We suck at (academic) politics
Ninety percent of the time if you were to read a blog post about academics and politics it would be a rant about “identity politics.” This isn’t going…
Tag: ACADEMIA
Reading Not to Perish
The “publish or perish” imperative in academia is periodically debated in the newspapers. I think some distance should be taken from the arguments developed in such articles. Even…
Stephen Hawking, Dis-Incorporated
As Helene Mialet’s ethnography examines the role of his assistants, his students, and the media in the social construction of ‘Stephen Hawking: the great genius’, she also shows…
Race is Still a Problem in Anthropology
By Anar Parikh [The following essay emerges from conversation with fellow PhD student and AES/SVA attendee, Scott Ross (George Washington University).] How is it that a senior anthropologist…
Doing Development the Right Way: A Conversation with Charles Piot
Anthropologist Charlie Piot has been conducting research on the political economy and history of rural West Africa for over thirty years. His first book, Remotely Global: Village Modernity…
Ep. #11 Alternative worlds: Ghassan Hage talks multiculturalism, teaching the enemy, & thinking in public
“Any concept — capitalism, neoliberalism, etc. — leaves an excess that it is the aim of anthropology to unearth. These are spaces that are not dominated by whatever’s…
How Academic Hierarchy Shapes the Distribution of Precarity
Yesterday, Cultural Anthropology updated its recent forum on academic precarity with several additional essays, including one that I wrote about the role that academic hierarchy plays in shaping…
Ep. #8 Savage Bitcoin, hamster flushing, scholars at work, and New Mandala: this month on TFS
This month, Ian (1:25) digs into Bitcoin, arguing that the cryptocurrency is no different than regular currencies, and can be analyzed along all the same lines: symbolically, materially,…
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…
New Zealand-born and internationally raised
I am delighted to welcome writer Cileme Venkateswar to anthropod. This is the third post in my series on doing fieldwork with kids, and in it Cileme (who…
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…
Diversity Audited (A Short How-To Guide)
Since the 1980s, audits have almost become mundane. They have provided means by which employers can increase efficiency and productivity, as well by which the most disenfranchised can…
Ep. #7 The knowledge we value: Dipesh Chakrabarty talks the contentious politics of knowledge production
“Doing history ideally is like doing anthropology of people who are gone, except that you don’t have native informants, you only have these written fragmentary sources. But the…
Book Review: The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology by John Smyth
In The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology, John Smyth offers a critical reading of the pathological state of higher education today, diagnosing this as th…
Why YOU Should Be an Academic Cyborg (and Maybe Already Are)
Although I’ve often been heard to sigh and groan that “technology hates me”, just like any other self-respecting anthropologist, in this post I want to consider just what…
Start an Anthropology Career in 2018
Lets put aside for the moment all the usual warnings about pursuing an academic career. Lets say that you are old enough to take responsibility for your own…
Overlapped Precarities #precarity
The EASA AGM Seminar in Bern simply came in a bad time. It confronted me with a dilemma: while I was eager to follow the workshops and act…
Fieldnotes from the AAS/ASA/ASAANZ Conference 2017
Two of your familiar strangers are currently participating in the 2017 Australian Anthropological Society’s Annual General Meeting in Adelaide, this year held in collaboration with our UK and…
The Precariat Fights Back. A conversation with Dan Hirslund and Carrie Benjamin #precarity
This conversation took place after a workshop entitled “Between precarious norms and empowering alternatives – a workshop on the strategies of labour organisation between national and international ac…
The uncanny predictability of precarious existence #precarity
EASA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) Symposium “On politics and precarities in academia: anthropological perspectives” took place in mid-November at the University of Bern. The two-day seminar, organis…
Unpacking the Yale Halloween Scandal
I was listening to a ‘Waking Up with Sam Harris’ episode a few weeks ago, called Facing the Crowd. It has since been playing on my mind. Harris…
Academia in Dark Times of Austerity Politics and Authoritarianism #precarity
In these days, two at first sight independent developments are threatening academic freedom. Neoliberal austerity politics and authoritarian political tendencies both leave their traces in academia, s…
Othered by Anthropology: Being a Student of Color in Anglo-cized Academia
[Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Savannah Martin.] It is both impressive and depressing how frequently scholars of color are Othered by anthropology. For many, the tales of alienation are…
Othered by Anthropology: Being a Student of Color in Anglo-cized Academia
[Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Savannah Martin.] It is both impressive and depressing how frequently scholars of color are Othered by anthropology. For many, the tales of alienation are…