Rewind and Fast Forward, Part 1
[Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Michael Agar]. A couple of months ago I was having dinner with an old friend in Seattle. He stopped his fork in mid-flight and…
Tag: Blog post
Tripping On Good Vibrations: Cultural Commodification and Tibetan Singing Bowls
In September of 2014, science-and-technology news outlets reported on a discovery that supposedly had the potential to revolutionize the field of solar energy. While doing PhD research at…
Four ghost stories from Aunt Julia
More so than any other person in my mother’s extended family, Julia was a person who was truly loved. She helped to raise her mother’s children, then her…
The _other_ enemy of Open Access
An article made the rounds of social media recently on whether or not the for-profit website academia.edu is outflanking the open access movement. It’s a great article that…
A Case for Agitation: On Affect and Writing
[Savage Minds is pleased to publish this essay by guest author Carla Jones as part of our Writers’ Workshop series. Carla is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado,…
Around the Web Digest: Week of October 18
Happy Sunday (technically)! If you come across any links to include here, email me at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com. It’s not explicitly anthropological, but City Lab started an interesting co…
Secrets of the Sex Magic Space Lamas Revealed! Tibetan Buddhist Aliens and Religious Syncretism
In this post I’m going to be talking a little about aliens. Tibetan ones, specifically. Also, sex magic. Bear with me now. A lot of this may be…
The Privacy Paradox: IRBs in an Era of NSA Mass Surveillance
[This invited post was written by Daniel O’Maley, who recently graduated with a PhD in cultural anthropology from Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on the global Internet freedom movement…
What a cooperative proposal means for the AAA
Social media was a-twitter (see what I did there?) today with an important statement about the future of anthropology publishing posted at both Cultural Anthropology and in the latest…
Happy Open Access Week!
This week is Open Access week! In fact, by the time you read this it will already be Tuesday or Wednesday of Open Access Week because I’m not getting to…
Anthropology as Theoretical Storytelling
[This essay is part of the Fall 2015 Savage Minds Writers’ Workshop series.] Anthropologists are storytellers. We tell stories: other’s stories, our own stories, stories about other’s stories.…
Around the Web Digest: Week of October 11
OK, who else hate-watched Eli Roth’s new “retro” cannibal horror film The Green Inferno? It can’t just have been me. Send me any thoughts about the movie (or…
My Mother was a Rock-Ogress-Yeti-Monster: True Tales of Dharma, Demons, and Darwin
Recently, while browsing in a bookstore in McLeod Ganj, India, I came across a small Tibetan-language comic book. The store I was in was also small – more…
Vale Anthony Wallace and Raymond Smith
I couldn’t let this week slip by without mentioning the passing of two great anthropologist: Raymond T. Smith and Anthony F.C. Wallace. Raymond T. Smith was a social…
Around the Web Digest: Week of October 4
Happy alternative to Columbus Day, readers! (I like Indigenous People’s Day personally). Send me any blog posts at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com. This article in New Republic critiques Anna Ts…
The Anthropology of Being (Me)
[Savage Minds is pleased to publish this essay by guest author Paul Tapsell as part of our Writers’ Workshop series. Paul is Professor of Anthropology, and Māori, Pacific, and Indigenous…
Pseudonyms 2.0: How Can We Hide Participants’ Identities When They’re on Pinterest?
It has been standard practice in anthropology to change the names of the people and places we analyze, but recently scholars have been questioning the necessity and even…
Tantra and Transparency, or Cultural Contradiction and Today’s Tibetan Buddhist Wizard
This is the first of a series of articles that I will be posting this month as a guest-contributor for Savage Minds. In each post I will be sharing…
Highlights from the AAA Israel-Palestine Task Force’s Final Report
The Task Force on AAA Engagement on Israel-Palestine issued its final report today. It is a long and thorough report, so I won’t attempt to summarize the whole…
Around the Web Digest: Week of September 27
This week, a number of online magazines addressed some of the big questions of human history. As always, if you want me to feature anything on the blog,…
Encrypting Ethnography: Digital Security for Researchers
(This invited post comes to us from Jonatan Kurzwelly. Jonatan is a a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of St. Andrews. You can email him at kurzwelly@mailbox.org .…
On The Importance of Liking Students
Probably the most important trick to being a good teacher is believing that you have something to teach students, and that they are better of learning it then…
Around the Web Digest: Week of September 20
A storm cut off my Internet yesterday, delaying your beloved weekly digest. The theme of this week is “how-to,” with several blogs featuring advice on how to get…
List as Form: Literary, Ethnographic, Long, Short, Heavy, Light
[Savage Minds is pleased to publish this essay by guest author Sasha Su-Ling Welland as part of our Writers’ Workshop series. Sasha is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women &…