Poets Resist, Refuse, and Find a Way Through
In a themed collection, poets trace contours of power to critique colonialism, environmental destruction, and social violence while transforming the landscape of possibilities. ✽ A detainee prays in…
Tag: Memory
Survival Notes
Black African women in former colonial centers such as London gesture to subversive ways of communicating with those imprisoned in archives across generations. ✽ despite the Maangamizi,( Maangamizi…
Her Dirge
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past. ✽ memory is a washerwoman who knows that when the blood is poisoned, you have to slaughter…
The Social Act we call memory
It’s a cold early-winter morning in South Brooklyn. The streets are empty. My friend Gabe explains that it’s only a […] The post The Social Act we call…
The Land of Dreams
In a dystopian short story, an anthropologist imagines an alternate world in which Kashmiris are forbidden to dream. Republished by permission from English Language Notes, 61(2): 15–18. Copyright…
A Call for Anthropological Poems of Resistance, Refusal, and Wayfinding
SAPIENS is seeking poetry submissions for a curated collection that will publish next year. Deadline: September 1, 2024. ✽ SAPIENS Anthropology Magazine invites creative works for the upcoming…
Buried in the Shadows, Ireland’s Unconsecrated Dead
A visual anthropologist reflects on the history of cillíní, unmarked and mostly hidden burial sites in Ireland where loved ones continue to care for the dead. South of…
A Palestinian Family’s History—Told Through Olive Trees
A new book chronicles a Palestinian family’s life and connections to their land over decades under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Excerpted from My Brother, My Land: A…
A Memory, But Not Remembered
What lay inside a box of ashes certainly used to be a person, but one who had now been reduced to an object. A person-object, if you will.…
Dismantling the Walls in Our Heads
The Berlin Wall fell more than three decades ago—but political, social, and economic divides between East and West Germany continue to reverberate, even among those born after Reunification.…
To Wear the Wind
A tribal scholar from the state of Nagaland in India engages with the loss of traditional cultural practices and locates the creation of a new world order where…
Excavating a 19th-Century Detroit Saloon
A filmmaker highlights the work of urban archaeologists digging a woman-owned business opened in the late 1800s. In this short documentary, Wayne State University archaeologist Krysta Ryzewski and…
Memorializing Eruption
Perched on a makeshift stage, a trio dressed in wool ponchos sings pirekuas, the region’s most acclaimed and loved musical genre in a mix of Purépecha and Spanish.…
Apparition in Sugarland
A poet-anthropologist evokes a popular myth that speaks to the repercussions of—and possibilities of repair from—U.S. violence in the Philippines during colonialism. “Apparition in SugarlandR…
A Birth and a Death—a Haunting of Igbo Landing
A Ghanian American poet-anthropologist crafts her own African diasporic and Indigenous identity through weaving herself into a famous story of African resistance and survival. “A Birth and a…
The Woods Lament For Me
Poet-anthropologist Jason Vasser-Elong revitalizes stories of interwoven lineages of his African-descent ancestors and those who were Native American. The Woods Lament For Me – Listen —For Will…
Centering the Voices of Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
In England and Wales, a multiyear investigation has uncovered decades of pervasive child sexual abuse in schools, churches, and other institutions. An anthropologist on the project weighs in…
Excavating My Dad’s Life
An archaeologist navigates her dad’s passing by using the methods of her discipline to preserve his office and gain insight into the mysteries of his personality. ✽ In…
How a Coerced Confession Shaped a Family History
A researcher delves into her family’s oral history and local archives to tell the story of a relative—falsely accused as a boy of a crime in Jim Crow–era…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
An anthropologist dreams of his work with Songhay sorcerers in Niger and of French poet Edmond Jabès, fictionalizing conversations and experiences to polish nuggets of wisdom for our…
What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity
Former first lady Michelle Obama savors the scent of a Douglas fir tree presented to the first family for Christmas in 2010. Rod Lamkey/Getty Images Vivian,* a Washington,…
What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity
The post What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity appeared first on SAPIENS.
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
[no-caption] Matt Anderson Photography/Getty Images This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONST…
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONSTELLATIONS The 1918 Spanish flu altered the course of…