A Linguist’s Night at the Ball
Walk with a linguistic anthropologist through the sounds, politics, and fabulosity of a kiki ball in Puerto Rico. Since its emergence in 1960s Harlem, the LGBTQ+ “ballroom scene”…
Walk with a linguistic anthropologist through the sounds, politics, and fabulosity of a kiki ball in Puerto Rico. Since its emergence in 1960s Harlem, the LGBTQ+ “ballroom scene”…
A poet-anthropologist offers an “anti-glossary” to contest ways of knowing in social science that objectify people(s) into categories. “Emic/Etic” is part of the collection Poets Resist, Refuse, and…
Door Ton Salman – Oudjaar…. En dan begint zomaar een heel nieuw jaar! Spiksplinternieuw! En we wensen elkaar geluk, en moois en gezondheid, en vrede. Da’s ons ritueel.…
A poet-anthropologist celebrates relatedness across difference in a poem that honors the festivals of Navratri, Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Day of the Dead, and Halloween—all of which draw…
After two decades of research, scholars find that Stonehenge’s giant Altar Stone came from northeast Scotland. This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished…
After a 60-year haitus, an Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was seen in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains. A poet-anthropologist reflects on the echidna’s message through the storied lens of the people…
A Brazilian archaeologist reexamines the way people treat ancestral Indigenous remains housed in museums—starting with one important encounter. Can museums and archaeology harm the dead? An Indigenou…
I am presently reading a chapter in the monumental Fowler Museum exhibition catalog The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of…
An anthropologist examines what the outpouring of grief over New York’s Flaco the owl, who died recently, reveals how much attitudes toward these creatures have changed. This article…
A poet-historian in Tanzania remembers those who have passed but who are still nearby. “Bila Mwili” is part of the collection Poems of Witness and Possibility: Inside Zones…
Read Time:8 Minute, 6 Second Amaia Castrexana Amaia Castrexana Billy ¿Qué sientes cuando bailas? No sé, me siento bien. Olvido todo…
Punting on the Cam: A punter sharing Cambridge history with a couple under the Bridge of Sighs on the Cambridge University campus. I just spent a summer studying…
An Andean community’s use of weighing scales shows how meanings of fairness and justice differ across cultures. THE WIPI SCALE IN PERU On a cool spring morning in…
Read Time:14 Minute, 52 Second Rubén Blasco Rubén Blasco “Que llueva, que llueva, la Vírgen de la Cueva, los pajaritos cantan…” Canc…
Read Time:6 Minute, 24 Second Diego Moll Soto El asado en Argentina es una costumbre, un ritual, un motivo para reunirse o un fin en s…
Along mountain pilgrimages, two anthropologists learn how an Indigenous Mesoamerican religion helps people practice a reciprocal relationship with the Earth. Based on Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain: Na…
In a village in Romania, residents maintain a centuries-old carnival tradition called farsang to mark winter’s death. ✽ As the morning sun ambles over blunted cliffs, whips break…
A poet exuberantly gives thanks for the Munay-Ki rites enlivened across the ages and shared by the Q’ero people in the Peruvian Andes. “A Love Letter to the…
Most cherry blossom trees planted in Japan today are the iconic pale-pink somei-yoshino variety—but its reign may be coming to an end. SAKURA FEVER I was in Japan…
A sqilxʷ poet and artist who currently lives in Mohkínstsis, Treaty 7 in Canada speaks to their grandmother of longing and connection, wanting to wake up the medicine…
Read Time:10 Minute, 15 Second El Carnaval es una antigua celebración festiva documentada desde la Edad Media y con una rica perso…
An anthropologist and Menominee Indian Nation citizen recounts the story of independent-minded Frank, a man who kept tribal lifeways in the early 20th century. “A Free Man: The…
A Nigerian poet-anthropologist witnesses the powerful rising up of ancestors through the revival of a tree in the Igbo village of Ogbodu. “A Tree’s Tongue” is part of…
Author: Michael Dunford is currently a PhD Candidate at the School of Culture History and Language. His research asks how how agrarian economies and agrarian ecologies intersect with…