Anthropology (MA)

A full account of degree requirements and procedures is contained in the Anthropology student handbook.

To earn the MA in Anthropology, a student must complete a total of 30 credits, of which 12 credits must be listed or cross-listed in Anthropology. In addition to those 12 Anthropology credits, students must also take the two core courses of the MA program: 

• GANT 6051 Critical Foundations (3 credits)
• GANT 6065 Problems in Anthropology (3 credits)

A student must also complete 12 credits of courses in other disciplines.

A maximum of three credits taken at another university may be granted toward the credit requirement for the master's degree. Twenty-seven credits must be completed at The New School for Social Research.

Graduate Minors

Students can use elective courses toward completing one of the university’s graduate minors. These structured pathways of study immerse master's and doctoral students in disciplines outside their primary field and expose them to alternative modes of research and practice. Completed graduate minors are officially recorded on students' transcript.

MA Capstone

The capstone of the MA program is a portfolio designed to test students' familiarity with key ideas and issues in anthropology today and their ability to reflect on their development throughout the degree program. Portfolios are developed in consultation with faculty during the final year of the MA and through student workshops. The portfolio consists of two pieces of work developed in the second year and a commentary, submitted as a complete dossier in spring of the second year. The two pieces are developed in consultation with faculty; the commentary is produced independently.

The Anthropology and Design graduate minor allows graduate students to explore the designed world through the conceptual frameworks and grounded methods of anthropology. Anthropologists and designers working in tandem can improve their own techniques of aesthetic and ethnographic analysis, expand their repertoire of multimodal methods, and think more critically and creatively about the mediated and designed forums in which they perform and share their research. 

The minor offers students the opportunity to study design and technology through an established discipline that prioritizes reflective methodology (including critique of ethnographic method itself), ethical frameworks of analysis, and awareness of the political stakes of both research and creative practice. 

See the curriculum and learn more on the Anthropology and Design graduate minor page.

The Ethnographic Media subject area combines theory and conceptual work in ethnography and aesthetics with production, and is organized around sustained student projects developed across multiple courses. Anthropology MA students are invited to encounter ethnographic media as an expansive field extending to practices such as art exhibitions and installations, sound walks, performance, and movement, as well as writing, and encompassing digital formations of various kinds. Graduate students across campus are invited to collaborate in this space and to develop adventurous ethnography on the basis of their interests and skills.

This subject area is structured to allow students to develop competencies according to their interests. Students are recommended to take either Writing and Ethnography (GANT 6310, spring 2025) or Sensory Infrastructures (GANT 6095, spring 2025) and draw additional credits from approved courses. They also participate in an innovative additional component: a parallel collaborative Ethnographic Media Lab in which they workshop their work-in-progress projects and support each other by sharing creative input and production skills, and where they present their ongoing work to lab members and to the broader Anthropology and New School communities. The lab is an integral element of the subject area, providing a forum for students to pursue and develop independent projects while cultivating a rigorous, experimental, and discipline-bending ethnographic practice.

In addition to the course course, students are encouraged to complete four relevant courses and to collaborate with the Ethnographic Media Lab. Suggested courses in fall 2024 include:

• NCOMM 3115: Digital Storytelling Across Media: Crafting the Omni-Channel Narrative
• NMDS 5006: Media Theory
• NMDS 5020 Documentary Research Methods
• NMDS 5030: Black Feminist Media Methods
• NMDS 5106: Mobile Media
• NMDS 5408 First Person
• NMDS 5428: Media Practices: Digital Video Production
• NMDS 5446 Animating Resistance: The Subversive Art of Experimental Animation
• NMDS 5449 Radio and Podcasting from the Margins
• NMDS 5577: Storytelling Across Media
• NMDS 5578: Projects: Sound Design
• NMDS 5598: Tech WKSP: Producing Podcasts
• NWRW 3913: Writing the Photobook: Intention, Continuity, Perfection
• PSAM 4820: Documentary Practices
• PSAM 5070: Experimental Comics
• PSAM 5204: Sound Design
• PSAM 5550: Collab: XR Urban Futures
• PSAM 5550: Collab: Multispecies Design
• TSOC 5010: Performance Art
• UTNS 5143: Archive as Method: Radical Records of Nature
• UTNS 5119: Who Comes After the Human?

Students are also strongly recommended to explore the following University resources:

• Making Center
• Equipment Center
• GIDEST Seminars (Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought)
• Documentary Studies Doc Talk Series
• The New School Archives and Special Collections
• Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies [on hiatus 2024-25]

During the 2024-2025 academic year, Hugh Raffles, professor of anthropology, will be available to advise students on coursework, fieldwork, and other learning opportunities. Other anthropology faculty are also available to help students develop their ethnographic practice.

This subject area is an informal path in the Anthropology program and does not appear on students' transcripts or diplomas.

Since early modernity, the sciences have developed their own moral economies at a distance from other social fields. More recently, however, the border between science and the rest of society is becoming more porous, and changes in scientific knowledge are affecting almost every facet of late-modern cultures, from diagnosis and treatment of diseases to preparation for climate change.

The Science and Society subject area helps Anthropology MA students ethnographically and historically investigate how scientific research is informed by and informs social processes. Coursework and research opportunities introduce students to problems emerging at the intersection of science and society, offer methodological tools with which to address these problems, and draw students' attention to key issues that can serve as subjects of important research projects.

Students are encouraged to complete four relevant courses and to avail themselves of New York City’s rich science resources. 

Please refer to the course archive spreadsheet for a list of current and past courses in this subject area.

Professor of anthropology Nicolas Langlitz is available to advise students on coursework, fieldwork, and other learning opportunities. Anthropology faculty are also available to help students conduct fieldwork on a science-related question. 

This subject area is an informal path in the Anthropology program and does not appear on students' transcripts or diplomas.

Students in the Anthropology MA program can apply to enter the PhD program upon successful completion of the MA written examination and submission to the department of a brief written proposal indicating an area of future research. Entry into the PhD program is contingent on faculty evaluation of the applicant's MA exam and overall performance in the master's program, as well as an assessment of the fit of the proposed project within the department and of the applicant's preparedness for doctoral-level work in anthropology.

The sequential Bachelor's-Master's (BAMA) program allows qualified New School undergraduate students to complete two degrees in as little as five years while saving up to 75 percent on tuition costs. Through the program, students delve deep into subjects they care about, gain expertise early on in their education, and improve their job prospects with a graduate degree.

Every Master of Arts program at NSSR is paired with related New School bachelor’s programs, with established pathways and timelines for students to earn both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

The following undergraduate programs are paired with the NSSR Anthropology MA program:

• Anthropology (BA)
• Global Studies (BA) through Lang or BPATS
• Liberal Arts (BA or BS) through Lang or BPATS

To learn more, visit the Bachelor’s-Master’s program page. Interested undergraduates should talk with their undergraduate advisors about specific BAMA requirements for their programs and application information and deadlines.