Anthropology roundup: “2015 AAA Leadership Fellows Program…”The plight of the Assyrians…

2015 AAA Leadership Fellows Program

The AAA Leadership Fellows Program provides a unique opportunity for anthropologists early in their careers to learn about leadership opportunities within the association. Each year a group of three to five fellows will be paired with a mentor chosen from among AAA leadership. Mentors are available to fellows throughout the year to answer questions related to AAA. Fellows shadow their mentors at the AAA Annual Meeting in meetings of the Executive Board, Association Committees, and Section Committees. In addition, fellows are invited to attend the AAA Donors Reception and a Leadership Fellows Social bringing together past and present cohorts of fellows.
The plight of the Assyrians

ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art

ISTANBUL — The reports are like something out of a distant era of ancient conquests: entire villages emptied, with hundreds taken prisoner, others kept as slaves; the destruction of irreplaceable works of art; a tax on religious minorities, payable in gold.

Game of Anthros

Have you ever noticed how ‘anthros’ sort of sounds like ‘thrones’? Do you know why? BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE WANTS US TO REMIX ANTHROPOLOGY AND GAME OF THRONES.

Remix by Miriam Rigby. Used with permission
Remix by Miriam Rigby. Used with permission
Recipes for your National Anthropology Day

National Anthropology Day is on. The response on social media has been overwhelming. After a massive airdrop by the US of copies of The Nuer over Eastern Ukraine, guns have been silenced — although how long can it be before Putin begins distributing copies of Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka to Russian-speaking dissidents? At any rate, since I know many of you are in the middle of preparing for tonight’s festivities, I thought I’d include some helpful anthropological chocolate minty goaty electrical Chinese New Year related recipes.Anthropology is so important, all children should learn it
The Ecologist
Anthropology, the study of humankind, should be the first of all the sciences our children encounter, writes Marc Brightman, with its singular capacity to inspire the imagination, broaden the mind and open the heart. Moves to downgrade it in the .Cuba to Host International Convention of Anthropology
Prensa Latina
The Convention includes the Twelfth Symposium of PhysicalAnthropology Luis Montane, the Eighth Congress Primates as National Heritage, the Fifth Colloquium Primates through the Caribbean and the Fifth Symposium of Anthropology Manuel Rivero de la .The “visual anthropology” of Bayeté Ross Smith takes aim at hearts and minds
Orlando Weekly
Smith, a self-described “visual anthropologist,” condenses three of his anthropological projects into a single visual experience dominated by Taking AIM – a series of life-sized black-and-white portraits of African-American and Latino individuals .

Anthropology’s Long Tail, or AAA 2.0

Does anthropology have a long tail? Maybe it does, but the head really is superior. Isn’t that the idea behind science anyways? The best ideas are the vetted ideas and the rejected ideas are put to rest for a reason. Or maybe its not there at all. But then again…

A revised version of this post will appear in Pink, S., H. Horst, J. Postill, L. Hjorth, T. Lewis and J. Tacchi. 2015, Forthcoming. Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices. London: Sage.IN 2003 AND 2004 I conducted anthropological fieldwork in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Subang Jaya, Malaysia (Postill 2011). I was part of an international team of social anthropologists from the universities of Bremen, Manchester and Amsterdam studying e-governance initiatives in multi-ethnic areas of six different countries. The aim of this comparative project was to determine whether the internet was making any significant difference to local governance policies and practices in those localities. In my particular case, events on the ground led me to an unplanned focus on internet activism around local issues, and its implications for relationships between the municipal authorities and local residents (Postill 2012a).

“Gay” Catholics and an Adequate Anthropology
Catholic World Report
It is just here—at the level of what John Paul II calls an “adequateanthropology”—that Tushnet’s work falls short and undermines her otherwise laudable project. Tushnet’s attempts to depict an understanding of human sexuality that is essentially .

Data mining Wikipedia people reveals some surprising differences in the way eastern and western cultures identify important figures in history, say computational anthropologists.

Friction and the Newsing of Anthropology

AAA Executive Director, Ed Liebow, recently posted an Anthropology Newseditorial on the controversy which flaired up after they posted Peter Wood’sAnthropology News piece “Ferguson and the Decline in Anthropology.” In his editorial Liebow asks why the discussion about this piece has occured on Social Media and Blogs, not in the comments on Anthropology News itself:

ARM-IBM and the anthropology of DIY IoT
Techworld.com (blog)
… in the various sub-groups would feel the distinctions very keenly. There is clearly room for more than one IoT starter community, and more than one kind of starter kit. In the meantime, if someone is looking for a good subject for anAnthropology

However, anthropologists do over-use some words

As an anthropologist who also teaches academic writing, I was excited to readAnnie Claus’s essay, “How a professional writer improved my academic writing”at Savage Minds. Claus reflects on a writing course she took with a professor who had been a member of the New York Times editorial board, and how the course helped her improve her writing. She includes several “writing tips from a (real) pro” based on the experience.

Irrespective of one’s religious beliefs, a genome from the mid-1st century AD would be interesting. I am personally in favor of the scientific study of saints’ relics.
See also the best cultural anthropology dissertations of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.As in previous years, I did a key word search in Dissertation Abstracts International to find dissertations defended in 2014 that address topics related to the anthropologyworks mission. I continue to regret that this source provides information almost exclusively on U.S. dissertations, in other words, it is not “international.”
Hamline forensic anthropologist helps police identify old bones
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The bones that end up with forensic anthropologist Sue Myster come from the strangest places: construction projects, disturbed grave sites, long-hidden crime scenes. From medical samples carelessly thrown out in the woods. “It’s amazing what bones can

Slow Reading

[Savage Minds is pleased to run this essay by guest author Michael Lambek as part of our Writer’s Workshop series. Michael is Professor of Anthropology and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His recent publications include “The Interpretation of Lives or Life as Interpretation: Cohabiting with Spirits in the Malagasy World” (American Ethnologist, 2014 41(3): 491-503) and A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion (edited with Janice Boddy, Wiley-Blackwell), out in paper in fall 2015. The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person, and Value (University of Chicago Press) will also appear in the fall. For the University of Toronto Press, he edits the Anthropological Horizons series in ethnography.]Instructors on the frontlines report that undergraduate grades are falling into a bimodal distribution rather than the comfortable old bell curve. The majority do poorly, it is said, because they do not know how to write. I suggest the source of the problem lies one step behind writing, in reading.

Discover more from Erkan's Field Diary

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.