Writing about Coffee
Despite being a lifelong non-coffee-drinker, I somehow found myself reading two fantastic books about coffee recently. The first, Miriam Sagan’s A Hundred …
From Hollywood to Hitler: Rethinking the Cultural Politics of Propaganda
What is propaganda? What does cinema reveal about the Third Reich and its people? What are German films about during the Third …
Europe’s Other Walls
The Berlin Wall has always had multiple lives. Beyond its fall lies a story of proliferating borders and exclusions. “Berlin is not …
A Demagogue’s Words Matter
Trump’s immigration metaphors set a divisive tone from the top. Trump wields demagogic rhetoric like a marketing tool, ramping up prejudicial appeals …
An Anthropologist at the Women’s March on Washington, Part 2: The Posters
Photo by Alma Gottlieb Women (and some men) with signs, as far as the eye could see. In my first …
It’s Never “Just a Symbol”
Symbolic anthropologists, take note. What’s in a symbol? Everything, when it comes to politics. Especially, election-year politics. And especially when a major …
Rethinking BDS
A shorter version of this post will soon appear online as a podcast, in coordination with the motion put to a vote …
Why Not “Je Suis Lassana”?
Much of the Western world has expressed solidarity with the right to publish offensive cartoons by identifying with the cartoonists at the …