What Flavor Are We?
From Small Wars Journal:
Strong is Thomas Strong, lecturer in the department of anthropology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He has previously held teaching and/or research posts at the University of Helsinki, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Wisconsin, and (oddly enough) the American Academy of Ophthalmology. His publications include essays on the symbolism of blood and body in the U.S. and elsewhere, new cross-disciplinary work on kinship, and ideas of culture loss and bodily detumescence amongst the Dano-speakers of Papua New Guinea's eastern highlands province. His on-going research in PNG concerns transformations in sociality, gender relations, and personhood following the mid-twentieth-century repudiation of the traditional men's cult in the upper Asaro valley. His other interests include 'brand' as an ethnographic and analytic concept, HIV/AIDS (especially in the U.S. gay male community), and celebrity/fame.
Nothing to galvanize anthropologists like some good ol’ right-wing nut opposition, heh?
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Simplistic, but not unreasonable. I can understand the view from the outside that anthropology (and academia in general) is characterised by self-indulgence. And while I’m luckily in a position to see that there’s more to it than JUST self-indulgence, I certainly think we could afford to be more attentive to why people might feel that there’s a disconnection.
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lol — I think they’ve got us pegged… or at least the rest of you… :)
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arrrggh. I’m having military+anthropology discussion fatigue(s). I think we should branch out, maybe contract with Small Wars to start a “Savage Hearts and Small Minds” blog, in an attempt at reconciliation. It’s a rocky road, I know, but it would allow us to go back to our normal vanilla posts.
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My eyes water Dr. Kelty, very funny. Would that be a blog for or about military anthropologists? If you called it “Savage Wars and Small Minds” you could sum up the whole debate, heck the whole past 6 years, with the title alone.
Meanwhile I see James Watson is in trouble again for calling Black people thick. If you post about it us unwashed commenters can line up to kick him (with rational evidence of course, nothing ad hominem).
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But nobody has answered Strong’s question: what flavor of (self-licking) ice cream *is* Savage Minds?! I’ve been thinking and thinking, and contemplating the Baskin-Robbins list of ice cream flavors, and I just can’t decide. “Wild-n-Reckless” (swirl of green apple, blue raspberry and fruit punch sherbets) sounded funny but not really appropriate for the amount of contemplation that evidently goes into the postings. Oregon Blackberry would be appropriate for the contributors who went to Reed College but you didn’t all go there, did you? Maybe Maui Brownie Madness (lowfat chocolate yogurt swirled with chunks of brownie, macadamia nuts, and a chocolate fudge ribbon) for the Hawaii-based. But I’m not really sure where everyone is from (and in cyberspace that seems like an inappropriate way to tag people) so that line of thinking has fizzled. I’m leaning towards Splish Splash, simply because I have no idea what’s in it.
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Surely it has to be Rocky Road.
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