Recruitment pitfalls in humanitarian aid organizations-An insider’s view
It’s always great when readers contact me about a potential guest post! So when Dipankar Datta, Country Director Somalia, Norwegian Church Aid, asked whether I would like to…
Category: English
Sue Ann Barratt and Aleah N. Ranjitsingh, “Dougla in the Twenty-First Century: Adding to the Mix” (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Identity is often fraught for multiracial Douglas, people of both South Asian and African descent in the Caribbean. In this groundbreaking volume titled Dougla in the Twenty-First Century: Adding to…
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic, “Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow” (Routledge, 2022)
Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow (Routledge, 2022) asks us to consider: what stands behind the propensity to remember victims of mass atrocities by their…
Nick Seaver, “Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation” (U Chicago Press, 2022)
The people who make music recommender systems have lofty goals: they want to broaden listeners’ horizons and help obscure musicians find audiences, taking advantage of the enormous catalogs…
When Disaster Tests the Strength of Human Cooperation
In the Andes, minga, a form of collective labor, has existed for centuries, often helping communities weather disasters. But how does it work in practice? ✽ Judith grew…
Two years after Myanmar’s military coup survivors of Rohingya genocide and victims of post-coup atrocities file joint complaint
By Maaike Matelski On 8 December 2022, Nickey Diamond visited the VU for two lectures. Nickey is an activist from Myanmar who recently started a PhD in Anthropology…
Graduate Journal of Food Studies seeks three co-editors
GRADUATE ASSOCIATION FOR FOOD STUDIES Editor’s note: We are reprinting this announcement, which we received a few days ago. This looks like a great opportunity for graduate students…
Did Humanity Really Arise in One Place?
New evidence is prompting researchers to rethink Homo sapiens’ origin story—and what it means to be human. ✽ As a university student in the early 2010s, I recall…
Brooke Schedneck, “Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand: Encounters with Buddhist Monks” (U Washington Press, 2021)
The city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand has become the destination for a growing segment of the international tourism market: religious tourism. International tourists visit Buddhist temples,…
Clare Forstie, “Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community” (NYU Press, 2022)
Drag shows that test the capacity of bars persist alongside wishes for stronger community among River City’s LGBTQ population. In this examination of LGBTQ community in a small,…
Neretva & Sutjeska in Horror and Magic of Individual Remembrances – research notes and late-night thoughts
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. Yugoslav historiography counted seven major Axis military operations undertaken against…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – Civil Rights Leader or Pan Africanist?
By Jehron Muhammad Every year, including 2023 we in the United States celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights …
The self-realising soldier
This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. Soldiers participate in wars for various reasons, some of which…
Ethnographic Postcards: The Mean Girl
It’s important to remain impartial when conducting ethnography. A mean girl at an after-school club challenged my role as a researcher. The post Ethnographic Postcards: The Mean Girl…
David Newheiser, “The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics” (U Chicago Press, 2022)
The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2022), edited by Professor David Newheiser reveals the diverse nonreligious experiences obscured by the combative intellectualism…
Missing: Men at Work
Over six million prime-age men are neither working nor looking for work; America’s low unemployment rate hides the fact that many men have dropped out of the workforce…
If I Could Talk to the Algorithm
In the film Doctor Dolittle (1967), the title character yearns to “Talk to the Animals,” as the song goes, to understand their mysterious and often vexing ways. It…
Piecing Together History From a Roman Mosaic
The 2020 discovery of an ancient villa in Britain uncovered the most important Roman mosaic found in the last century. An archaeologist explains how the mosaic offers an…
Review: Anxious Eaters
Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets. Columbia University Press. New York: 2022. ISBN # 9780231192446 Emily Contois (The University of Tulsa)…
Gaby Greenlee takes the page 99 test
Page 99 of my dissertation reflects on a detail in an elite type of garment that the Inka Empire (ca. 1476-1532 CE) fabricated in its workshops during the…
Sina Ma Tinirau wins Best Animation Short
A true story: Eight women from Santa Rosa wanted to see a movie set on their home island of Rotuma. And so they got in their cars…
‘No laughter, no war’
An exploration of soldier humor This blog post is part of the Experience of War conference, March 24, 2023, funded by the WARFUN project. Are soldiers funny? On the…
M. R. Sharan, “Last Among Equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar’s Villages” (Westland, 2021)
M. R. Sharan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, studying questions centred around development economics and political economy. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University…