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Anthropology

Angela Crumdy on the intersection of anthropology and education
Angela Crumdy.

Angela Crumdy is a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Penn GSE’s Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division.

(Image: Courtesy of Penn GSE)

Angela Crumdy on the intersection of anthropology and education

The Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in in Penn GSE’s Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division conducts research and teaching on Cuban anthropology and education.

From Penn GSE

Looking to the past to understand the impacts of human land use in South Asia
R. Ramesh adjusts measuring tape at archaeological site.

R. Ramesh, assisting superintending archaeologist at the Archaeological Survey of India, adjusted a measuring tape at an archaeological site in India before he and Penn's Kathleen Morrison took samples for paleoenvironmental analysis from a Neolithic (3000-1200 BCE) deposit. 

(Image: Courtesy of Kathleen Morrison)

Looking to the past to understand the impacts of human land use in South Asia

An international group of scholars, including archaeologists from the School of Arts & Sciences, synthesized archaeological evidence in South Asia from 12,000 and 6,000 years ago.
Research connecting the land and the sea
Illustration of a historic maritime harbor.

Image: Courtesy of Picryl

Research connecting the land and the sea

Ph.D. candidate Chelsea Cohen, a historical and maritime archaeologist in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, combines terrestrial and underwater methods in her research of historical port cities, agroforestry, and maritime culture.

From The McNeil Center for Early American Studies

Do these ancient seals unlock clues to the origins of writing?
Artnet News

Do these ancient seals unlock clues to the origins of writing?

Holly Pittman of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Museum helped contribute to a study arguing that ancient Sumerian seals used to brand products shaped the formation of cuneiform, humanity’s earliest known example of writing.

In ‘Sacred Stuff,’ students explore religion through material culture
An ornate Anglican church with stained glass. Students stand near the pews listening to a frocked speaker.

The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Jong welcomes Penn students to the chapel of Keble College, Oxford.

(Image: Donovan Schaefer)

In ‘Sacred Stuff,’ students explore religion through material culture

In the Penn Global Seminar “Sacred Stuff” taught by religious studies professor Donovan Schaefer, students visited religious sites in England.

Kristina García

The anthropology of plastics in India
An image of people picking through a dump with a handful of skyscrapers along the horizon

Children inspect plastic waste in a scrapyard with skyscrapers on the horizon line.

(Image: Sidharth Chitalia)

The anthropology of plastics in India

Doctoral candidate Adwaita Banerjee uses ethnographic research to document the ecological transition of the Deonar dumping ground, where thousands of Dalits and Muslim migrants mine the area for plastic that can be resold and recycled.

Kristina García

Mindfulness, monasticism, and women in Thai Buddhism
Katherine Scahill poses with her arms crossed in front of the Lerner Centeron Penn's campus.

Ph.D. candidate Katherine Scahill poses in front of the Lerner Center.

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Mindfulness, monasticism, and women in Thai Buddhism

Ph.D. candidate Katherine Scahill’s research engages with three communities of female Buddhist monks (bhikkhunī) in Thailand and their chanting traditions.

Kristen de Groot

Making virtual worlds
Lorraine Ruppert wears virtual reality headset.

Lorraine Ruppert wore a virtual reality headset and zoomed in and out of her virtual world, which shows sites of historical memory and resistance in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

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Making virtual worlds

In a class this spring, Jeffrey Vadala of the Penn Brain Science Center taught students to analyze virtual reality landscapes and create their own.