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Established in the year 1958, this seat of learning for
the study of Human Cultures and Biology is one of the
oldest departments of Anthropology in South India, and
the first in the Karnataka State, offering Post-graduate
education leading to Master's and Doctoral degrees in
anthropology. It continues to provide services in for
Higher Education and Research in anthropology since its
inception.
It began as Department of Social Anthropology, offering
Post-Graduate Master's course in Social Anthropology. In
1962, the Department was entrusted with the
responsibility of running the P. G. Course in Social
Welfare also. This arrangement existed till 1971. In
1973, the Department was renamed as the Department of
Anthropology. And in the same year, in addition to the
existing Social Cultural Anthropology specialization,
full-fledged specialization of Physical/Biological
Anthropology was introduced with the establishment of a
Physical/Biological Anthropology laboratory. During
1990s, the Department was entrusted with the
responsibility of starting and running a
multi-disciplinary Post-Graduate Diploma Course in
Women's Studies. The Department shouldered this
responsibility for about a decade. Since the Department
provides for an inter-disciplinary base, the Post-
Graduate Master's Courses and Doctoral Programme are
open to the eligible candidates from the disciplines in
the faculties of Science, Social science and Humanities.
In Anthropology, intensive supervised fieldwork followed
by dissertation is the mandatory feature for the
fulfillment of the Master's and Doctoral Programmes.
Anthropology as a discipline strives to understand the
tremendous human diversity existing in its
social-cultural, physical/biological and linguistic
dimensions. To have an in-depth understanding of these
dimensions it is essential to stay with the people,
establish rapport with them and study their total life
through such techniques as Participant Observation,
Interview, and Use of Key Informants and Genealogical
method. Therefore, fieldwork forms an integral part of
anthropological training.
The eminent anthropologist Dr.K.Ishwaran founded the
Department. Subsequently, the department grew further in
stature under the leadership of noted anthropologists
namely Dr. L.K. Mahapatra, Dr. T.N. Madan, Dr. M.C.
Pradhan, Dr. Gopala Sarana, Dr. R.P. Srivastava, Dr. K.G.
Gurumurthy, Dr. B.G. Halbar and Dr. (Mrs) P. V. Mahale.
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