The study of anthropology prepares students to address global concerns through a contextualized study of society, culture, and civilization, and can lead to careers in global health and medicine, law, government, museums, education, the arts, cultural and environmental management, business and entrepreneurship, among other fields, not to mention academia.
By the most common definition, anthropology is the study of human diversity and, as such, teaches us to recognize the remarkable array of circumstances in which human beings live their lives and make meaning from them. On our faculty, we have scholars whose work covers every time period from the prehistoric to the present, and every major world area.
Classics—the study of the ancient Greek and Roman cultures in all their manifestations—is an interdisciplinary field deploying a variety of methods and approaches from art and archaeology; history; language, linguistics, and literature; philosophy, religion, and science; and reception studies.
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
The Earth and Planetary Sciences field encompasses a broad range of science disciplines and applications to environmental and economic endeavors. EPS students at Harvard are involved in the development and application of new tools and technologies such as space probes and sophisticated instruments, as well as field work in remote and challenging settings. In an unparalleled research environment, Faculty and students are addressing fundamental questions about our world, from prehistoric geological processes to understanding weather patterns.
Department of East Asian Languages and Culture
East Asian Studies is a unique interdisciplinary concentration that welcomes students interested in the humanities and/or the social sciences. Our graduates go on to diverse careers from business, government, law, medicine, international relations, and diplomacy, to academia, journalism, architecture, design, the entertainment industry, and more.
Department of History of Art and Architecture
From its earliest beginning in 1874 as one of Harvard’s twelve divisions, the Department has expanded its variety of fields to comprise expertise that spans the globe and ranges from antiquity to contemporary art. Our Faculty supports cross-regional, transnational, and transcultural modes of analysis built around the principle of contact zones between cultures. Another priority of our Department concerns the material specificity of works of art across all media, as well as in the various processes and technologies of their production. In this we are well served by partnerships with the Harvard Art Museums, Fine Arts Library, Graduate School of Design, Houghton Library, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and Visual and Environmental Studies, whose rich collections and facilities are an integral part of what we do in our innovative undergraduate and graduate teaching and research.
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
In both research and teaching, Harvard's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology focuses on a fundamental question: "How did humans evolve to be the way they are?" HEB students and faculty are also interested in the related question: “How are evolutionary perspectives on human biology relevant to contemporary human opportunities and challenges?”
Why do we use the lens of evolution for these questions? The simple answer is because humans weren't designed or engineered. We evolved. It follows that to understand why humans are the way we are in terms of every aspect of our biology, we need to consider that evolutionary history.
Research and teaching in HEB thus encompass a diversity of fields including human and non-human primate paleontology, anatomy, physiology, behavioral ecology, genetics, cultural evolution, developmental biology, and more. As a department, we continue to be committed to using the lens of evolution to further our understanding of the human condition using both experimental and observational methods. We are also committed to using those insights to address the challenges we face.
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
The Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Department (NELC) is devoted to:
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the languages, literatures, cultures, and histories of the ancient, medieval, and modern Near East
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the study of the Hebrew Bible, its sources in the Ancient Near East, and the history of its interpretations
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the study of Arabic-, Turkish-, and Persian-speaking Islamic civilizations in the Near East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere
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the study of Hebrew-, Aramaic-, Judaeo-Arabic, and Yiddish-speaking Jewish civilizations in the Near East, Europe, the New World, and elsewhere.
Harvard Divinity School: rigorous scholarship, supportive community, and real-world experience in religious studies in a richly diverse, nonsectarian setting. Is a nonsectarian school of religious and theological studies that educates students both in the pursuit of the academic study of religion and in preparation for leadership in religious, governmental, and a wide range of service organizations.