The Untold Story Behind Fiji’s Astonishing Gold Medal
A teary-eyed member of Fiji’s women’s rugby team raised the Fijian flag after the men’s rugby team won the Olympic gold medal. Viewers watched on a big-screen TV…
Tag: Gender
When Nature Has to Conform to Culture: Highly Sensitive People in a Nonsensitive Culture
Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person was like my own personal Da Vinci Code—riveting, compelling, and totally solved a mystery about myself I didn’t know existed. My…
#FreeHoma: Anthropologists in dangerous contexts
Anthropology is a discipline that was born out of colonial encounters and systems of power. Anthropologists have historically been complicit in supporting the people, systems and ideas through…
Call for #Reviews: Recent Publications on #Gender
While gender remains a mostly female domain of inquiry, our list of recent publications features not only male authors, but also discusses contemporary masculinities. In What Makes a…
The emotional toll of masculinity
This personal essay published in the Washington Post’s Parenting section, provides a lot of insight into the powerful norms and ideals of masculinity in (North) American society. In…
Derrida on complacency and vulgarity
In Benoît Peeters’ biography of Jacques Derrida, there is an intriguing interview with Derrida that was never published. Peeters writes: In 1992, Jacques Derrida gave Osvaldo Muñoz an…
Sarah Richardson’s Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome by Paula Martin
Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome Sarah Richardson University of Chicago Press, 2013, 320 pages In Sex Itself: The Search for…
Tinderbox: Building an ingenuity machine
Several weeks ago, Mark Bernstein announced the latest Tinderbox, the “tool for notes.” I almost always sign up for these updates. I almost always give the new edition…
An anthropologist walks into… a gym
Katie Hejtmanek is a cultural anthropologist who studies the culture of strength sports (powerlifting, weightlifting, CrossFit) in the United States. Her articles for BarBend offer not only interesting…
Book Forum––Sabine Arnaud’s On Hysteria by Todd Meyers
Sabine Arnaud’s On Hysteria: The Invention of a Medical Category Between 1670 and 1820 focuses on the socio-medical category before its better-known (and more heavily studied) late ninet…
Joanna Kempner’s Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health by Christine Labuski
Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health Joanna Kempner University of Chicago Press, 2014, 232 pages In her thoroughly engaging new book, Not Tonight: Migraine…
Between Male and Female
Laverne Cox, the actress who plays Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, made television history by being the first openly transgender actress to…
Consumption, Performance and Identity in Cosplay
By Emma Louise Backe Every year, hundreds of thousands of fans congregate at conventions like San Diego’s Comic Con, Atlanta’s Dragon Con and Emerald City Comic Con, to…
Did Women and Children Exist in Prehistory?
Stone tools, like Acheulean hand axes, remain well-preserved for eons because they are stones first, tools second. Fired ceramics remain well-preserved for millennia because they are, in essence,…
Mass Violence and Teachable Moments
This past weekend, Orlando, Florida witnessed the worst mass shooting in America’s recent history. This violent, planned attack in a public place is tragic, and our hearts go out…
The Ultimate Proletarian and the Neoliberal Condition
“Proletarian” has acquired many layers of meaning over the centuries, possibly in part because the many, historically changing situations of proletarians became more complex. Since the advent of…
Food Anthropology, A Tribute to Sidney W. Mintz
What are your essential articles for teaching a Food Anthropology course? What most distinguishes Food Anthropology from other ways of studying food? What are the most important insights…
Sex/Gender: Part III: What Counts as Adequate Function? by Constance Cummings
A Critical Moment: Sex/Gender Research at the Intersections of Culture, Brain, and Behavior FPR-UCLA 2016 Conference Summary The sex/gender conference succeeded in bringing together people “with dif…
Avoiding gendered bias… for instructors
Writing a reference letter for a student? The Feminist Philosophers blog has shared a handy infographic from the University of Arizona that will help instructors write great reference letters…
Review of a Film by Michael Moore: “Where to Invade Next” (2016)
Having seen almost all of Michael Moore’s films to date, I have no difficulty in applauding “Where to Invade Next” as his best film yet. I may have…
Black Disabled Woman Syllabus
Vilissa Thompson, Disability Rights Consultant & Advocate, has created the Black Disabled Woman Syllabus in response to the lack of intersectionality she has seen in disability studies. …
The reception and consumption of telenovelas in Senegal
This is a fourth set of notes under the broad theme of media and change in preparation for the volume Postill, J., E. Ardevol and S. Tenhunen (eds.)…
Apple and the Smartphone market in India
Photo Courtesy: CC: Wikimedia Commons: Kārlis Dambrāns from Latvia Less than a fifth of the Indian population might own a smart phone, but India is now the second…
Fasching als ‚doing gender‘? – Die Hexe in der Fastnacht
Als kleines Mädchen drückte ich mich vor den Faschingsumzügen im südwestdeutschen Raum – aus Angst vor den bösen Hexen. Sie sind immer wild, raufen, wälzen sich auf dem…