Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
Reconsidering the purpose of Living Anthropologically and adjusting to global convulsions. We need to document history, interconnection, & power. We need to care for others as we attempt to build a world together
Although Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” has been assigned for thousands of anthropology courses, we need to think before using it uncritically.
When someone types “what is marriage?” into Google, anthropology should be all over the results. Margaret Mead offers lessons for anthropological expertise.
Anthropology condemns the revival of biological race. Some join against racist calls to police black people. But what about race & racism within anthropology?
To the question of “What is Anthropology?”: Anthropology is a generous comparative inquiry into the conditions & potentials of human life.
The October 2017 issue of Open Anthropology promotes material linked to the #AmAnth17 meetings, Anthropology Matters (November 29-December 3).
Bonin Bough’s lecture at Hartwick College on “Hackonomy” paralleled themes in Introduction to Anthropology and Cultural Ecology.
4-5 February 2016 at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill: “Defending Anthropology 101 and the Mega-Class: Relevant Teaching for the 21st Century.”
With anthropologists saying many things about culture, is it any wonder the students and the public are confused?
Please help a recent high school graduate who desperately wants to be an anthropology major but worries about the anthropology major jobs after graduation.
With President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, President Barack Obama of the US, and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Anthropology is taking over the world.
Anthropology and Storytelling – Stories that must be told to transform the anthropocene. And yet: Can anthropology spell out relevance for a wider audience?
Is the time gone for reaffirming that the Bongobongo are “humans just like us”? And does Open Access anthropology spell out the stakes for a wider public?
Resources and thoughts on Teaching Cultural Anthropology for fall 2014: “Teaching is the other side of participant observation” (Tim Ingold, Making 2013:13)
What makes Jared Diamond possible? Discussant commentary for the panel “Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements.”
An Introduction to Anthropology course for 2014, with emphasis on “entangling the biological” and the relevance of anthropology for important dialogue.
At a time when globalization is said to render the national state irrelevant, an anthropology of the state has pressing political and intellectual stakes.
Pairing “Advertising Missionaries” with “A Fragmented Globality” to ask “What, if anything, is truly new about our times?” (Trouillot 2003:47)
Fieldwork and the ethnographic monograph invited closure around cultural wholes. Anthropology can defend the concept of culture while jettisoning the word.
Are there ways to counter the notion of “gang culture” without promoting myths of individualism? Can we usefully bring anthropology to the courtroom?
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture translated Boasian Anthropology & its concept of culture to a mass audience. Plus cultural relativism & cultural wholes.
Thinking about the purpose of anthropology: “Ultimately, anthropology will only matter… if it evokes a purpose outside of itself” (Trouillot 2003, 5)
An impassioned plea to lower the arrogance decibels. In the wake of Steven Pinker’s “Science Is Not Your Enemy” assessing humanities & science together.
When Bill Gates recommends Jared Diamond & Steven Pinker, reiterate anthropology’s calling: “the fate of no human group can be irrelevant to humankind” (Trouillot).
Could epigenetics finally re-write the script about human nature? Maybe, but first we have to go over The Edge’s promotional tribute to Napoleon Chagnon.
Living Anthropologically means documenting history, interconnection, and power during a time of global transformation. We need to care for others as we attempt to build a world together. For updates, follow on Twitter or subscribe.
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