~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
Living in another country means that you are always drawing comparisons with your own culture. Sometimes it seems like globalization runs rampant. Commonalities are seen all around you, in our case between our home in California, and our temporary home in southern Germany. An example is my daughter’s analysis of the television show “Deutschland Sucht den Superstar” (DSDS), which in English is “Germany searches for a Superstar.”
“Just like ‘American Idol,’” Kirsten said. …
Today I attended a memorial mass celebrating the life of a friend and colleague, Dr. John Alfred Pierre Dennis, Jr., who died on February 9, 2008 (b. 10/21/48). Dr. D, as he was known to students, was one of those people whose spirit literally seemed to linger in the room after he left – making it a better place than it had been before he entered. There are other articles where you can read about the tragic circumstances of his death (he was murdered in his home by a former mentee), or the triumphs of his professional life (for example, he was one of a relatively small number of African-Americans with a PhD in history from Stanford University), but I wanted to take a moment to share a few personal remembrances.…
As somebody who is going through same major transitions in life, I’ve been thinking about how important mentors are in one’s life. I would bet there are very few people in this world who truly believe that they got where they are in life completely alone. As in my case, there are many different people throughout our lives who could be considered “mentors” because they’ve taken some of their valuable time and donated it to someone else’s well-being.…
Hello from a random TA truckstop along I-10 in Arizona. I spent 10 years of my life criss-crossing the country as a performer and I have to say I have a major soft spot for a good truck stop. I have eaten in them, showered there, caught up on the news, and spent many, many nights sleeping in my car at them. TA, 76, Pilot, Flying J, these will be familiar names to any of the over the roaders.…
So it’s midterm time, and also time for me to do my self-check (stolen from my colleague and best pal, Cindy herself): have the students write down the most interesting, most confusing, and most important things they have learned so far in the class.
Thus far, we’ve been reading Margaret Mead’s Growing Up in New Guinea. So a lot of the confusion involved cross-cousins, tabu, and the intricacies of so-called primitive life in 1920s New Guinea. …
Letter of recommendation writing season has come and passed. I probably did 10 or 15 letters for a variety of academic jobs, graduate school applications, and served as a reference on a couple more job applications. I do not mind writing the letters, because I know that my students need to get past this hurdle. I also always try to do well by them, although without fabricating things. But there are things that bug me about this whole process, such as the forms that ask us to make untenable numerical estimates of a students abilities (i.e.…
Every year in Monterey, CA there is a famous conference called TED. Think of it as the Burning Man of the Digerati and Intelligencia crowd. Invitation-only and a few thousand bucks to attend. The speakers are often very high profile, or obscure and thought provoking. Thomas Barnett has been a Pentagon adviser on how the military and how its used must change for many years. In this talk on the need to two kinds of military force, you can get a glimmer of where cultural expertise can be applied in an ethical and transparent manner: The abstract of his presentation from the TED website sums it up well:
“In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M.…
As I described in one of my previous blogs, I am part of an inter-disciplinary research team at Fresno State University. Our team is comprised of three computer engineering students, a business student, and myself, an anthropology student. As part of their senior project, the engineers are developing a proto-type piece of technology. Our team is developing a voice-activated remote control and part of our research efforts are focusing on how to differentiate our product to make it more desirable and user-friendly than those already on the market.…
Amazon is very bad for my wallet, as I can’t help buying a book with a provocative title. In this case “The Ethics of Coercion in Mass Casualty Medicine” that I happened to spot in my random browsing. It’s one of those titles that seems contradictory on its face, how do coercion and medicine go together? I have just started the book, and its always a good sign with the preface gives you view you had not considered before.…
It is clear to me that the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is rapidly becoming (already has become?) irrelevant to and un-supportive of the needs of anthropologists working in corporate, military, and other contexts where the methods are used as part of a deep, day-to-day hands-on practice. But the rift between applied and academia is an old one. I think its time to seek other options, namely to back an association independent of the AAA.…
Germany is known for its green attitude towards the environment and recycling. It is a leader in wind and solar energy, and has an excellent public transportation system which keeps many of us off the roads. There are also many recycling programs, with machines that collect recyclable bottles, and pay back deposits in many grocery stores. The recycling extends even into the household where we separate, clean, and collect various kinds of trash.…
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.…