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Nacirema Thinking

Culture and Truth - Body Ritual among the Nacirema

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.

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, education, human nature, textbooks Leave a comment

What is Anthropology?

Ingold - Anthropology Education - What is Anthropology - Human Life

To the question of “What is Anthropology?”: Anthropology is a generous comparative inquiry into the conditions & potentials of human life.

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Categories What is Anthropology? Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, education, human nature, introduction to anthropology, Tim Ingold 15 Comments

Relevant Teaching for the 21st Century

Defending Anthropology Social Media Workshop

4-5 February 2016 at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill: “Defending Anthropology 101 and the Mega-Class: Relevant Teaching for the 21st Century.”

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, human nature, textbooks Leave a comment

Bring Sanity to Gun Violence

War, Peace, and Human Nature - Gun Control Podcast

As gun violence continues in the United States, this gun control podcast reflects on how anthropology can bring sanity and contribute to political debate.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags ambushing anthropology, cultural relativism, culture, gun violence, human nature, political economy, politics, racism Leave a comment

Culture, Culture, Everywhere

culture

With anthropologists saying many things about culture, is it any wonder the students and the public are confused?

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags anthropology branding, culture, genetics, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, race, racism, Ruth Benedict, textbooks, Tim Ingold Leave a comment

Introduction to Anthropology Course 2015

introduction to anthropology course description

Preview of a 2015 Introduction to Anthropology course using a new 3rd-edition textbook, Anthropology:What Does It Mean to Be Human?

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags human nature, immigration, introduction to anthropology, textbooks 18 Comments

hope: the first anthropological emotion

Anthropological Hope

“The first anthropological emotion is hope” (Carole McGranahan) and also via Ingold, Trouillot, Lennon & Ono “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags empathy, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics, Tim Ingold 2 Comments

The Other Side of Participant Observation

Teaching cultural anthropology

Resources and thoughts on Teaching Cultural Anthropology for fall 2014: “Teaching is the other side of participant observation” (Tim Ingold, Making 2013:13)

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, fieldwork, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Nicholas Wade, race, racism, Ruth Benedict, textbooks, Tim Ingold 7 Comments

Margaret Mead & Jared Diamond

Shankman - Trashing Margaret Mead - Public Anthropology

What makes Jared Diamond possible? Discussant commentary for the panel “Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements.”

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Categories Anthropologists Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, Eric Wolf, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, Ruth Benedict, Sidney Mintz 13 Comments

Entangling the Biological

Introduction to Anthropology

An Introduction to Anthropology course for 2014, with emphasis on “entangling the biological” and the relevance of anthropology for important dialogue.

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags anthropology branding, culture, education, evolution, human nature, immigration, primatology, race, textbooks Leave a comment

Irony, Paradox, Uncertainty

Advertising Missionaries

Pairing “Advertising Missionaries” with “A Fragmented Globality” to ask “What, if anything, is truly new about our times?” (Trouillot 2003:47)

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags anthropology branding, capitalism, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, occupy, planning, political economy, textbooks 15 Comments

Fetishizing Fieldwork on the Road to Essentialism

Anthropology Beyond Culture - Adieu Culture

Fieldwork and the ethnographic monograph invited closure around cultural wholes. Anthropology can defend the concept of culture while jettisoning the word.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, David Brooks, education, fieldwork, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics, race, racism, Ruth Benedict, textbooks, Tim Ingold 9 Comments

Globalization Stories

McNeill - Global Condition - Globalization Stories

Contemporary stories of globalization erase centuries of contact and encounter: Exploring the North Atlantic fiction of modernity as a seductive universal.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags capitalism, cultural relativism, culture, Eric Wolf, Fernando Coronil, globalization, human nature, immigration, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, race mixing, Ruth Benedict, Sidney Mintz 18 Comments

When Culture Looks like Race

Susanne Kuehling - Dobu

Anthropology saw culture as anti-race, yet descriptions of Dobu in Patterns of Culture, show culture reified–and looking a lot like race.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags capitalism, cultural relativism, culture, fieldwork, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Ruth Benedict, textbooks 8 Comments

The Concept of Culture

Patterns of Culture - Ruth Benedict Concept of Culture

Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture translated Boasian Anthropology and its concept of culture to a mass audience. Plus problematic cultural wholes.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, education, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, race, Ruth Benedict, textbooks 18 Comments

Anthropology Is Your Ally

Wallerstein - End of the World as We Know It - Social Science and Humanities

An impassioned plea to lower the arrogance decibels. In the wake of Steven Pinker’s “Science Is Not Your Enemy” assessing humanities & science together.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, education, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, planning, political economy, politics, Sidney Mintz, Tim Ingold 12 Comments

We Cannot Abandon Humanity

Virtual War and Magical Death - Bill Gates

When Bill Gates recommends Jared Diamond & Steven Pinker, reiterate anthropology’s calling: “the fate of no human group can be irrelevant to humankind” (Trouillot).

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Categories What is Anthropology? Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, Eric Wolf, gun violence, human nature, immigration, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, occupy, political economy, politics 9 Comments

Epigenetics & Human Nature

Everett - Language The Cultural Tool - Epigenetics

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.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, David Brooks, ethnobiogeny, evolution, genetics, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, natural selection, politics, racism, Sidney Mintz, Tim Ingold 13 Comments

Party Like It’s 1999… with Napoleon Chagnon!

War in the Tribal Zone & Napoleon Chagnon

If “anthropology’s future depends largely on its ability to contest the Savage slot” (Trouillot) then what about Napoleon Chagnon?

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Categories Anthropologists Tags agriculture, ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Nicholas Wade, political economy, politics, Sidney Mintz 23 Comments

Gun Control & Shoddy Anthropology

Douglas Fry - Beyond War - Gun Control and Shoddy Anthropology

Arguments against gun control are rooted in shoddy anthropology: ideas about human nature, culture & history which anthropology does not support.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, gun violence, human nature, Jared Diamond, political economy, politics, Ruth Benedict 23 Comments

Testosterone Anthropology

Mothers and Others - Testosterone

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s intriguing ideas on testosterone changes in “Mothers and Others” is answered by longitudinal anthropology on fatherhood testosterone.

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Categories Biological Anthropology Tags evolution, gender, genetics, human nature, sexuality, textbooks 1 Comment

Childcare, Culture & Power

Meredith Small - Our Babies Ourselves

Meredith Small, “Our Babies, Ourselves” introduces many ways to raise babies, the biocultural of neurologically unfinished infants. But does this elide power?

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, education, gender, human nature, Jared Diamond, textbooks 8 Comments

War, Peace, & Human Nature

War, Peace, and Human Nature - Gun Control Podcast

Wonderful recent volume shows how views of human nature as inherently warlike stem not from the facts but from cultural views embedded in Western thinking.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags agriculture, ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, evolution, gun violence, human nature, Jared Diamond, natural selection, niche construction, primates, primatology, textbooks 25 Comments

Jared Diamond, Science, Violence & the Facts

Brian Ferguson - Yanomami Warfare

The Ax Fight shows how Yanomami used steel axes long before anthropologists arrive. The Jared Diamond violence calculations must consider interconnection.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags agriculture, ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Ruth Benedict 37 Comments

Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes – Survival Intl

Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes

Papuan leaders jump into the discussion, as Stephen Corry and Survival International challenge two very public figures–Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, Eric Wolf, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics 8 Comments
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© 2011-2023 Jason Antrosio. All Rights Reserved. This blog is a personal project and does not represent the views of any institutions or employers, current or previous. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.