New Books in Anthropology
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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2576
Rachel Prentice, “Bodies in Formation: An Ethno...
Rachel Prentice‘s new book blends methodological approaches from science studies and anthropology to produce a riveting account of anatomical and surgical education in twenty-first century North America. Bodies in Formation: An Ethnography of Anatomy a...
66 min
2577
Christine Yano, “Pink Globalization: Hello Kitt...
This cat has a complicated history. In addition to filling stationery stores across the globe with cute objects festooned with little whiskers and bowties, Hello Kitty has inspired tributes from Lisa Loeb and Lady Gaga,
66 min
2578
Pauline Turner Strong, “American Indians and th...
Pauline Turner Strong‘s new book American Indians and the American Imaginary: Cultural Representation Across the Centuries (Paradigm Publishers, 2012) traces the representations of Native Americans across various public spheres of the American imaginar...
42 min
2579
John Osburg, “Anxious Wealth: Money and Moralit...
John Osburg‘s new book explores the rise of elite networks of newly-rich entrepreneurs, managers of state enterprises, and government officials in Chengdu. Based on extensive fieldwork that included hosting a Chinese TV show and spending many evenings ...
71 min
2580
Frans De Waal, “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In ...
Humans are quite a bit like chimpanzees, genetically speaking. Of course humans are quite a bit like fruit flies, genetically speaking. But when it comes to behavior, humans are much more like chimpanzees than fruit flies.
2 min
2581
Martha C. Howell, “Commerce Before Capitalism i...
When I was an undergraduate, I was taught that merchants in early modern Western Europe were “proto-capitalists.” I was never quite sure what that meant. If it meant they traded property for money, yes. But that would make everyone who traded things fo...
67 min
2582
Nancy Segal, “Born Together-Reared Apart: The L...
Identical twins, separated at birth, raised in different families, and reunited in adulthood. In 1979, psychology researchers in Minnesota found some twins who had been reunited after a lifetime of separation,
50 min
2583
Dominic Pettman, “Human Error” (UMinnesota, 201...
“The humans are dead.” Whether or not you recognize the epigram from Flight of the Conchords (and if not, there are worse ways to spend a few minutes than by looking here, and I recommend sticking around for the “binary solo”),
73 min
2584
Helen Longino, “Studying Human Behavior: How Sc...
What explains human behavior? It is standard to consider answers from the perspective of a dichotomy between nature and nurture, with most researchers today in agreement that it is both. For Helen Longino, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy ...
62 min
2585
Jared Diamond, “The World Until Yesterday: What...
It’s pretty common–and has long been–for people to think that the “way it used to be” is better than the way it is. This tendency to idealize an (imagined) past is particularly strong today among critics of modern civilization.
22 min
2586
Marlene Zuk, “Paleofantasy: What Evolution Real...
The Hebrews called it “Eden.” The Greeks and Romans called it the “Golden Age.” The philosophes–or Rousseau at least–called it the “State of Nature.” Marx and Engels called it “Primitive Communism.” The underlying notion, however,
55 min
2587
Barbara R. Ambros, “Bones of Contention: Animal...
It opens with a parakeet named Homer, and it closes with a dog named Hachiko. In the intervening pages, Barbara Ambros explores the deaths, afterlives, and necrogeographies of pets in contemporary Japan. Bones of Contention:Animals and Religion in Cont...
72 min
2588
Signe Rousseau, “Food and Social Media: You Are...
The other day I found myself in a cooking situation that’s fairly common: I had a few odd ingredients–some oxidized strips of bacon, a withered red pepper, a bunch of half-wilted parsley–and needed to use them before they went bad, but how?
52 min
2589
Michael David Kaulana Ing, “The Dysfunction of ...
How did the authors of the one of the most important Confucian ritual texts in early China recognize, explain, and cope with mistakes and dysfunction in ritual? The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism (Oxford University Press,
66 min
2590
John S. Allen, “The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolvi...
Did Proust have it right? Does food, whether it’s a madeleine from an aristocratic childhood or the Velveeta mac-and-cheese my mom used to make, have a special significance for our memory, perhaps even our very being? In his new book,
50 min
2591
Morgan Liu, “Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visi...
Dr. Morgan Liu‘s book, Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012) brings to light the life of ethnic Uzbeks living in the city of Osh, located in the country of Kyrgyzstan.
39 min
2592
Karen Ruffle, “Gender, Sainthood, and Everyday ...
What does a wedding in Karbala in the year 680 have to do with South Asian Muslims today? As it turns out, this event informs contemporary ideas of personal piety and social understanding of gender roles. The battlefield wedding of Qasem and Fatimah Ku...
63 min
2593
Giusi Tamburello, “Concepts and Categories of E...
What is the relationship between language and the emotions? Where ought we look for evidence of emotion in historical and literary texts? Is it possible to talk about the emotional states of entire cultures or groups of peoples, and if so,
56 min
2594
Sandra Chait, “Seeking Salaam: Ethiopians, Erit...
In the Pacific Northwest, immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia coexist, making a life for themselves and their family in a new country. In the book Seeking Salaam : Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis in the Pacific Northwest (University of Wash...
44 min
2595
Helene Mialet, “Hawking Incorporated: Stephen H...
“By error or by chance, I think I have discovered an angel.” First things first: Hawking Incorporated: Stephen Hawking and the Anthropology of the Knowing Subject (University of Chicago Press, 2012) is a masterful, inspiring book.
64 min
2596
Franck Salameh, “Language, Memory, and Identity...
Franck Salameh achieves his goal of revealing “another” version of the Middle East with his book. Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon (Lexington Books, 2010). This book looks at the use of language and memory as a me...
37 min
2597
Sherine Hamdy, “Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ...
One of the best things about co-hosting New Books in STS is the opportunity to discover books like this one. Sherine Hamdy has given us something special in Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam,
58 min
2598
Merry White, “Coffee Life in Japan” (University...
Merry (Corky) White‘s new book Coffee Life in Japan (University of California Press, 2012) opens with a memory of stripping naked and being painted blue in an underground coffeehouse, and closes with a guide to some of the author’s favorite cafes in Ja...
49 min
2599
Laurence Monnais, C. Michele Thompson, and Ayo ...
Southern Medicine for Southern People: Vietnamese Medicine in the Making (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) gives me hope for the future of edited volumes. Not only is it a fascinating and coherent treatment of the history and practice of Vietnamese...
66 min
2600
Mark Rowe, “Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial,...
Mark Rowe‘s new book Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism (University of Chicago Press, 2011) is a fascinating study of the life of Buddhism in Japan by looking at the many facets of death in mode...
76 min