Luther’s academic program stresses education beyond the classroom walls and encourages students to engage in real-world learning in order to test their career goals and gain valuable professional experience. Off-campus study is one important form of experiential learning, and anthropology students enjoy a wide array of options for studying in international and domestic settings.  These experiential learning programs offer the opportunity to apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to real-world situations. Other valuable features of study abroad programs in particular are learning through cultural immersion, prolonged exposure to another language, and the opportunity to engage in sustained reflection on one’s own culture and value system.

Recent off-campus programs taught by Luther faculty:

• Summer 2016: Cold Wars Then and Now: Germany, Czech Republic, and Ukraine
• • An examination of Cold War politics in contemporary Europe, with a focus on the history, ideologies, and critical responses to different interpretations of justice, freedom, and self-determination in modern society
• January 2016: People and Parks: Pastoralism and Conservation in East Africa (Tanzania)
• • A cultural immersion experience focusing on the tensions between the national parks movement and pastoralist societies, as seen through the lens of the Maasai livestock herders of northern Tanzania
• Summer 2015: Field Methods in Archaeology (Northeast Iowa)
• • Instruction in archaeological field techniques learned through hands-on experience conducting survey work, mapping, and the excavation of real archaeological sites
• January 2015: Anthropology in East Africa: Culture Change Among the Maasai (Tanzania)
• • An examination of the changing culture of the Maasai pastoralists of northern Tanzania, with a focus on livelihood, education, religion and ritual, health and healing, gender ideology, the Maasai relationship to the environment, and the impacts of ecotourism, cultural tourism, and wildlife conservation programs on the pastoral way of life
• January 2015: The Price of Progress: Sustainability and the Fate of Indigenous Peoples in the Andes (Chile)
• • An exploration of the impacts of mining and ecotourism on the physical and biotic environment of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, and on the livelihoods of the indigenous people of that region
• January 2014: People and Parks: Pastoralism and Conservation in East Africa (Tanzania)
• January 2013: South Africa: Culture and Healing (South Africa)
• • An exploration of the culture of medicine in South Africa, including an examination of both the African traditionalist and western biomedical understandings of medicine
• Summer 2012: Field Methods in Archaeology (Northeast Iowa)
• January 2012: Anthropology in East Africa: Culture Change Among the Maasai (Tanzania)

Future off-campus study opportunities:

• January 2017: People and Parks: Pastoralism and Conservation in East Africa (Tanzania)
• Summer 2017: Field Methods in Archaeology (Northeast Iowa)

Other semester, yearlong, January Term, and summer programs in the US and abroad are offered by Luther College, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, and third-party providers. For more information contact the Center for Global Learning.