Halloween Horrorshow: Donald Trump is a Tulpa
It’s fair to say that Halloween is one of TGA’s favorite holidays—between the spooky folklore and urban legends, constellation of costumes, and rumors of supernatural activity, Halloween seems…
Author: Emma Louise Backe
So You’re Giving a Conference Presentation
Anthropology is one part secondary intellectual engagement and one part applied ethnographic engagement, that moment where the rubber meets the road and those theoretical abstractions and intervention…
(Almost) Anthro Blogging 101: Lady Science
In this edition of Blogging 101, we’re featuring Lady Science, a blog and publication started by Anna Reser and Leila McNeill. Anthropology and geek culture also involves studies…
No One’s Laughing: The Killing Joke Still Doesn’t Do Justice to Barbara Gordon
*Trigger Warning: This piece discusses rape and sexual violence. Alan Moore’s 1988 graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke is perhaps one of the bleakest stories in the DC…
Anthropology: Innovation by Another Name
By Astrid Countee Everyone is talking about innovation. Big business wants it, startups want it. Even my grandma wants it. But how do you do it? What is…
Magical Maladies and Injuries: Cultural Appropriation in J. K. Rowling’s Ilvermorny
Although the final book in the Harry Potter saga, The Deathly Hallows, was published almost a decade ago, J. K. Rowling has been quietly building the Harry Potter…
Anthro Blogging 101: Allegra Lab
In this edition of Anthropology Blogging 101, we welcome Miia Halme-Tuomisaari and Julie Billaud, Editors in Chief at Allegra Lab. Tell us a little about Allegra Lab. How did it…
Consumption, Performance and Identity in Cosplay
By Emma Louise Backe Every year, hundreds of thousands of fans congregate at conventions like San Diego’s Comic Con, Atlanta’s Dragon Con and Emerald City Comic Con, to…
The Politics of Peace in Captain America: Civil War
By Emma Louise Backe Marvel’s latest superhero juggernaut, Captain America: Civil War (2016) is a tense, tightly paced skirmish. The camera skitters between the ideological poles of Tony…
Vernacular and Vulgar Humor on Chilean Tumblrs: Negotiating National and Local Belonging
By Nell Haynes Social media is no longer the geek domain it once was, with the Americas and Europe approaching a fifty percent penetration rate, and an overall…
Anthropology Blogging 101: Peeps
This post is part of the Anthropology Blogging 101 series. In this edition of Anthropology Blogging, we welcome Aliah El-houni and Anya-Milana, Co-Editors of Peeps Magazine, an anthropology magazine f…
Anthropology Blogging 101: PopAnth
This post is part of the Anthropology Blogging 101 series. In this edition of Anthropology Blogging, we welcome Erin Taylor, Managing Editor at PopAnth. Could you tell us a…
A Geek’s Guide to the 2016 PCA/ACA Conference
By Emma Louise Backe This week, Nick Mizer and I will be headed out to Seattle, Washington to attend the annual PCA/ACA Conference. Popular culture itself is a…
Ghosts in the Machine: Supernatural Podcasts and the Resurgence of Radio Horror
By Emma Louise Backe The problem of nostalgia has become a common refrain among pop culture critics. Many claimed that The Force Awakens’ success could be almost entirely…
Oscar Watch: Geeky Nominations & Movies That Should Have Been Nominated
By Emma Louise Backe 2016 Oscars season is rife with controversy. While the Oscars, like the SAT’s, are known to be somewhat of a rigged system–one that depends…
Meet Your Makers: First Contact Scenarios in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus
By Emma Louise Backe Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) was an epic, existential prologue to Alien (1979) over twenty years in the making. The movie expands upon the universe…
The Written World: Using Fantasy Literature To Understand Culture
By Dana Burton Close your eyes, don’t read another word, and imagine the scene of your favorite fantasy book. Think about the details that make it vivid –…
The History and Cultural Sub-Text Behind ‘The Forest’
By Emma Louise Backe Undoubtedly, the Aokigahara forest, otherwise known as the Sea of Trees, which sits at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, has a preternatural…
2015 in Review: Geek Girls and Gender
By Emma Louise Backe For several years, TGA founder Marie-Pierre has been conducting research on the fraudulent phenomenon of “fake geek girls,” a category of women who ostensibly…
And Still the World Pursued–The Management of Waste in Max Mad: Fury Road
By Emma Louise Backe Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves.” -The First History Man What are the roots that…
Data and the Anthropologist: Could you be using your anthropology skills in a more data centric role?
By Astrid Countee When people think of quantitative analytics, big data, and statistics, they rarely picture an anthropologist. The truth is that although our discipline is well known…
Halloween is for Anthropologists
By Emma Louise Backe Halloween, it seems, was made for anthropologists. While many anthropologists devote their time in the field to studying supernatural belief systems, arcane rituals or…
Damsels & Demons: Women in Horror Part II
By Emma Louise Backe Part I of the series can be read here. The genre of horror is one that is not overtly concerned with gender, and yet…
Damsels & Demons: Women in Horror Part I
By Emma Louise Backe Each culture suffers from its own hauntings. We perform ceremonies to guide the ghosts back to their graves and lay out offerings of food…