An Open Letter to My Children
Dear Nathaniel and Hannah, I am sorry that my generation has failed you. We have bequeathed you a world that has too many problems, too much fear, and too much…
Tag: Current Issues
Writing Ethnographies that Everyone Can Read
Kristen Ghodsee’s new book, From Notes to Narrative: Writing Ethnographies that Everyone Can Read, was recently published by the University of Chicago Press (in 2016). The discipline of…
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 political candidate claims ign…
Rethinking BDS
A shorter version of this post will soon appear online as a podcast, in coordination with the motion put to a vote among the membership of the American…
Thinking about Our Shared Common Ancestry–Pausing to Reflect Back on My Career as an Africanist
Honored to have an interview I recently did with Dallas Tatman (an MA student in African Studies at the U of Illinois) unexpectedly show up, to my surprise,…
We Are All Africans
An impressively interdisciplinary team of geneticists, biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and geologists has just published an article detailing the genetic makeup of a man who lived in Ethio…
Anthropology and the MidEast Crisis
There’s surely something to offend every political sensibility in this provocative essay just published by Liel Leibovitz in The Tablet. But for that reason, it’s worth reading. Equal-op…
Donald Trump vs. Blood Magic
Donald Trump has revived old stereotypes in claiming that Fox News commentator/Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly was ruled by her hormones (“bleeding from her wherever”) when she cri…
Fabulous Art from Abandoned Flip-flops
Cleaning up beach waste in the form of abandoned rubber flip-flops . . . recycling landfill-able castoffs . . . training low-income men and women in job skills and…
Social Change: One Petition at a Time?
As a high school student, I remember the excitement of going door-to-door to solicit signatures on petitions of various sorts. Adding one’s name to a list of other…
(How) Do Anthropologists Celebrate Valentine’s Day?
As an anthropologist, the first thought that comes to mind as we approach an upcoming holiday is typically, How do they celebrate this holiday in X?—X being a…
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 iconoclastic weekly, Charlie Hebdo, who were…