(Re)Assembling Asias through Science
Call for contributions! Over the past two decades, a proliferation of critiques have emerged from a body of critical inter-asian scholarship to challenge, revise, and situate the conventional…
Category: English
Rihan Yeh, “Passing: Two Publics in a Mexican Border City” (U of Chicago Press, 2017)
Tijuana is the largest of Mexico’s northern border cities, and although it has struggled during the United States’ dramatic escalation of border enforcement, it nonetheless remains deeply con……
Red Power, Black Lives Matter, (Historians of) Anthropology and Other Friends: Thinking with Vine Deloria in 2021
David Martínez. Life of the Indigenous Mind: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Birth of the Red Power Movement. New Visions in Native American and Indigenous Studies. 480 pp.,…
Juzimu: Jack Ma: Wherever the Wind Blows
One day last October, I happened to spot an acquaintance’s post on Wechat. It was a simple message thanking all ‘Ant-izens’ (people who work in Ant Financial of…
Heart of Stone
“The world is thus ‘animate.’ ‘We’ are not the only kind of we. The world is also ‘enchanted.’” —Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human Anthropologist…
Patrick Galbraith discusses his book, Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan
Interview by Xiao Xe https://www.dukeupress.edu/otaku-and-the-struggle-for-imagination-in-japan Xiao Ke: It was an absolute joy reading this provocative and rigorous book on Japanese “otaku…
Kate Lister, “A Curious History of Sex” (Unbound, 2020)
This is not a comprehensive study of every sexual quirk, kink and ritual across all cultures throughout time, as that would entail writing an encyclopaedia. Rather, this is…
John M. Janzen, “Health in a Fragile State. Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo” (Wisconsin UP, 2019)
John M. Janzen‘s Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo (Wisconsin University Press, 2019) offers a granular and insightful view of the state of healthcare……
That time Norbert Wiener visited Attica Prison
One of the pleasures of doing archival work is of discovering something about the people you are studying that gives insights into who they were as people, that…
AI writes passable college papers
A post by Eduref, a company that deals in information about postsecondary education, has gotten some attention for doing a Turing Test for course papers produced by the…
The Fall and Rise and Lindbergh: A Javelina Story
I have been working with javelinas in Texas for nearly a year. My first encounter with them occurred at Big Bend National Park and I have since visited…
Ep # 70 Familial Ties and Family Debts: Susan Ellison on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Bolivia
The Familiar Strange · Ep# 70 Familial Ties and Family Debts: Susan Ellison on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Bolivia This week we bring you an interview with Dr…
Screen Memories, Scarlet Witch & the Complex Grief of Wandavision
By Emma Louise Backe In the first several episodes of Disney’s new show Wandavision, it’s unclear whether the “bit” of old sitcoms as the framing device will be…
The difficult path to meaningful & decolonized PhDs in Development Studies
The other day a young, bright contact in my network announced that they had accepted a PhD position on a full scholarship at a great development studies institution…
Kill your Darlings again: Spike Lee’s faulty reparations
Another paragraph on the cutting floor: Compared to prison memoirs, accessibility to the American reconstruction of the war is abundantly available in a series of blockbuster films (besides…
Handbook of Sufi Studies
Brill has recently published a Handbook of Sufi Studies. One of the editors, Alexander Knysh, discusses the new volume here.
Becoming a Business Anthropologist and Mastering the Tools of the Trade w/ Oscar Barrera
Oscar Barrera is a Business Anthropologist based out of Veracruz, Mexico who brings a global mindset to helping businesses turn hurdles into opportunities for positive change. He is…
Links & Contents I Liked 397
Hi all, I will keep it short this week: It’s Friday & I survived another week reasonably well ;)! As we are about to celebrate Women’s Day on…
Feminist Hopes for Chile’s Future
Two million Chileans marched for gender equality and democratic reform on International Women’s Day 2020. With the writing of a new constitution now on the horizon, feminist activists…
On Cultural Appropriation
I am happy to note that my article “On Cultural Appropriation” has now been published in the Journal of Folklore Research. Right now, the article can be found…
Now is the time to join SAFN
Now is the time to join SAFN In light of the 2020 pandemic, we have reduced our membership fees significantly for 2021: Student membership is FREE Regular membership…
Did a Magnetic Field Reversal Doom Neanderthals?
I remember exactly where I was when I first learned about magnetic field reversals: sitting in a lab as an undergraduate student in a geoarchaeology class. I knew…
Priya Basil, “Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity” (Knopf, 2020)
Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity (Knopf, 2020) is an utterly unique, deeply personal meditation on what it means to tend to others…
Ethan Pollock, “Without the Banya We Would Perish” (Oxford UP, 2019)
Blog Post: In Without the Banya We Would Perish: A History of the Russian Bathhouse (Oxford University Press, 2019), Dr. Ethan Pollock discusses one of life’s basic questions—How do people get… Visit…