Following up on some of the comments and discussion going on in Matt’s latest post, I wanted to open up a thread to talk a bit about this important question: WHO OWNS ANTHROPOLOGY? Do PhDs own anthropology? If so, which ones? PhDs in the US, Europe, Latin America? Who gets to define and control what anthropology is all about? And what about other degrees in anthropology–MAs and BAs? Where do they belong in the hierarchies we create? What about the general public–where do they fit? So feel free to comment and answer this question…and then maybe think about answering this question: Who SHOULD own anthropology? Ok, fire away.
Tag Archives: Blog post
Gillison, Sahlins, and NAS
I’ll break end-of-semester radio silence today to make some comments on Gillian Gillison’s recent article All for One and One for All: A Response to Marshall Sahlins. It’s a great example of how not to engage in academic argumentation — in fact it’s the opposite of Sahlins’s new piece at the London Review of Books which is actually worth reading.
You Too Can Have Mixed Results with Blackboard
Every semester I switch up my Introduction to Anthropology class a little. The big change this spring was that all the graded assignments were online. I tried this through a couple of different methods, one of which was Blackboard test course tool. It is relatively easy to figure things out on your own on Blackboard but the system itself doesn’t really invite one to explore. And it’s so unattractive. There’s all this stuff you can do with Blackboard that I’ve never tried before! I decided to give the test course tool a shot after my officemate gave it a hearty recommendation.
Overall, I’d have to say it’s been a net plus. It’s weird, but I actually missed some of the physicality of grading paper assignments, but maybe not enough to go back to analog assignments. Continue reading
Update: There was no change of heart (open access + a little satire)
I know this is a while after the fact, but I just wanted to make something very, very clear. The last post I wrote about open access, in which I supposedly had a “change of heart,” was 100 percent complete, absolute balderdash. It was satire. A joke. For April Fool’s Day. I realize that I never put a big “GOTCHA” in the post, so it could still be a little confusing. So, there you have it. Just wanted to make that nice and clear. Just to make sure that nobody takes that argument seriously. Thanks. As you were.
anthropology, race & racism III: oops, wrong guy edition
I have three links for you:
What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?
What happened next didn’t take long. “Investigators have a suspect—a Saudi Arabian national—in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.” That’s the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. The “Saudi suspect”—still faceless—suddenly gave anxieties a form.
Barhoum, a Moroccan immigrant who attends Revere High School outside Boston, apparently became aware yesterday that his photo was being linked to the bomb plot. In a Facebook post he assured his 1776 friends that “u will see guys I’m did not do anything.” Noting that “Shit is real,” Barhoum reported that he was going “to the court rightnow,” adding later that, “I’m just going to tell them that it was not me.”
3. Jezebel: It took two whole days for a random Muslim to get assaulted in Boston:
A Palestinian woman said she was assaulted while taking a late morning stroll with her baby daughter and friend by a man who accused her of being a terrorist. We thought someone would’ve been publicly attacked and berated for secretly planning the Boston Marathon bombings within hours of the explosions, but nope — racists managed to contain themselves for two days. Bravo. Continue reading
Readings, here and there, plus comments
Lots of things to read, but not much time to post about each one. So, why not post some snippets, links, and comments? Ok, I will then.
- Check out this important post by Kate Clancy about harassment and abuse in anthropological fieldwork. Here’s the intro:
It was getting late, the student center all but deserted. My old friend and I had a table to ourselves, awkwardly wedged among the chairs that had been set in a circle for an invited talk I had just given to some undergraduates about issues for women in science.
My friend alluded to having a challenging field site. Her face, which was usually open and bright, with a smile so infectious and delighted and thoroughly optimistic you couldn’t help but love her, was subdued, careful. She talked around it for a while. Then she told me of her sexual assault in the field.
Around the Web Digest
There hasn’t been an Around the Web Digest since the Savage Minds home site went down and we had to set up its temporary digs here. That means we’re over due for a round-up of February and March! You can receive (semi-)daily links via our twitter accnt @savageminds or by liking our Facebook page. If you’ve seen something around the web that you’d like to share with the Savage Minds community, mention us in a tweet with the link. You can also email me at [mdthomps@odu.edu].
Here’s a sample of what we’ve been reading. To the links!
