The Penn Museum provides support for instructors to craft curriculum around the Museum’s holdings. Curatorial and Research Seminars engage students by creating an opportunity for them to conduct original academic research focusing on the Museum’s vast collection of artifacts and archival documents.
Curatorial Seminars allow students to clarify and focus their thoughts and ideas through the application of professional museum standards to the process of exhibition creation and design. Students become content experts while learning to develop and clearly present ideas to an audience, while working within a group dynamic.
Many University of Pennsylvania class have the opportunity to structure their course to be research intensive. The Academic Engagement Department is happy to with you to develop a plan on how to best integrate the Museum’s collection with your curricular goals and utilize the Museum’s collection throughout the course of an entire semester.
Inquiries regarding either Curatorial Seminar or a Research-Intensive Course should be made at least 4 months prior to the start of the semester. For more information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Past Curatorial Seminars
- The World On View
- Beth Shean: After Antiquity
(Student Involvement: Creating Beth Shean After Antiquity) - On the Wings of Eagle and Raven: Tlingit and Haida Traditions
(Student Involvement: Undergraduate Curatorial Experience) - Here and Over There: Penn, Philadelphia, and the Middle East
(Student Involvement: Undergraduate Curatorial Experience) - Trouble in Paradise: The Art of Polynesian Warfare
- Penn in the World: Twelve Decades at the University of Pennsylvania Museum
- IYARE! Splendor and Tension in Benin’s Palace Theatre
- Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands