Matt Dawson “Social Theory for Alternative Societies” (Palgrave, 2016)
What can social theory offer to visions of an alternative society? In his new book, Social Theory for Alternative Societies (Palgrave, 2016), Dr Matt Dawson, a Lecturer in…
Links & Contents I Liked 199
Hi all, I can’t believe that this is already post no. 444 – and we are only one review away from the epic 200th anniversary! Development news: Why…
Book Forum––Robert Desjarlais’ Subject to Death: Life and Loss in a Buddhist World by Todd Meyers
Robert Desjarlais’s Subject to Death is like stepping onto a train already in motion. Its momentum isn’t fierce but there’s no time to ease in––from its…
Olympic Resilience: The “Refugee Nation” Competes For A Place on the World’s Stage
The first ever team comprised of refugees debuted at this year’s Rio Olympics. They were the penultimate team to enter the Olympic stadium, coming in before Brazil, and…
Fear of Foodways? On Trigger Warnings, Horses, and a Dropped Class
David Beriss University of New Orleans A few years ago I received an angry email from a student, informing me that she was dropping my “Food and Culture”…
Cultural Anthropology: The Most Important Class that Any Undergraduate Will Take
This post was authored by Leslie Walker, project manager, AAA public education initiatives. A cultural anthropology course is the most important class any undergraduate student can take. This…
La science-fiction et l’anthropologie : des récits entrecroisés / 3
Par Martin Hébert Ce texte a d’abord été publié dans la revue Solaris (2013, no 183). Si l’on compare l’histoire des sciences sociales et celle des littératures de l’imaginaire, nous…
Spielberg: 1, Harvard: 0
Hollywood used to know what Americans wanted. Then came the new diversity of moving-going taste and preference. Hollywood was in trouble. In the words of Tom Hanks: “Nobody…
Is a Hand Wave a Universal Greeting?
On a recent Saturday, I took my three boys camping along the Cache la Poudre River, one of the most picturesque watersheds in all of northern Colorado. Its…
Why We Post
Taking Anthropology to the World While we should consider all anthropological projects to be of equal importance to our own discipline, studies which focus on topics such as…
A historical view of a long heated debate: what could be more menacing than the singular "they"?
The use of ‘they’ as a replacement for ‘he or she’ pronouns has been gaining momentum not only because it lets one slip around those steadfast predefined gender…
Saving the periphery from itself: The problem with thinking the postcolonial from the metropole
In February of this year, I participated in a Middle East, South Asian and African Studies graduate student conference at a New York-based university. It was, expectedly, a…
Cosmopolitan Imperialism: Obama Does Anthropology in Laos?
“Obama, the cerebral son of an anthropologist”—this is how the Associated Press touted soon to be ex-president Barack Obama on his visit to Laos this week. The AP…
On the responsibilities of panelists
So you can tell what’s coming here. The short version is: should panelists provide for a good show (topical, interesting, cutting edge, the presentation of new research, ideas,…
Would Margaret Mead tweet? On anthropological questions, social media, and the public sphere
Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Rachel C. Fleming In my first introductory anthropology class of the year, I spoke a bit about the figures I consider “founding” to…
Can an iPhone App Help Save an Endangered Language?
About half of the world’s languages are expected to disappear by 2100 if nothing is done to stop their decline. To counteract this trend, some tribes are using…
La science-fiction et l’anthropologie : des récits entrecroisés / 2
Par Martin Hébert Ce texte a d’abord été publié dans la revue Solaris (2013, no 183). Si l’on compare l’histoire des sciences sociales et celle des littératures de l’imaginaire, nous…
The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus, Week 1: Sameena Mulla on Aimee Meredith Cox’s Shapeshifters
The editors of Anthropoliteia are happy to present the latest entry in on ongoing series The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogica…
Nicole Nguyen, “A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in US Public Schools” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2016)
It can be tempting to generalize certain attributes of schools as either being good or bad. Magnet and charter schools are often characterized as being inherently good. They…
Inside-out Jokes & Scientific Pantomimesis: Questioning Interpretations of the Inhuman
In a fit of ambition, I attended or spoke at five academic conferences in the humanities and social sciences during the spring 2016 semester. Discipline specificity and conference…
No, Uzbekistan is probably not going to be invaded by terrorists
For twenty-five years, an invasion of Uzbekistan by Islamic terrorists has been predicted, and for twenty-five years, it has not happened. Instead, that fear has been used as…
A Trump rally without Trump
What is a Trump rally like without Donald Trump present? To find out, I drove to a Harley Davidson lot in Festus, Missouri, where the local branch of…
A Dream Team for M-PAAC
It is my great pleasure to announce the presidential appointment of a dream leadership team for the newly created Members’ Programmatic, Advisory and Advocacy Committee (M-PAAC). Tricia Redeker…
Special Issue! Practical Anthropology for a Global Public Psychiatry by Anna Zogas
A very exciting special issue of Transcultural Psychiatry has just been published: Practical Anthropology for a Global Public Psychiatry: Provocations and Future Directions is edited by Neely Myers, R…