February
- The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World. An online exhibition from the NYPL. /KF
- Nostalgic Americana of Ram truck Superbowl commercial ignores the immigrant face of farming today. //MT
- Lakota kids go to Afghanistan, make skateboards. Awesomeness ensues. //MT
- “We ask that you not call us professor” /KF
- Anthropologist Michele Rivkin-Fish likens N. Carolina gov. to Soviets on higher ed & jobs //MT
- “No more half-measures!” A call for Open Access and rapid change in the AAA’s publication portfolio. //MT
- “Register & Read” program lets you freely view, but not download, 3 JSTOR articles every 2 weeks. //MT
- Honoring natural selection’s most baffling creations. Go home, evolution, you are drunk. /KF
- “I want to aid in spreading the message [that cultural anthropology] should be extirpated from the academy” /KF
- “After reviewing the… data, I’m even more surprised …at how Diamond treats the ethnographic record” /KF
- If @bfister is involved with this journal than it will rock. – Rx
- Taíno descendants nurture their indigenous roots. //MT Continue reading
Sarah Kendzior on life after a PhD in anthropology
Check out this interview with Sarah Kendzior about life after the PhD. A lot to think about. And a lot that many people do not want to talk about. Here’s my favorite quote:
What I realized during my year on the job market is that having a traditional academic career is not as important to me as participating meaningfully in public life—and that the former actually precludes the latter. If I had an academic job, all my work would be behind a paywall. I would lose my audience and my integrity—because I would be working only for myself, only to meet tenure requirements, and I like to engage with the world. I speak to the public.
The Tangibility of a Social Network
One of the questions we asked in our surveys of adjuncts and post-adjuncts was about the nature of post-graduation support from one’s mentor and alma mater. I wondered whether any advisers cut former advisees off at some point; i.e. would anyone cut a student off from letters of recommendation after a few unsuccessful years on the job market? And, along opposite lines, I wondered if any institutions gave alumni more than letters of recommendation.
The long and short of it is that no, no one in our pool of respondents had encountered committee members who cut them off from letters of recommendation. But for most alumni, that’s about all they can count on. A few respondents reported being able to adjunct to greater or lesser degrees in their home departments; one respondent claimed that his or her dissertation advisers bought him or her a new car (free cars would really increase the value of a Ph.D.!). And there also seems to be a lot of commiserating and emotional support for the jobless. But that doesn’t seem to get anyone very far.
RTFM
If you’ve spent any time perusing web forums you’ve encountered the phrase “RTFM” which stands for “Read the fucking manual.” This invariably offends the initial poster who, rightfully (IMHO), points out that if the documentation was clearer they never would have taken the time to register for a web forum and post their question in the first place. The problem with most documentation is that it only makes sense if you already know the answer. People who write documentation have a hard time putting themselves in the mindset of the people for whom the documentation is actually written.
This is not a trivial insight. Continue reading
Monogamous heterosexual marriage is just one of many ways humans can live. Sorry.
If you haven’t seen the link making its way through social media, I highly recommend Rosemary Joyce’s piece Ask An Anthropologist about Marriage. It’s an excellent anthropological analysis of the empirical claims made in the oral argument over proposition 8 in the US Supreme Court. In addition, it does a good job of linking back to earlier public statements by anthropologists about this issue.
Joyce is exactly right when she writes that
Stable societies have been based on many different kinds of social relations that provide for the birth, care, and education of children, as well as the many other activities that marriage covers in modern US society: joint property ownership, joint medical and end of life care, joint taxation, none of which– contrary to the somewhat bizarre, reductive view of marriage argued before the Supreme Court– are about “procreation”
anthropology and student debt
Student debt is everywhere. It seems like everyone is going into debt. It’s unstoppable, endless, ubiquitous. We’re all in debt. We’re all drowning in numbers and compound interest. All from an attempt at “getting ahead” and going to school. Ya, something’s not right about all this. You know this. More and more seem to fall into the debt trap each day. This includes a lot of anthropology students–graduate and undergraduate. I am pretty sure none of you out there started studying anthropology in order to get trapped in debt. I sure didn’t. Did you? I doubt it.
So what happened?
The subject of student debt sort of ebbs and flows. Sometimes it comes up more than others. I was hearing about it a lot when all the Occupy Wall Street stuff was going on last year, and when this book, and this one, were published. That was about the time that I first heard about the project on student debt. Lately though I haven’t heard too much about this issue…but it’s not like it has gone away. It’s still here. And we’re all still in debt (well, not all of us, but far too many).
This past week a few different people sent me some different links about student debt. Continue reading
Everyone needs a Plan B
If you’re on the job market you need to have a Plan B and, whether you’re a grad student or a post-doc, be steadily working towards it. Not only is the job market tough but being a tenure-track assistant professor (which sounds like a great job) actually turns out not to be for everyone. Let me tell you a little bit about how I came to my own exit strategy.
Earlier this month I had a video interview with the Chronicle. This was part of an ongoing series they’re hosting on the many different ways of being an adjunct. There’s the adjunct who commutes to multiple positions, the adjunct who is on food stamps, the adjunct who made it to TT. Me? I’m the adjunct who is getting out of the game.
[brightcove vid=2219550239001&exp=1399136188&w=486&h=412]
Senate Blocks Poli Sci Funding
What is this thing you call "nerd"?
What is this thing you call “love”?
Aliens, especially relatively humanoid ones who coexist with humans, also express curiosity of this strange human custom: why would humans put so much emphasis on a single word that appears to serve no useful function? Universally attractive aliens seem to be vulnerable for instantly falling for human men and needing to be taught in matters of kissing.