The scope of cultural and social anthropology at Stanford includes the study of the full range of human societies and cultures, especially as these are drawn together in transnational and global interactions. The Culture and Society track faculty are committed to an intellectually rigorous and socially responsible pursuit of answers to questions that urgently matter in the contemporary world. The track has a focus on understanding a wide range of issues in the comparative study of society and culture. These include issues of:

• anthropology of religion;
• anthropology and the arts;
• anthropology of science;
• cities;
• colonialism and indigeneity;
• culture and mind;
• cultural politics and the nation state;
• ethnicity and collective identity;
• gender and sexuality;
• linguistic anthropology;
• medical anthropology;
• transnational and global political economy;
• development, conservation, and humanitarianism; and
• sovereignty, the modern state and biopolitics.

Faculty are engaged in ethnographic and documentary research informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics.