Jews in Bukhara

Alanna E. Cooper, an anthropologist and a Jewish cultural historian, began her research on an old Central Asian Jewish community because of a small and curious dictionary:  I don’t remember the name of the man who sold the dictionary to me. He was one of the many people I met in the 1990s who was […]

Motherhood Across Cultures

The Toronto Star discusses the research of Jennifer Lansford, a professor of psychology and cultural anthropology at Duke University.  Lansford conducts cross-cultural research on motherhood.   “Universally, one of the key tasks of motherhood is to make children feel loved, accepted and valued, and that’s regardless of cultural context…Mothers who are able to do this successfully […]

About Diaperless Babies

Writing for NPR, the anthropologist Barbara King observes: “some parents, mostly in one area of New York City, as far as I can tell, are raising their children from birth without diapers.” She speaks to Meredith Small, an anthropologist from Cornell University, who explains: "Only Westerns make such a big deal about toilet training," and adds that […]

Arming Ourselves to Death

When I was a graduate student I remember reading an account by an anthropologist of Africa who watched helplessly as local communities responded to a virulent epidemic by coming together not to develop public health measures but to identify and kill the witches presumed to have caused the epidemic.  I feel just like that helpless […]

Vodou and Religious Freedom in Haiti

Gina Athena Ulysse, a Prof. of Anthropology & African American Studies at Wesleyan University, writes at the huffingtonpost about the oppression of Vodouists in Haiti:  While perception of Haiti as synonymous with Vodou reigns in public imagination, especially abroad, within the republic the religion is under attack again. Vodouists and supporters from all over Haiti and […]

Tailgate Parties

Think football, and odds are you think tailgate party. And with good reason — the tailgate party is among the most time-honored and revered American sporting traditions, what with the festivities, the food and the fans. And the beer. Don’t forget the beer.   To the untrained eye, these game-day rituals appear to be little […]

Breastfeeding in the Classroom

Adrienne Pine was in a jam. The assistant anthropology professor at American University was about to begin teaching “Sex, Gender & Culture,” but her baby daughter woke up in the morning with a fever. The single mother worried that she had no good child-care options.   So Pine brought her sick baby to class. The […]

Circumcision and Human Rights

For both Jews and Muslims, circumcision is a religious and cultural practice. Within the last few weeks, Germany outlawed the practice of male circumcision for any but the strictest medical reasons. An atypical alliance of Jews and Muslims successfully challenged the German court's ruling and Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised to make religious circumcision practices […]

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, […]

Spirituality

Spirituality is not what it once was – that much is certain, according to anthropologist Peter van der Veer. Working at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, he has examined the significance of the spiritual and its transformation processes in modern societies using the example of China […]