Find your field of study

Undergraduates with any major may pursue a minor in Medical Humanities. Combining the field of medicine with art, literature, film, history, policy, and the social sciences, the minor explores the rich terrain of the human experience as students learn to appreciate the human body and medical issues from multiple disciplinary and aesthetic perspectives.

Medically inclined students can use the minor to broaden their interpersonal knowledge and skills, but it is also relevant for undergraduates interested in the meaning and experience of diagnosis, the way that medicine is an art form as well as a science, and the way institutions and culture shape how illness is identified, experienced, and treated.

Stanford’s Department of Anthropology focuses on the study of human beings and societies through the examination of social, historical, ecological, and biological change across time. Known for its innovative approaches, the department focuses on the full span of human history and full range of human societies and cultures, including those in marginalized parts of the world.

Students are encouraged to integrate theory and research methods as they explore a range of related subfields that include archaeology, ecology, evolution, linguistics, medical anthropology, political economy, and science and technology. Areas of faculty and student research include questions of social, cultural, and biological diversity and issues of power, identity, and inequality.

View highlights of the anthropology department's undergraduate offerings.