Comments on: The anthropology of the New York Review of Books /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology Fri, 08 Dec 2017 18:00:10 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.1 By: Rex /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/comment-page-1/#comment-24612 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:00:17 +0000 /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/#comment-24612 I agree with John, but with a rider. I often hear people say that academics can’t ‘get their message out’ to ‘the public’ because of their terrible prose, which is true as far as it goes. But sometimes people saying this assume that _within_ the university people actually enjoy reading this kind of stuff! I think readability results in impact within the university as well, and just because we _can_ read the turgid stuff dosn’t mean we like to. So yeah — good prose counts. But everywhere.

]]> By: John McCreery /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/comment-page-1/#comment-24467 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 07:35:55 +0000 /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/#comment-24467 You can say that again. Arguably there is no greater barrier to dissemination of what anthropologists have to say than the turgid prose that fills most academic journals.

A few should be kept, perhaps, for use in initiation ceremonies: “Your next test will be to read the following 20 articles. Use of aspirin, other headache remedies or stimulants will result in immediate disqualification.”

]]> By: Strong /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/comment-page-1/#comment-24455 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 07:02:32 +0000 /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/#comment-24455 I love the NYRB. I also love the London Review of Books, which also publishes stuff by heady folks and is much more cutting edge than the rather stuffy TLS. I like the style that academics adopt when publishing in these mainline book reviews: less formal, more open, more captivating.

]]> By: Erkan's field diary /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/comment-page-1/#comment-24440 Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:50:53 +0000 /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/#comment-24440 Anthropology and the CIA…

From Savage Minds: “Inside Higher Ed is running a column on the AAA’s attempts to figure out the ethical implications of collaborating with the government’s intelligence community……… AND The anthropology of the New York Review of Books The Mu…

]]> By: Kerim /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/comment-page-1/#comment-24084 Mon, 04 Sep 2006 04:35:01 +0000 /2006/09/03/the-anthropology-of-the-new-york-review-of-books/#comment-24084 The NYRB continues to be one of the best non-academic journals around. Almost every issue has at least one or two excellent articles, and they were way ahead of other journals in producing first rate criticism of the war in Iraq. They have had great articles on debates in evolutionary biology, philosophy of the mind, and a wide range of other topics. I think they suffer because of their name – only some of their articles are “book reviews” in the traditional sense, and many people seem to get them confused with the NY Times Book Review section … They can still be awfully stodgy and old-fashioned at times (their film criticism is awful), but there is more than enough good stuff there to make up for that.

I didn’t know about the Leach articles, I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!

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