Section
Anthropology & Religion
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“To Over-Be, To Over-Exist”: Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Grammar of Survival
Even in that moment of the catastrophe, for Liudmyla, it is “we” that will over-be. And that “we” included us, on this other anonymous end of the screen.
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Bunkers, Buffers, Borders
“Flagged for deportation, I was hurtled into my own little nightmare, an absurdist take on all the immigration tragedies raging across the world.”
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Injustice in the Breeze
Energy companies promise to “go green.” Yet they use the same forms of extractive capitalism that have destroyed the planet’s climate.
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In the Library of Lévi-Strauss
The walls were lined with books, as one might expect. Among them were a number of wooden masks, woven baskets, and a tapestry of a bodhisattva. The desk was …
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Who Gets to Be a Jewish Writer?
“The term ‘Jewish writer,’” argues Cynthia Ozick, “ought to be an oxymoron.” Yet 82 years earlier, in 1924, the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva proclaimed that “in …
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Public Thinker: Frances Negrón-Muntaner on Puerto Rico, Art, and Decolonial Joy
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an innovative and multimodal thinker and artist, and a professor … [none-for-homepage]
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What Future for Magic Mushrooms?
Hallucinogenic mushrooms have been used for centuries by numerous indigenous peoples around the world. These fungi appear in Aztec statues (like the one …
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Whose Life?
This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, by the philosopher Martin Hägglund, who teaches at Yale, is a book anyone committed to public-facing scholarship ought to take note of. This is all the …
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How Liberal Americans Sustain Israel’s Occupation
Why has the United States historically supported Israel? And should the …
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Another Mormon Education
The first sentence Tara Westover writes in her engrossing memoir Educated is a disclaimer: “This story is not about Mormonism.” This is true in the same …
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When Dogs Bite
“I could tell you that I was beating the dog because I was beaten, that I was six and stupid and knew no better,” Marwand recounts to his cousin Zia in eastern Afghanistan. “But here is the other thing I have to admit: the more I hurt him and the more he took it, as…
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Islamic Alternatives to Global Finance
Across the Muslim world today ambitious experiments are underway to create an Islamic alternative to conventional finance. These initiatives are inspired by the …
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“Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall”
When US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would be stepping down after 31 years on the nation’s highest court, public reaction was both swift …
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Anthropologists and Novelists
Tim Watson’s Culture Writing surveys the border between anthropology and literature in the years following World War II. Watson provides illuminating …
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Saba Mahmood and the Paradoxes of Self-Parochialization
Saba Mahmood died on March 10, 2018, at the age of 57. Born in Pakistan, she …
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Virtual Roundtable on “The Mana of Mass Society”
Many of anthropology’s terms of art are taken from afar. Especially in the half century after 1870 …
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Moods of Betrayal in the Story of Palestine
A few years ago I read a collection of personal reflections on what it means to be a Palestinian in the diaspora. Two entries in particular stayed with me. The first …
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How Christianity Created Rock ’n’ Roll
In the spring of 1998, in a Seinfeld episode called “The Burning,” Elaine, sitting with Jerry and George at the diner, tells them she had just borrowed her on-again …
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Muslim Fashion Is Now Mainstream
Modest Fashion is having a moment. From London catwalks, which hosted the first branded “Modest Fashion Week” in February this year, to gyms and running …
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Ethnographers of Ourselves
What would you be willing to do for a friend from 20-odd years ago if you suddenly learned they were on the verge of becoming homeless or found them …
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Down with the Scribes!
Mesopotamian scribes knew a story about the invention of writing. According to this story, the momentous event occurred in the city of Uruk, where King Enmerkar coveted treasures from the neighboring mountain realm of Aratta—silver, copper, tin, and precious stones. He sent a messenger to the mountains, demanding submission and ransom, but the messenger returned…
