The Endless Bus Trip: a Visual Essay

The Endless Bus Trip is a visual essay about Korean and Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, Queens, who ride casino buses as a way of life. Twice a day, immigrants wait at unmarked bus stops along the crowded downtown streets to buy $15 bus tickets from New York City to the Sands Casino and Resort […]

Reflections on Kara Walker’s “a Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby”

A recent installation of Kara Walker’s “a Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby” prompted anthropologist Elizabeth Chin to approach Anthropology Now with a powerful idea for commentary. With the former Domino Sugar Refinery as the exhibit space and evocations of Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power as one of many shared points of reference, we invited […]

Robin Nagle Talks Sanitation

Anthropology Now Podcast Series

Anthropologist Robin Nagle’s recent book sheds light on something many pay little attention to: what happens to the garbage we produce. Titled Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City, Nagle’s research pays particular attention to the labor force in charge of the city’s refuse–a force […]

James Ferguson and NY Fashion Week?

With NY Fashion Week well underway, New York Magazine’s fashion section, The Cut, posted online an article contemplating the mysteries of fashion language – citing anthropologist James Ferguson and sociolinguist Penny Eckert in the process. A sample: “Such abstract language reminded [Eckert] of the work of anthropologist James Ferguson, who studies urban life in the […]