Anthropology roundup: “11 Cutting-Edge Thinkers That Anthropologists Should Be Paying Attention to…

Well it wouldn?t be an unpaid internship in the 2014 if the bosses upstairs didn?t have me doing a listicle, so I?m proud to present to you a new feature: The Savage Minds Rundown. Every week, I?ll be bringing you an informative list of items that I think you should be paying attention to, if you want to impress your colleagues. This week, I bring you the top 11 big thinkers that you, as an anthropologist, should be reading right now.

Thanks to the incredible incredibilicity of our intern Angela, I?m happy to present an interview I recently did with Michael W. Scott. Michael is currently an associate professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and his book, The Severed Snake: Matrilineages, Making Place, and a Melanesian Christianity in Southeast Solomon Islands, appeared in 2007. Michael frequently uses the concept of ?ontology? in his work, so I sat down to talk with him today about this and other aspects of his intellectual project. I?ve broken the interview down into sections, so scroll down to read Michael?s thoughts on Marilyn Strathern and Roy Wagner, wonder, whether reality exists, politics, and how to do fieldwork.

Just a teaser from Ann Gibbons in Science:
In 2008, Siberian ivory carver Nikolay Peristov was searching for ancient mammoth tusks eroding from the banks of the Irtysh River in western Siberia,

I recently came across the blog post Naughty Librarians and the Eroticism of Intellect, which purports to explain the enduring appeal of the image of the ?sexy librarian? in modern life. Aside from the post?s dismissable evolutionary psychology conclusions, the author raises some interesting points about the ways the image of the librarian in our culture intersects with and embodies certain aspects of modern eroticism, grounding his or her (the author is identified as ?J.M. McFee? with no bio) argument in a highly individualized literary psychological approach.

Here’s Why Companies Are Desperate To Hire Anthropologists
Businessinsider India
Google, for example, hired an ethnographer to ferret out the meaning of mobile. Intel has an in-house cultural anthropologist, and Microsoft is reportedly the second-largest employer of anthropologists in the world. So the question becomes: Why are .

Fooling Ourselves: The Everyday role of Ritual
Scientific American (blog)
The risks were greater offshore which required greater preparations. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who visited and studied the Trobriand Islanders at the beginning of the 20th-century, found similar patterns of behavior in a host of activities .

Anthropologist Graham Jones receives the 2013 Edgerton Award
MIT News
The MIT faculty has presented Assistant Professor of Anthropology Graham Jones with the 2012?13 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award for his commitment to excellence and his embodiment of the values espoused by the legendary MIT Professor

Is there a canon of anthropological theory? Do we have a ?disciplinary history? of where we have been and where we are going? Sure, there are many grand narratives we tell of our discipline, but these stores tend to be tendentious and based on anecdotal. Can we find a more empirical, disinterested way to look for order in anthropology?s past?

[This post is part of a series featuring interviews with designers reflecting on anthropology and design. This is our final post!]

LAURA FORLANO. writer and design researcher.

WHAT I DO.

In celebration of the first ever Museum Week, Berghahn Journals is delighted to offer you free access to two special virtual issues. The first features a collection of articles from eleven of our journals spanning multiple disciplines which deliver scholarly and informed opinion on museum studies. Article topics include: Museums and Education, Museums and Memorials, and Museums and Society. The second virtual issue is a collection of exhibit reviews from our new journal, Museum Worlds: Advances in Research.

Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Matthew Timothy Bradley.

One of the things I want to do during my second go-round guest blogging at Savage Minds is to create a series of how-to posts?what is called ?service writing? in the commercial publishing world?about dressing for hot weather fieldwork. Prior to that, though, I want to offer this list of seven of my favorite academic articles about clothing. The list is meant to be fun, as are the photos and the video of mine I have included along with it, none of which are meant to be illustrative of the items discussed in the articles. Please do feel free to mention some of your own favorite clothing-related articles, books, broadcasts, or films in the Comments, as well as to link to any photos or videos of your own. (Seriously! Please do. ?)

By Greg Downey; (long read: 5500 words)

Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif succeeded to the sultanate of Morocco after his brother fell from a horse and died in 1672. Twenty-six when he became the Sharifian Emperor, Moulay Ismael ?the Bloodthirsty? ? as he was called ? went on to expand his holding in a remarkable reign. His armies conquered neighboring territories and fought off the Ottomans (eventually forcing them to recognize Moroccan independence), and the emperor went on a building spree to make Meknes a rival to Versailles, with French engineers to help.