Ours was not an ordinary friendship. Race, class, religion, citizenship, educational background, and (for 14 years) parental status divided us. Language brought us together. Curiosity and intellectual companionship kept us going. Véronique and me in the village (1993) (photo by Philip Graham) Initially, Véronique (given that personal name in the
Just when you think you know what day it is, along comes this research on the ancient Mayan calendar. By fifth grade, most schoolchildren know that a week contains seven days, a month contains either 30 or 31 days (or 28 days, in those strange “leap years”), and a year
I began interviewing authors of fabulous new anthropology books for this space back in 2016. While completing 11 interviews, I also amassed a backlog of more terrific books whose authors I planned to interview. One thing led to another, and my embarrassingly accumulating backlog fell hostage to a pandemic. I’ve
We needed to find a new plumber. I called around. The first business that seemed willing to clean our boiler and replace a problematic hose spigot had availability soon. Before settling on a date, I remembered to ask the woman answering the company’s phone–let’s call her, Mary–a non-plumbing question: Will
Weeding is an exercise in anthropology. How do we know what’s a weed? The great French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, organized his nearly-80-year-long career around a single, foundational principle: “culture” basically comes down to classification. If something is “this” (whatever “this” is), then it’s not “that.” Reciprocally, if something is “that,” then
What can anthropology contribute to the critical conversation about race in America, following the welcome jury decision in the Derek Chauvin trial? After they amassed and presented a week’s worth of technical details–medical, anatomical, temporal, legal–in the end, the prosecuting attorneys’ case against Derek Chauvin rested on a simple claim:
What is “culture”? Early generations of anthropologists offered all sorts of definitions. No matter what their specifics, the various definitions inevitably shared one feature: “culture” is identifiable. Above all, it encompasses a set of beliefs and behaviors that, together, are premised on an enduring set of values. Or something like