Around the Web Digest: Week of March 2

A couple weeks ago, when I took helm of the HMS Around the Web Digest (yeah, it’s British – it’s my ship and I do what I want), I was naïve enough to think that I would curate collections of themed articles. Alas, there is just so much good stuff that it’s really difficult at the end of the week to select the things that I don’t want to share. I do my best to cut the chaff (yeah, I just went from running a ship to processing wheat), so I apologize if it’s overwhelming. I am open to feedback! Anyway, if you have a blog article that you would like to be shared in the Around the Web Digest, just hit me at richard.powis@gmail.com or on Twitter @dtpowis. So here we go.

Digital anthropologist Danah Boyd’s new book, “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” has just come out. Once you finish reading the great interview that The Telegraph has done with her, you can go over to her website and read the book for free – because Danah Boyd and Yale University Press are awesome. (The Telegraph & Apophenia)

Speaking of open-access: The current issue of BioSocieties features four open-access discussions of Isabelle Stengers’ Cosmopolitics. The latest issue of Open Anthropology is out. This curated reader of newly-public articles is themed around “The Social Life of Health, Illness, Medicine, and Health Care.” And Aaron Seaman at Somatosphere draws our attention to the new issue of Health, Risk, & Society which is on “Risk, Pregnancy, and Childbirth.” (Just please don’t feed the trolls in the comments.) (BioSocieties, Open Anthropology, & Somatosphere)

Nicola Bulled has written a review of Erin P. Finley’s Fields of Combat, an ethnography of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and post-traumatic stress disorder. (Somatosphere)

And be sure to read Kerim’s review of Greg Grandin’s “The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World.” (Savage Minds)

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about how to manage your own colonies, a la mission civilisatrice, check out this 1940’s board game designed to do just that. (Slate)

At Allegra, Judith Beyer has provided a concise crash-course on Crimea from a constitutional perspective. (Allegra)

Kevin Karpiak’s blog Anthropoliteia on the anthropology of policing, is featuring a discussion, “What’s going on in Ukraine?” featuring articles from Michael Bobick and Monica Eppinger. (Anthropoliteia)

Anthropoliteia guest blogger Nolan Kline has written an excellent piece on the anthropology of Robocop (with spoilers of the newest incarnation). (Anthropoliteia)

Monsanto would make for a good villain in a dystopic Robocop universe, but progress will never be made through hyperbole. (Modern Farmer)

If you like list-based humour, this week Cracked featured an article on six things movies don’t show you about archaeology. That doesn’t mean it’s boring though, according to Colleen Morgan (and John Hawks) who would really like it if you would stop telling your students such things. (Cracked, Middle Savagery, & john hawks’ weblog)

Ian Lowrie has published an enlightening two-part interview with Dominic Boyer on the anthropology of infrastructure. (CASTAC)

Jonathan Metzl inventories the latest item into the Commonplaces collection at Somatosphere: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as the DSM. (Somatosphere)

Slate predicts that the newest attack on LGBTQIA communities will be a brazen misuse of Foucault in order to deny the existence of…well, sexuality. Similarly, Comrade Rick Santorum has again misused Marx in order to assert that class does not exist in the United States. I’m just impressed that conservatives know who Marx and Foucault are. (Slate & MSNBC)

Most importantly: Mammal March Madness 2014 begins tomorrow! GO POLAR BEAR, GO! (Mammals Suck…Milk)

Dick Powis

Dick Powis is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research interests include men and childbirth, prenatal screening technologies, and reproductive health in urban settings in Senegal. Read more at dickpowis.com.