972. He later returned to work at the university for 36 years before retiring in 2017.

According to the Miller Center , his two younger brothers, Jack and Steven, were each interested in the outdoors. Jack attended Utah State University and worked as a park ranger during the summers, but he did not graduate.

Steven skipped college altogether and worked as a ranch hand before becoming an actor. He starred in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless."

Ford's daughter, Susan, attended Mount Vernon College studying photojournalism, but she left to further her career.

Tricia Nixon graduated from Finch College, while her sister, Julie, graduated from Smith College.

Julie didn't actually attend her graduation from Smith because of threats of protests, and she even wrote that attending the college was like "hell on Earth for me," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Her older sister, Tricia, graduated from Finch College, a now-defunct women's college in New York City.

Lyndon B. Johnson's daughter Lynda graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Her sister, Luci, attended Georgetown but was forced to drop out. She later attended St. Edward's University.

According to the UT Austin chapter of Zeta Beta Tau , Lynda lived in their house while attending the school, complete with Secret Service agents who were able to move in.

Her younger sister, Luci, originally attended Georgetown's nursing school, but she was forced to withdraw when she got married — Georgetown's rules stated that all the nursing students had to be single women, The Washington Post reported.

At age 49, Luci returned to college and earned a communications degree from St. Edward's University in 1998. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA.

"I didn't need to do it to earn a nickel more," she told Texas Monthly in 1998. "I did it so I could put a lifetime of feeling inferior behind me. I did it for myself."

President John F. Kennedy's only living child, Caroline, graduated from Harvard University. Her brother, John Jr., graduated from Brown University.

Technically, she graduated from Radcliffe College, an all-female college within Harvard. Eight years later, she graduated from Columbia Law School.

Her brother, who died in 1999 , graduated from Brown University before getting his law degree at New York University.

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Real-life indiana jones: osu professor discusses archaeology background.

Friday, September 6, 2024

Media Contact: Jordan Bishop | Editor | 405-744-7193 | [email protected]

Growing up visiting national parks, Dr. Mary Larson viewed archaeology as no different from any other regular job.

Now, she reflects on her time as an archaeologist as something full of wonder and whimsy.

Larson serves as Oklahoma State University’s associate dean for distinctive collections but is not originally from Oklahoma. She grew up on her family’s farm in western Pennsylvania, where they grew grapes for Welch’s. When she went to college at Harvard University, she started as an economics major, then ended up in a freshman seminar with a world-renowned archaeologist. Larson was the only woman who passed the interview to enroll in the seminar. 

“It was fascinating,” Larson said. “Economics and I didn’t quite get along, but that one class was so exciting that it brought back all the things I liked about reading archaeology and being at archaeological sites when I was growing up. By the time I declared my major sophomore year, it was anthropology.”

Larson practiced archaeology in New England during college and a few years after. Then, she had a chance to go to Alaska to work for the park service at Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. The team lived in tent camps all summer. During that time, Larson had one of her favorite memories on a dig. 

“I found the prettiest thing I’d ever found on a dig,” Larson said. “It was this little bone comb, about two inches long, with reindeer carved on it. Some were feeding; some had their heads up. It was a beautiful, beautiful little piece. That was probably the best artifact we found that summer because it ended up on the cover of the site report.”

Larson said archaeologists tend to have a lot of stories, and that was one of the things that drew her into oral history. Oral historians are always chasing stories, and archaeologists are, in a way, too. 

After going to Alaska for the first time, Larson fell in love. She said she only left because she had a remaining year of graduate classes. Larson has a Master of Arts in anthropology and a Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology from Brown University. While studying in grad school, Larson returned to Alaska three times during the school year because she missed it so much. Once she was finished with her classes, she packed up all of her belongings and drove back up to Alaska. 

Larson worked in Ketchikan surveying for the Forest Service, not digging as much but ensuring that any roads built wouldn’t destroy an archaeological site. Then, there were layoffs. After that, she packed everything up again to go to Fairbanks and worked in the archives at a library and an oral history office. 

“That’s how I transitioned to what I’m doing now,” Larson said. “It was dumb luck with the layoffs. It was wonderful doing archaeology in Alaska because there were always beautiful things to see. You were out in the middle of nature, and it was gorgeous, gorgeous country.”

Students can now graduate with a B.A. or B.S. in “Sociology with an Anthropology Emphasis” and take several archaeology courses at OSU. Opportunities to get practical experience in these classes are abundant and can give further insight into the field. Larson said within this field, once someone finds what they are interested in, it is easy to get excited. 

Larson's experience as an archaeologist gave her a strong sense of community. The skills she learned prepared her for her time at OSU in the library. 

“It wasn’t just projects engaging the community,” Larson said. “It was projects the communities started and brought to us, so we always tried to have equal collaborations and work respectfully and with humility. Because we have such a strong land-grant emphasis here at OSU, it’s even more important to have these skills and have them be a part of how you operate. 

“In both special collections and oral history, we have collaborative projects, and having that experience from an early professional age made a difference in how I go about things.”

To learn more about archaeology classes at OSU, go to the course catalog or contact Dr. Stephen Perkins. 

The OSU Special Collections and University Archives are on the second floor of Edmon Low Library. For more information, visit the website .

Story By: Mak Vandruff | [email protected]

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