Read more about our Graduate Program
The procession: Anniversary of the "Baptism of Ancient Rus" in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, July 2017 [Photo Credit: Aleksandra Simonova]
Find out what a degree in Anthropology can do for you
Reconstruction of a Crannog, an Iron Age loch-dwelling found in Scotland and Ireland [Photo Credit: Tabea Mastel]
Browse our catalog of lecture, lab, method, and seminar courses
Banner from the Stop the Gentrification campaign, by the residents of San Felipe in La Ciudad Panamá [Photo Credit: Pascale Boucicaut]
Check out the variety of Research Opportunities available to Anthropology Students
The protest: LGBT Pride march in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, June 2017 [Photo Credit: Aleksandra Simonova]
A police managed, pre-paid autorickshaw stand at a major railway station in Delhi, India. [Photo-credit: William Stafford]
An Education in Anthropology
Anthropologists study human beings from every time period, in every way possible, and in all their complexity. Click here to learn more about what a degree in Anthropology can do for you.
The Department of Anthropology at Berkeley has long been ranked among the top five departments in the United States.
Berkeley Anthropologists have a history of innovation and leadership in emergent areas of the discipline, whether conducting their research in modern biological labs, in globalizing villages throughout the world, or at places being developed as sites of cultural heritage and national identity. The Berkeley faculty includes the largest number of winners of the J. I. Staley Prize(link is external), awarded annually to an outstanding anthropology book by a living author, the only discipline-wide award in anthropology.
Faculty Statement: Against Racial Injustice
We anthropologists of the University of California in Berkeley stand with those who condemn the suffocating weight of racial violence applied year after year to the lives and aspirations of black Americans; we express our outrage at seeing the breath of black Americans snatched away yet again by public noose and police knee; and we forcefully denounce a system of white supremacy that shields the lives and livelihoods of white citizens by throwing its black and brown citizens to the ravages of economic collapse and the entrenched biases of a health care system driven by corporate interests.
Letter From the Chair
As chair of the UC Berkeley anthropology department, I write to express my department’s support for the initiative to un-name Kroeber Hall. The act of un-naming, as we see it, takes an important step in addressing and acknowledging a long history of violence toward Native Americans in which UC Berkeley and the anthropology department are implicated. This act gives momentum to the long-overdue work of repair for historical injury.
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Paul Rabinow (June 21, 1944 – April 6, 2021)
It is with a profound sense of loss that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague, Paul Rabinow, on Tuesday April 6th. Paul’s many contributions to the life of our department, and to the discipline of anthropology, over the last five decades are vast and his intellectual legacy will continue to instruct and inspire new generations of anthropologists for years to come. We offer our heartfelt condolences to Paul’s family and to his many friends around the world. He will be greatly missed.
Reflections & remembrances on the occasion of Paul’s passing
Gabriel G. Coren
Paul Rabinow est Mort: A Memoir
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
A Conversation with Anand Pandian '04
In this conversation, Anand Pandian, Professor and Department Chair of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and alumnus of the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, and PhD student Justin Greene speak about ecologies, ethnographies, and anthropological educations.
A Conversation with William White
In this conversation, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Bill White and PhD student Justin Greene speak about the path from astronomy to archaeology, Boise, community engagement, and the desire for happiness.
A Conversation with Daena Funahashi
In this conversation, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Daena Funahashi and PhD student Justin Greene speak about the why of anthropology, Bataille, “crazy medicine,” and Dionysian “de-struction.”
