The Physics Delusion: The Economist reported on the “largest-ever scientific study of [religion]” (their words not mine). The story begins at CERN labs, where scientists are going to use the “Large Hadron Collinder” to find “The God Particle.” The plot meanders for a while, but then things pick up again when the scientists tells a group of undergrads about the ghost of a dead graduate student. [Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for finding this gem].
Photography without Weeping: The NY Times published this article on the rising trend of poverty tours in major third world cities. [In order to access NYT articles, you need a free account].
The (not so) Secret Lives of Faculty: Another NY Times article- this one on growing trend of faculty profiles on social networking websites. The article talks with faculty who have myspace and facebook profiles as well as some professors who have participated on “Professors Strike Back,” a MTV online forum for faculty to respond to student critiques from the now-infamous ratemyprofessor.com.
National Geographic reported that the world crunch for oil is starting to put more pressure on voluntarily isolated Amazonian indigenous groups.
Tenure, cont.: A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that there was going to be a Hollywood movie about tenure. Insidehighered.com did a feature piece on Tenure and the genre of the professor movie.
Oldies but Goods: Material World pointed readers to an article by David Wengrow (available here) on the “Prehistories of Commodity Branding.”
Speaking of Material Culture… Here is a cute article on Slate about the Death and Life of the Phonebook. The author casually mentions near the end of the first page that there is no scholarly monograph to date on the subject. Any takers?
Deep Play: Casey O’Donnell at Remixing Anthropology asks What would ethnography look like if it were a video game?
Classic Comedy: Who doesn’t love a kitchy t-shirt? Plus, I feel like it’s one of the tamer physical anthropology jokes.
[Update: Please do send suggestions for the weekly roundup to anthrohomo@gmail.com. Suggestions certainly make writing a roundup easier.]
this feature is becoming more inane each week! From links to fictional movies about professors to articles about msn chats and now more links to articles about mtv and myspace…is this really the best of what’s available online about anthropology? And may I ask, why did it not seem important to include links to things anthropologists might actually want to read about – such as the AAA submission deadline?
Or, if you just want to include news and blog updates, at least include links to relevant and pertinent articles. For instance, this week alone, the Seattle Times published an article about a recent anthropological study of homelessness. Also, the Wall Street Journal had a deeply interesting and problematic article just two days ago about an anthropologist from the University of Utah studying genes as “human history”. And, again in the same week, the UK’s Time Online published a lengthy piece on circumcision, in which anthropologists were framed as largely reducing circumcision to identity politics.
Notably, these are just three of the many noteworthy articles circulating online that don’t appear anywhere on your list. However, my point is not that your list in faulty because it lacks relevant links, but because it seems to be aimed at a diluted, superficial, and frankly unintellectual version of academic discourse. sorry, but neither msn chats nor social networking sites seems worthy of such extended attention, especially when there is substantial material out there that is worth noting!
THe comments on Savage Minds are becoming more inane each week! From ranting about savage minds as if it were some kind of institution to complaining that its too much like a blog … is this really the best of what’s available in the anthropological blogging community? And may I ask, why did it seem OK to rant about the failings of the above roundup when Jay has, on numerous occasions, proffered his e-mail address for readers to submit suggestions for posts to be included in the weekly roundup.
Narnia,
I hear parts of your critique. Certainly my tone was a little more irreverent than usual. And not everything gets included. But I take issue with the charge that social networking websites and msn chats are not substantial.
And thanks to Kerim for reminding me to include an email address where you can send suggestions for future editions.
Jay, I say ignore the haters and keep wearing funny sun glasses.
Ooh, I do like funny sunglasses.
narnia: or, you could post some of those links here yourself, via comments, if you want! then no pesky emailing!
The standard ’round up’ of anthropology in the news is here:
http://anthropology.tamu.edu/news.htm
and has been for far longer than this blog has been around.
I don’t think there is actually a place where you can go to find Serious And Problematic Discussion Of Whether Anthropology Is Doing Its Job As An Activist Discipline in current affairs. If you’d like to start one I think that would be great.
Failing that, however, I do think we should start a new policy that when these ‘around the web’ posts come up, people leave additional links in the comments rather than emailing them to Jay. Then everyone could use SM as their soap box.
So let’s get started — Narnia, could you post the links to those stories rather than describing them for us?
@Kerim, I personally like the mix. The mix not only allows those “outside” to come in, but also those “inside” to come out, as it were. Social networking and MSN are definitely worth attention, and it is often thanks to SM that this becomes evident.