What do you say to someone who suggests that genocide is not just destructive, but constructive? This is the basic theme of Benjamin Lieberman‘s excellent new book Remaking Identities:…
What brings us together as scholars in Religious Studies? Are the various social phenomena commonly grouped together as religion really that similar? The Sacred Is the Profane: The…
Einat Fishbain Lily Oudraogo was born in Tel Aviv, and that’s where she lived and died. Twenty-five difficult and insulting years on the margins of society, and beyond,…
Episode 31, Season 3, Aired 6/24/14 Gooooooooooolllllll!!!!! Today we turn our anthropological lens towards the most popular sport in the world and perhaps the most global sporting competition…
[edit 2017: download and read the final, officially published version of this essay here: http://www.samuli-schielke.de/schielke_there_will_be_blood__middle_east_critique_2017_final.pdf] I stopped upda…
[edit 2017: download and read the final, officially published version of this essay here: http://www.samuli-schielke.de/schielke_there_will_be_blood__middle_east_critique_2017_final.pdf] I stopped upda…
It’s been too long since the last entry, and I’ve been notified of some new anthropology blogs–or ones I had not known about. Thank you for the update–the…
U.S. News Since October, more than 47,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly in Arizona and regions of South Texas that have not seen such high…
“An Ode to the Beauty of Existential Angst” by Vasilios Markou Vasili is one of 11 students from Digital Ethnography 2014 who moved into the Meadowlark Hills retirement…
Dear State Capitalism, You are sneaky and very shit. I knew this already, of course, but have recently learned it anew in my concern for the…
Will There be a Sunni-Shi’a War in the Middle East? Not Likely New America Media, News Analysis, …
Lack of energy not only harms businesses in Nepal, but also contributes to new class divides, pollution and migration to richer countries.
Alberto Acerbi’s excellent blog hosts a noteworthy discussion of Claidière, Scott-Phillips and Sperber’s recent PTRS paper on cultural attraction. Alex Mesoudi, Thom Scott-Phillips and Dan Speber join…
Episode 30, Season 3 In “How to Talk about Terror” we delve into the rise of terrorism as a political and media term framing violence within the world…
Beautifully produced by David Steiman at Pasadena City College.
“After years of experimenting with social media and praising the learning potential of these tools, Wesch realized that they don’t automatically establish either genuine empathy or meaningful bo…
by Jordan Thomas and Kenzie Wade, Digital Ethnography Class of 2014 This past semester, seven of the eleven students in my Digital Ethnography class moved into a continuing…
I haven't posted anything in a while, primarily because I've been busy. I've been planning and researching a book on ancient Indonesia, writing out detailed chapter plans and…
The psychoactive beverage ayahuasca is used differently in Australia compared to in its homeland of indigenous Amazonia. The simplicity of this statement is haunted by an immense complexity. The…
MP3 of the Audrey Richards lecture in African Studies at Cambridge University, 22nd May 2014 This was an improvised talk lasting 49 minutes. It contains several verbal mistakes:…
You can now listen to the 2014 Audrey Richards Annual Lecture in African Studies, delivered on Thursday 22 May in Cambridge by Professor Keith Hart, co-director of the…
A very interesting comparison between crows and humans in a new (free access) paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B entitled “Of babies and birds: complex tool…
The pale light of a half moon filtered through the forest canopy and dappled the path where she tracked a maddening stench. Hunger tore at her belly like a…
The pale light of a half moon filtered through the forest canopy and dappled the path where she tracked a maddening stench. Hunger tore at her belly like a…