Around the Web Digest: Week of August 3

Here are some stories that you might have missed this week. If you have any links or articles that you’d like me to include next week, please send them my way at richard.powis@gmail.com or on Twitter @dtpowis, and I’ll give you a hat-tip. I should be getting back to posting the Digest on Sundays, starting next week – thank you for not being picky about it in the meantime.

Let’s go.  

Stories by anthropologists:

Glenn Stone wrote on the latest bill in Missouri that will guarantee the right of “farmers and ranchers to engage in farming and ranching practices” – whatever that means. (fieldquestions)

Michael E. Smith explored the sometimes complex issue of authorship, particularly when writing with one’s students. (Publishing Archaeology)

Robert Martin explained what we know about human menstruation, but ultimately there is still a great deal that we don’t. (Psychology Today)

Allegra Lab amplified the questions raised by Ahmed Katharda and Ghassan Hage: Was the declaration “Never Again!” only meant for specific groups of people who had suffered atrocities of recent memory, e.g. Jews and South Africans? (Allegra Lab)

Signithia Fordham reflected on her development of the Fordham-Ogbu Hypothesis and its enduring relevance almost 30 years later, but wonders why she doesn’t often get credit for her work. Are women of color more likely to be ignored by American society? (H/T Marian Swanzy-Parker) (Center for American Progress)

Maurizio Meloni discussed epigenetic remaking and the production of local biologies in the context of political epistemologies. (Somatosphere)

Emma Louise Backe sat down with linguist and novelist Donna Jo Napoli to discuss the relationship between her research and her books. (The Geek Anthropologist)

Ian Lowrie commented on Jeremy Rifkin’s Zero Marginal Cost Society, “Internet of Things,” and the end of capitalism. (CASTAC Blog)

Paul Stoller peered into the window of “how ill-informed we are about disease, geography, and culture,” via media coverage of the Ebola outbreak. (HuffPo)

Stories about anthropology/ists: 

New Republic covered the recent work of Tanya Luhrmann, who found that “schizophrenics around the world” hear different types of voices. (New Republic)

Featuring our very own Alex Golub, BBC has a piece on uncontacted tribes and their often miserable fates. (BBC)

It’s not exactly anthropology, but Christina Sharpe has written a scathing review of (sociologist) Alice Goffman’s ethnography, “On the Run.” (H/T Marian Swanzy-Parker) (The New Inquiry)

Stories for anthropologists: 

Carsten Timmermann, a historian of medicine, responded to Richard Horton’s attack on such historians as “invisible, inaudible and . . . inconsequential.” (Somatosphere)

Queer industrial blogger Strigiform wrote on a public encounter with an ally, and what makes a good ally. (Industrial Anti-Oppression)

Over 130 geneticists are calling shenanigans on Nicholas Wade. (Nature News Blog)

There is so much to consider with ectogenesis (or artificial wombs) – is it a feminist technology or another excuse to avoid changing a structure that penalizes pregnancy? How will (or can) doctors duplicate epigenetic effects and bacterial ecology? Are the benefits worth the risks? (Motherboard)

Addiction might be better understood (and less stigmatized) if we view it as a learning disorder. (Pacific Standard)

Some ridiculous white people developed an app to help other ridiculous white people avoid non-white neighborhoods. (Valley Wag)

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.