What is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the key to the contemporary curriculum. Our courses are cross-listed in a variety of other departments: disciplinary, such as English, History, Linguistics, Biology, Psychology, and Religious Studies; areal, such as East Asian Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Near East Studies, African Studies, Africana Studies, and South Asian Studies; and professional schools and centers, such as Education, Design, Law, Wharton, Annenberg, Medicine, Nursing, Social Policy and Practice, and Public Health. We have joint degree programs with several departments and schools.

Penn Museum

Founded in 1887, the Penn Museum has always been one of the world’s great archaeology and anthropology research museums, and the largest university museum in the United States. With roughly one million objects in our care, the Penn Museum encapsulates and illustrates the human story: who we are and where we came from.

Colloquium

Meet Our Faculty

  • Lauren Ristvet

    Associate Professor of Anthropology
  • Greg Urban

    Arthur Hobson Quinn Professor of Anthropology
  • Deborah Thomas

    R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for Experimental Ethnography; Department Chair