Anthropology from different angles: a tale of the neoliberal arts

Résumé

A discipline’s value depends on the institutional position of its valuers. In US liberal arts undergraduate education, trustees, marketers, and parents routinely link disciplinary value to “return on investment.” This market logic is evident in rhetoric equating a discipline’s worth with the cost of department maintenance and the lucrativeness of careers pursued by majors. Yet students are also expected to buy the liberal arts experience as a whole package, a logic that makes all majors interchangeable. These contradictory dynamics provide undergraduate anthropology students with a profoundly teachable illustration of US neoliberalism.