Compulsory courses:
An important pillar on the program’s bachelor’s level are compulsory courses focused on the theory and history of the discipline, including the study of classic and contemporary texts, field research, methodology and its practical application, ethnographic and history studies relating to various contemporary and past populations and their cultures, and also the area of biological anthropology (i.e. evolutionary psychology, ethology, paleoanthropology) and its connections with social and cultural anthropology. These courses are also focused on linguistic anthropology, folklore studies, cultural ecology and other selected topics from the contemporary anthropological study of contemporary complex societies. Other compulsory courses include introductions to related disciplines such as sociology, archeology, political geography and philosophy, all taking into account the interdisciplinary roots of social and cultural anthropology. The compulsory course block (A) is allocated 126 credits from a total of 180.
Elective courses:
Elective courses in the program include the “elective anthropology course block” (B) with a total of 28 credits, which develop the necessary basis in specific fields of anthropological study. Elective courses also include 5 various final state exam blocks (B1 – B5), from which a student chooses one course block in the amount of 12 credits. This block determines the elective portion of the final state exams. Another integral part of the elective course program is the language block (BJ) in the amount of 5 credits, in which students may choose from a selection of 5 languages (English, German, Spanish, French, or Russian) in courses focused on anthropological topics and texts in order to master their skills in working with foreign-language academic texts.
Elective Anthropology Course Block
The elective anthropology course block (B) contains specialized anthropology courses aimed at e.g. area studies (ethnology of Africa and America, the Balkans, Roma populations, Jewish diasporas), individual schools and approaches of anthropology (functionalism, structuralism, symbolic anthropology), topics of migration and social exclusion, anthropology of the media, ethnographic film and also digital ethnography. In the elective anthropology course block, students also have the opportunity to take part in practical traineeships either in the field of anthropological research (under study projects carried out by the Department of Anthropological and Historical Sciences ) or with potential employers (state and local governments, non-governmental non-profit organizations).
Specialized (State Exam) Block:
In addition to the elective course block, students will also complete the state exam block, choosing one of the five various blocks offered (B1 – B5): Biological anthropology, development studies, sociology, archeology and philosophical anthropology. The concept of this state exam block is to provide students with the opportunity to at least partially specialize in one of said fields during their bachelor’s studies while taking into consideration their choice of post-graduate study or their professional direction after graduating from the bachelor’s program.