Is anthropology more important than ever?
New books in 2021 plug Anthro-Vision. But is anthropology more important than ever? After decades of teaching, we need to ask: What happened?
Ruth Benedict
Purpose of Living Anthropologically
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
Culture, Culture, Everywhere
With anthropologists saying many things about culture, is it any wonder the students and the public are confused?
Anthropology’s Brief Reign (2015)
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.
The Other Side of Participant Observation
Resources and thoughts on Teaching Cultural Anthropology for fall 2014: “Teaching is the other side of participant observation” (Tim Ingold, Making 2013:13)
Margaret Mead & Jared Diamond
What makes Jared Diamond possible? Discussant commentary for the panel “Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements.”
Fetishizing Fieldwork on the Road to Essentialism
Fieldwork and the ethnographic monograph invited closure around cultural wholes. Anthropology can defend the concept of culture while jettisoning the word.
How do we get out from culture?
Are there ways to counter the notion of “gang culture” without promoting myths of individualism? Can we usefully bring anthropology to the courtroom?
Globalization Stories
Contemporary stories of globalization erase centuries of contact and encounter: Exploring the North Atlantic fiction of modernity as a seductive universal.
When Culture Looks like Race
Anthropology saw culture as anti-race, yet descriptions of Dobu in Patterns of Culture, show culture reified–and looking a lot like race.
The 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.
anthropology will only matter if it evokes a purpose outside of itself
Thinking about the purpose of anthropology: “Ultimately, anthropology will only matter… if it evokes a purpose outside of itself” (Trouillot 2003, 5)
Gun Control & Shoddy Anthropology
Arguments against gun control are rooted in shoddy anthropology: ideas about human nature, culture & history which anthropology does not support.
Jared Diamond, Science, Violence & the Facts
The Ax Fight shows how Yanomami used steel axes long before anthropologists arrive. The Jared Diamond violence calculations must consider interconnection.
Patterns of Culture (1934) wins Jared Diamond (2012)
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture wins Jared Diamond for conceptual clarity, writing style, ethnographic example, and impact. Pretty good for 1934.
Cultural Relativism & Anthropology
An assessment of cultural relativism & anthropology in 2011 as “Before you Judge, Stand in Her Shoes” dueled with “Don’t walk a mile in her shoes.”
War on Terror
With death of Osama bin Laden, how anthropology supports pursuing criminals, not blanket “war on terror,” and anthropology questions xenophobic nationalism.
Cosmopolitanism & Cultural Relativism
Have the promoters of anthropological cosmopolitanism considered the proximity of Cosmopolitan the magazine? Does cosmopolitanism improve on cultural relativism?
Anthropology Textbooks: Doubling down on culture?
Kottak and Gezon’s Culture uses a magazine-style textbook to double down on culture in anthropology. That’s problematic–culture is already everywhere.
Popularizing Anthropology
Popularizing Anthropology: Learning some “code is poetry” roughly parallels what Ruth Benedict did before publishing Patterns of Culture in 1934.