Beer through the Ages: The Role of Beer in Shaping Our Past and Current Worlds
“Thirst rather than hunger may have been the stimulus behind the origin of small grain agriculture.” —Jonathan Sauer, 1953 “Man cannot live on beer alone. … Are we to believe that the foundations of Western Civilization were laid by an ill-fed people living in a perpetual state of partial intoxication?” —Paul Mangledorf, 1953 Doing field […]
Throw a Survey at It: Questioning Soldier Resilience in the US Army
The banquet hall at the Philadelphia hotel hosting the 2011 Second World Congress for Positive Psychology was packed as keynote speaker Martin Seligman approached the podium. As the unofficial spokesperson for the bourgeoning field known as “the science of human happiness,” the former head of the American Psychological Association does double duty as both a […]
Feature Preview: The Sound of Silence
Look for the full essay with additional photos in the September 2014 issue of Anthropology Now. by Maria Frederika Malmström In this new project, part of an extensive study about materiality, affect and transformative politics in Egypt, I explore the absence of sound in the floating landscape of Egypt. Scholars have discussed the role of […]
Standing in the Need : Communication Failures That Increased Suffering after Katrina
“FEMA has took over this parish. We know what we need to do and how to do it, but you know, what can we do when somebody else is calling the shots?” -Buffy (November 2005) Katrina tore into the Gulf Coast in 2005 bringing fright and ruin and heartbreak. It ripped open the collective American […]
Targeting the Gun Question: The “Culture War” in Scope
A lineup of hot-button issues has plagued the political life of the United States for decades, at least since the 1970s: abortion, sexualities, religion, evolution, censorship, recreational drugs, guns. An odd list on the face of it, but supposedly, the nation’s population divides into one of two camps over each issue, or so sociologist James […]
Gambled Away: Video Poker and Self-Suspension
Natasha Dow Schüll Patsy, a green-eyed brunette in her mid- forties, began gambling soon after she moved to Las Vegas from California in the 1980s with her husband, a military officer who had been restationed at Nellis Air Force Base. Video poker machines had been introduced to the local gambling market in the late 1970s, […]
Alex Edmonds “A Right to Beauty”
Featured Article A Right to Beauty Alexander Edmonds While living in Rio de Janeiro in 1999, I saw something that caught my attention: a television broadcast of a Carnival parade that paid homage to a plastic surgeon, Dr. Ivo Pitanguy. The doctor led the procession surrounded by samba dancers in feathers and bikinis. Over a […]
The Keeper of the Kris
**This is a special feature from the September 2010 issue of Anthropology Now. In “The Keeper of the Kris,” Janet Hoskins reviews Ann Dunham Soetoro’s book, Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia.** If she were alive today, Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, would be 67. The president’s mother was portrayed in Obama’s […]
Becoming Monsters in Iraq
As many as 40 percent of combat veterans returning from Iraq are crippled from psychological problems. A growing number of anti-war veterans acknowledge the toll of post-traumatic stress, but refuse to let their suffering be claimed as a disorder. Instead, they see the trauma as the natural reaction to the acts of war.