Savage Minds Around the Web

For Your Consideration: The Harvard students’ newspaper interviewed anthropology professor Kimberly Theidon about the Academy Award nominated documentary “The Milk of Sorrow” that is inspired by Theidon’s 2004 book Entre Prójimos.  The twist?  Theidon did not know at first that her book on sexual violence against women in Peru was the inspiration for the film.

For Your Listening Pleasure: BBC Radio is streaming an audio report chronicling the story of Malinowski and the invention of field work.  Some things will make you raise your eyebrow, while other comments will make you roll your eyes.  Features interviews with Adam Kuper amongst others.

Anthropologists Do it Better: Tony Waters (a sociologist by training) from ethnography.com writes on why the International Studies Association (ISA) just doesn’t do it for him, and how AAA’s is where it’s at.  The best part of the story is when Waters is pulled into a meeting with a bunch of government bureaucrats on providing humanitarian aid to Nigeria.  He describes it this way:

The other NGO guy and I were the only ones there not in suit and tie.  We were also the only ones not dropping names of White House contacts, or mumbling about how we had such-and-such a security clearance from the US government but didn’t know what was happening in Nigeria.

Yeah, I’d stick to AAAs too.

‘Merck’y Transactions: On Somatosphere, guest contributor Ari Samsky posted a piece on the multinational pharamaceutical companies’ donations of medicine to the global south and the formulation of a ‘scientific sovereignty’ that results.

Sound Off: Hendrik Hertzberg wrote a brief piece for the New Yorker online on Rush Limbaugh’s race-baiting insinuation that Barack Obama turns African American English on and off in order to appeal to different constituencies.  (Limbaugh went as far as accusing the president of reading ‘aks’ off the teleprompter.)  For a further analysis, see this piece on Language Log (and thanks to the Log for originally linking to the Henzberg piece).

Morning Cup of Evolutionary Psychology (Now with slightly less of that eugenic aftertaste):  You might disagree with the reasoning, results, and even the premise of this Time Article linking liberalism, atheism, and monogamy to a higher IQ in men.  But, at least some readers will also get a sense of self-satisfaction.

Want to share something with SM readers?  Post in comments below, or email.

5 thoughts on “Savage Minds Around the Web

  1. Malinowski “pitched a tent among the natives”? Come on BBC, that’s just juvenile.

  2. After having finished listening to the piece I have to say that it was excellent. I rolled my eyes almost not at all.

    Adam Kuper’s witchcraft anecdote was gold.

  3. Excellent, indeed. If I were teaching the history of anthropology or anthropological theory, I would definitely want my students to hear this.

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