More Crystal Skull geekage

Entertainment Weekly (yes, I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, not Atlantic Monthly. Sorry.) is featuring “another story on the new Indiana Jones flick”:http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20192043,00.html (unfortunately, only 1 picture of CB’s bangs tho) and — more mind-bendingly — Archaeology Magazine has its own cover feature on “The Truth Behind The Crystal Skull”:http://www.archaeology.org/0805/etc/indy.html. Archaeology is the official journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, which is sort of the applied wing of the Indiana Jones mythos. I have a soft spot in my heart for the AIA because of its willingness to admit that being an archaeologist is cool. What would happen if cultural anthropologists produced a glossy journal documenting the glamorous exploits of cultural anthros? Its exactly the sort of ‘public’ anthropology that would probably get us some attention…

Blog post
Rex

Alex Golub is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His book Leviathans at The Gold Mine has been published by Duke University Press. You can contact him at rex@savageminds.org

16 thoughts on “More Crystal Skull geekage”

  2. Faces is a glossy “world cultures” magazine for kids 9-14; it’s published by the same people who publish Cricket, which is a literary mag for teens that publishes folktales from around the world (among other things). Very high production value (and expensive) — too bad there’s nothing like it for grown-ups. Maybe if we stapled all the anthro stuff from Smithsonian together…

  3. “Colors”:http://www.colorsmagazine.com is pretty glossy (well, matt often actually), and although it is obviously not really what you have in mind, I have always enjoyed its anthro-ish fascination with variation, materiality, networks and so forth. Heavy on images, heavy on message, light on analysis, but for example the current issue is “Money” and includes a piece on the market for blood in Iraq – you look at a few photos, you read a few quotes, and you think not only is there a world of ethnographic possibility, but there’s more there than you will ever get from the HTS teams. (website is Flash laden and PDF generating…how 1998)

  4. Meh – Anthronow is about how anthropology is ‘relevant’, and Faces is just about multiculturalism. What we don’t have is a “it’s great to be an anthropologist! Here are the latest discoveries from anthropology! Learn more about how to do anthropology here!”

    …I think maybe its that ‘latest discoveries’ thing that is holding us back….

  5. Rex, you expect a lot from a field that only discovered there were women in its field sites in 1974! (At least we’re not economists, though.)

    But honestly, who do you think is the general audience for “It’s Great to be an Anthropologist Monthly”?

    How about “National Anthropologic”, featuring pictures of naked natives — now *that* would sell! It would be morally reprehensible, of course.

  6. “you expect a lot from a field that only discovered there were women in its field sites in 1974!”

    Tell that to Malinowksi.

  7. My model for this would be Wallpaper, which is consistently chic, modern, and now, but also super global (in the 5 star sense of the term). And it pays attention to details.

  8. “featuring pictures of naked natives”

    I mistakenly read that as pictures of naked RELATIVES. Kinship porn really would be reprehensibly anthropological.

  9. Strong, do you have a URL for Wallpaper? A Google search pops up all sorts of sites, but most have to do with either the material world version that goes on walls or the virtual version that goes on computer screens. Or is one of these what you were talking about?

    John

  10. If I were launching a magazine about Anthropology, I’d think about starting with Thomas Kelley’s description of the anthropologist in _Ten Faces of Innovation_.

    bq. The Anthropologist is rarely stationary. Rather, this is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations. The Anthropologist is extremely good at reframing a problem in a new way, humanizing the scientific method to apply it to daily life. Anthropologists share such distinguishing characteristics as the wisdom to observe with a truly open mind; empathy; intuition; the ability to “see” things that have gone unnoticed; a tendency to keep running lists of innovative concepts worth emulating and problems that need solving; and a way of seeking inspiration in unusual places.

    Articles demonstrating the capacities Kelley admires so much could be very appealing to a general audience.

    Oh, well, just a thought.

  13. Interesting this post should come up; I have been thinking all week about what an anthropology magazine would look like and how it might work- be effective. It was the very same issue of Colors that started spinning my gears. However, I was fortunate enought to have just finished my economic anthropoloy course this year, which gave me a different lens to read it through; great issue, for sure.

  14. Interestingly, there’s a really interesting-looking anthro-ish magazine in Slovenia called Emzin. I can’t read Slovenian so I don’t know about the quality of the articles, but the articles themselves are quite lengthy and there’s an interesting mix of articles, artwork and glossy ads for handbags and lifestyle objects.

    Ah those Eastern Europeans. Not sure it would work in the US/UK, but you never know.

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