The Easiest Silverstein
Michael Silverstein is an important thinker whose work spans anthropology, psychology, and linguistics. I’m deeply indebted to him intellectually, and benefitted immensely from his service on m…
Author: Rex
If anthropology is a humanity, which humanity is it?
Anthropologists are notoriously unwilling to commit to being either a science or a humanity. Sometimes there are pragmatic reasons for this — even my most humanistic of colleagues…
Now I am 17
I started this blog seventeen years about today, and according to my usual habit I’m writing an annual blog post about its past, present, and future. In May…
My new encyclopedia article about Marshall Sahlins is now available… for very wealthy libraries
It took a while, but I have a short encyclopedia entry about Marshall Sahlins in Wiley’s International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. After a long period of being hostile to secondary sources…
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
It is with excitement and regret that I announce today that this will be my last post for Anthrodendum. I’m leaving the blog. It’s hard to leave something…
How To Think Like An Anthropologist: An Interview With Matthew Engelke
2Anthropologists — especially American anthropologists — fret endlessly that they are not doing enough to make their work more widely known, their opinions more widely shared, and their…
Anthropologists and Espionage, chapter 4,378
Is there anything new to say in the never-ending discussion of anthropology and espionage? Most anthropologists think it is unethical to gather intelligence on behalf of the government…
Sun Ra > Black Panther
The Black Panther movie has been out for a little bit now, and posts both pro and con have been circulating on the Internet (Kerim has a quick…
This Anthropology Day, Let’s Remember George Hunt
It’s Anthropology Day, our discipline’s latest invented tradition! A time for reflection on chocolate mint and the values of our discipline, Anthropology Day 2018 is uniquely placed this y…
Let’s all write shorter letters of recommendation
If you are an academic who is in a secure, full-time position then , let’s be honest, no one in the precariate wants to listen to you complain…
Ursula K. Le Guin in the Redwood Zone
Ursula K. Le Guin died on Monday at the age of 88. On the Internet and social media, people remembered her as a feminist and poet, defender of…
The Dude Troll As Anthropologist: A Review of Peter Hempenstall’s “Truth’s Fool: Derek Freeman and the War Over Cultural Anthropology”
The first time I read Coming of Age in Samoa was in my Intro to Anthro course. My teacher — and future mentor — was a social anthropologist…
Where the Whacky Franz Boas Pictures Come From
Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, right? Franz Boas posing for figure in USNM exhibit entitled “Hamats’a coming out of secret room” 1895 or before. Via the Smithsonian.…
Three Styles in the History of Anthropology
Anthropology has an unhealthy relationship to its past. Approaches range from highly fetishized, almost ritual reading of sacralized texts like The Gift and The Nuer to intense, context-free…
My History of Anthropology Syllabus
This semester I taught ANTH 490, the History of Anthropology. It is a required class for our majors and is sort of a ‘capstone’ for their anthropology experience,…
On the 90th Anniversary of the First European Crossing Of New Guinea, “Explorer” Benedict Allen Claims to Have Done It For The First Time
British “explorer” Benedict Allen made news recently by being rescued from a failed attempt to cross the central mountain range of Papua New Guinea and paddle downs stream…
On the 90th Anniversary of the First European Crossing Of New Guinea, “Explorer” Benedict Allen Claims to Have Done It For The First Time
British “explorer” Benedict Allen made news recently by being rescued from a failed attempt to cross the central mountain range of Papua New Guinea and paddle downs stream…
What you can REALLY do with an anthropology degree
The Brooking Institute’s Hamilton Project (because after Hamilton everything has to be named after Hamilton) has a new website examining the relationship between career path and college major &#…
Robert Lowie just destroyed A.R. Radcliffe-Brown in one must-see letter
When it comes to Internet Drama, nothing beats the paper letter. Anthropology’s founders did not lead isolated lives. “American cultural anthropology” corresponded with “Britis…
Great anthropologists who fought fascism
Some of you who — unlike me — have not had family members murdered by nazis or had every synagogue in their home town firebombed in the same…
Anthropologists need to address the Google memo on its merits. Again.
When Google engineer James Damore wrote his now-infamous memo about how woman are naturally unsuited to work at Google, anthropologists everywhere groaned inwardly. Our discipline’s lot in life…
Pacific Islanders will pay the price for Trump and Kim’s nuclear escalation
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s war of words is threatening to become a real nuclear war as North Korea has announced that it is seriously considering attacking Guam.…
Re-materializing the Immaterial Economy: Sareeta Amrute’s Encoding Race, Encoding Class
(This occasional post is a book review that comes to us from Alisha Wilkinson and Meg Stalcup. Meg Stalcup is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Ottawa,…
Perspectives: An Open Access Intro Anthro Textbook
(This guest post by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, and Laura Tubelle de González announces the launch of what I believe is the first open access textbook for an introduction to cultural…