Author: Cindy

As the presidential primaries roll on, I find myself increasingly contemplating the question, is the American electorate ready to elect a phenotypically black president? I want to believe that I am part of a culture that would answer, “Of course I will vote for him, if he has a sound exit strategy for Iraq, good ideas about healthcare, and a fiscal policy that makes sense to me.” Alas, you can’t always get what you want – and increasingly, we can’t seem to even get what we need.…

That’s right – I changed my unit of analysis from a “part” to an “episode.” Those of you who teach, especially in the world of small, highly interactive classrooms full of undergraduates, will understand that the experience is enough like a sitcom to warrant the analogy.

Today’s episode took place in my senior capstone Anthropological Theory seminar during the final class meeting. We were munching on local delicacies such as shrimp tacos, carnitas tortas, and enchiladas verde, when students asked me to talk more about “that HTS controversy” and the AAA’s.…

Yesterday I walked into the classroom of my Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology class and passed two young women deeply engaged in an animated discussion.  The snippet I overheard was part of a recounted conversation: “…and I was all, ‘Geeze, she’s your professor!!’  I mean seriously, would it kill him to codeswitch?  It’s just stupid…”  Her conversational partner was nodding affirmatively in shared disdain.

Don’t you love it when the anthropology actually takes?!…

When understanding culture is your abiding interest and passion, everyday is a good day to be an anthropologist, however yesterday supplied us with some particularly exciting media happenings.

First of all, news broke that during his appearance at Columbia University, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had let it be known that there are no gay people in Iran. This is an exciting development for anthropologists wishing to study one of those ever elusive “purely heterosexual” societies.…

Not only am I not arguing what you say I am, I’m arguing some of the things you say I’m not.

Your title, “circling the wagons,” implies the exact opposite of what I was suggesting. This metaphor suggests insularity and defensiveness, at best. In fact, my essay could easily be interpreted as a call to anthropologists to come out of the closet and start insisting on their relevance not only to the academy, but to the world.…

For me, the short answer to this question is obviously, yes. We want EVERYONE to know and love the concept that we consider to be our finest intellectual creation, the lynchpin of our diverse discipline. And yet, could it be the case that we have shared ourselves out of jobs, or worse yet, allowed our baby to be turned into the “working girl” of the social sciences? This is the undercurrent of Tony Waters’ opinion piece from the December 2006 issue of the AAA Newsletter entitled, “Who Stole Culture From Anthropology?”…

Most everyone in the anthropological community is familiar with the controversial human skeletal find known as Kennewick Man. Discovered in 1996 by some hikers on the Columbia River, Washington, Kennewick Man was initially identified as a 19th century Euro-American settler, but closer inspection revealed a projectile point embedded in his pelvis that was common about 9,000 years ago, a date that radiocarbon dating later confirmed. In short, Kennwick Man sparked an epic controversy around two primary topics: 1) who should have legal stewardship of the remains; and 2) what was “Kenne’s” race.…