Cultural anthropologists study economic, kinship, religious, medical, political, legal systems as well as art forms, folklore, ideological discourses, social problems, urban poverty, and cultural repertoires. Biological or physical anthropology describes and compares world human biology. In doing so it deals with fossil humankind as well as modern population biology. Its major interests are to understand the relationship of the human animal to other closely related forms such as monkeys and apes, and to explore the mechanisms of change that led to the evolution of our peculiar species. Archaeology takes as its focus of study the material remains of past human groups in their ecological settings and seeks to reconstruct and explain the cultural behavior of a group in the past as a key to understanding contemporary behavior.
Practitioners engage in visual ethographic production and research projects.
Students at SFSU take advantage of a new digital video and multimedia lab. Visual anthropologists often undertake applied media production and research. They study the design, reception and interpretation of fictional and non-fictional visual media. In addition to the four traditional subdisciplines, the field of applied anthropology is growing rapidly and our faculty have a special interest in developing an applied urban focus. Applied anthropology takes anthropological perspectives and methods, and applies them toward solutions to real human problems.