What Klingon and Other Constructed Languages Reveal
This article was originally published at Knowable Magazine and has been republished with Creative Commons. Most languages develop through centuries of use among groups of people. But some…
Tag: Language
What the Vai Script Reveals About the Evolution of Writing
This handwritten example of Vai script dates to around 1850. British Library/Wikimedia Commons In a small West African village, a man named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a compelling…
What Is SAPIENS Magazine?
SAPIENS magazine is an online portal for readers to better understand the world and what it means to be human. AerialPerspective Images/Getty Images WHAT IS SAPIENS MAGAZINE? SAPIENS…
Predominantly White Institutions’ Overtures to Black Students OR This Is What They Tell You Without Telling You
Enslaved people built the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in the 19th century. Chrispecoraro/Getty Images Go to undergrad, go to graduate school, get a Ph.D. heft onto…
Does Green on COVID-19 Maps Mean What You Think?
Picture a traffic light. This isn’t a trick question. We want you to visualize some sort of box housing three lightbulbs, each behind a colored filter: red on…
Call for Submissions: Indigenizing What It Means to be Human: Stories, Poems, Dreams, and Memories
Our team—Dr. Margaret Noodin, Christine Weeber, and Jason Vasser-Elong—invites submissions of original, unpublished pieces for the Indigenizing What It Means to be Human: Stories, Poems, Dreams, and M…
Academic Fictions: 2022
Last year, the Allegra Lab began a thematic thread showcasing a selection of the wonderful “academic fictions” written by students as an assignment for the course on “Cities,…
How to Promote Research on Social Media
Since SAPIENS launched in 2016, several social media outlets have been central to the magazine’s promotion strategy. Every week, we publish multiple posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram…
The Politics of “Ukraine” Versus “the Ukraine”
[no-caption] TheKit_13/Pixabay This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. For most of the 20th century, English speakers re…
Why English Might Let Go of “He” and “She”
Pronouns are giving us trouble. English speakers face a dilemma. The current structure of our language is exclusionary with regard to gender: The personal pronouns “she” and “he”…
Coming Soon: The MultiRepository
This post introduces a new collaborative project coming soon to CASTAC: an archive of online platforms that highlights how researchers have utilized different communicative modes and media in…
Introduction to Book Forum on Clara Han’s Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War by Andrew Brandel
Clara Han’s Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War (Fordham University Press, 2021) describes war’s dispersal into everyday life, intimacy and the domestic. Departing from genres of…
Can Indigenous Language Comics Save a Mother Tongue?
This comic book reimagines the oral traditions of Mexico’s Ñäñho people, introducing mischievous creatures called Tlaloques, which inspired the toy at left. María Gámez Tlaloc is a tempes…
5 Questions About Writing the African Diaspora
In this free live event, Yoli Ngandali, SAPIENS Media & Public Outreach Fellow, asks Justin Wright five questions about Lead me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora, a…
How to Work With a Developmental Editor
[no-caption] Rawpixel/Getty Images Ask SAPIENS is a series that offers a glimpse into the magazine’s inner workings. I sometimes shudder to think of my authors’ faces when they…
Not “just tools”: The framework of equivalence and cochlear implants in Jordan by Timothy Y. Loh
“Should all deaf children learn sign language?” This seemingly innocuous question was the theme of a roundtable article published in the influential journal Pediatrics in 2015, which compiled…
Do You Want to Write for SAPIENS?
In this free online webinar, SAPIENS’ editor-in-chief Chip Colwell explains the ins-and-outs of writing for the magazine and its peer publications. Learn who is behind the SAPIENS editorial…
Why “is this fascism?” is the wrong question: a foray into the everyday life of political concepts
Street art, Oaxaca City, Mexico. 2007. Photo: Ryan Anderson. By Louis Philippe Römer Activists, politicians, and public intellectuals have turned to the word “fascism” to analyze the intensified…
How to Pitch: A Guide for Anthropologists
Writing a pitch involves untangling your ideas into a clear message. mikroman6/Getty Images So, you think you have the seeds of a great essay or opinion piece. Maybe…
Why Write for SAPIENS?
In the summer of 1960, Jane Goodall left England for what is now Gombe National Park in Tanzania. With the aid of legendary paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, Goodall was…
Farmer Talk
Facing language problems in Peru’s new coffee economy During a recent trip to the Andean-Amazonian foothills of Southern Peru, I hiked out to a remote corner of the…
What’s Left Unsaid When a Language Dies
“Transition” by Papua New Guinean artist Philemon Yalamu. From Papua New Guinea: A New Dawn by Fondazione Imago Mundi/Luciano Benetton Collection. A Death in the Rainforest: How a Languag…
Why Do Virtual Meetings Feel So Weird?
[no-caption] Anna Shvets/Pexels It’s morning in Houston, Texas, for Jeremy* and his team of engineers, and nearly evening in a small town north of Bucharest, Romania, for Costa…
How to Write an Essay: A Guide for Anthropologists
[no-caption] FilippoBacci/GettyImages For academics used to the idea of “publish or perish,” writing may seem to be a well-practiced and even perfected skill. But trying out a new…