“Nothing is more incongruous for people or groups than to have no history.  Ignorance of one’s own past leads fatally to a crisis and the loss of identity of individuals and communities.”

– Pope Saint John Paul II, Message for the 50^th Anniversary of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, 16 April 2004

Historians study the past through its legacy of written, material, and oral heritage. Anthropologists explore human diversity using archaeological and ethnographic methods. Together, these disciplines investigate the human experience in the past and present with a focus on understanding change through time to reveal who we are as individuals, communities, and nations.

The Department of History and Anthropology combines the rigor of a research university with the human scale of a liberal arts college.  It is dedicated to understanding the human experience in time and place, and to careful training in identifying and assessing information, executing research projects, and analytical writing and oral presentation.

Students learn in small, interactive classes with faculty committed to combining research and teaching. Studying with accomplished scholars who bring current developments in their fields to life in the classroom, students choose from a wide range of classes and seminars, incorporating hands-on experiential learning, digital tools, and advanced research opportunities that are truly global in scope. History and Anthropology faculty and students participate in a variety of interdisciplinary programs across campus, including the University Honors Program, Catholic University's flagship study-abroad program in Rome, Medieval and Byzantine Studies, Early Christian Studies, and Global Studies. This makes the study of history and anthropology at Catholic University truly holistic, integrating environmental, economic, political, social, and expressive information to form composite pictures of human social life and cultures through time and across space.