That the deaths of civilians killed by the IDF targeting Hamas leaders, command centers, and weapons caches are tragedies. That the continuing occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights by Israeli settlers is unethical, illegal, and outrageous. Once we agree on these disturbing points, it is equally critical for us to agree that . . . Hamas’ charter justifying its existence abhorrently prioritizes genocide against Jews at its heart, as responsible journalists lay out (quoting directly from reliable English translations of the Hamas charter). Hamas’ October 7th murder of some 1,400 Israe ..read more

Ours was not an ordinary friendship. Race, class, religion, citizenship, educational background, and (for fourteen 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 French colonial-style school she attended) grabbed the chance to practice her grade-school-era French with me, an uninvited visitor in her village bordering the rain forest. As for me, while I struggled to learn the tonal West African language ..read more

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 contains 12 months and 365 days. That seems self-evident, right? Not so fast. The quasi- (increasingly) hegemonic calendar long common across the global North and, now, parts of the global South has long had competitors—including the ancient Mayan calendar, which features an 819-day cycle. What might have motivated Mayan scholar ..read more

Many non-Western epistemologies and healing systems have long posited close ties between mind, body, and emotion. Or, rather, these outlooks have categorized as a single feedback loop what Western world views, including biomedical science, have long categorized as three distinct zones of experience (not to mention, many sub-zones). Why else would modern science have developed separate specialties for professionals tackling issues with specific body parts, and other professionals tackling “behavioral” challenges, as if body and behavior inhabited different worlds? Now, “modern” science is disc ..read more

YES to far more sensible gun-purchase background checks and restrictions. YES to more comprehensive mental health treatment options. Credit: pikisuperstar via www.freepik.com It’s not EITHER-OR. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to the point that one of these strategies is assumed to exclude the other. (By “we,” I’m referring to the U.S. More on that later.) On second thought, maybe I do know. Let’s take it from the top. This is an issue of binary thinking gone amok. Does that seem too abstract? Stay with me. The U.S. is rooted in a binary political system. Two major parties suck the air ou ..read more

It turns out, the first complete sentence ever written by a human (at least, as of what we know now) concerned hair. New archaeological evidence — discovered in Israel in 2016 and analyzed recently — confirms that “the oldest instance of a sentence written using the alphabet is on an inscription on an ancient ivory comb” — and it highlighted head lice. Some 3,700 years ago, a wealthy man in Tel Lachish, an ancient Canaanite city in the foothills of central Israel, wrote seven words in the Phoenician (or Canaanite) alphabet that can be translated roughly as: “May this tusk root out the lice of ..read more

The notion of a “theory” comes from science. As such, the term conveys all the legitimacy upon which the scientific method relies. It should not be tossed around casually like a frisbee in the park. The so-called “Great Replacement Theory” we are now reading about in mainstream publications is not a theory. Therefore, it should not be called a theory. And it should not be graced with capital letters. Both these practices suggest unearned legitimacy. And, unearned legitimacy carries great risk. We now know that repeatedly making false claims will train people to slowly accept those false claim ..read more

The last time I heard anyone utter the name, Przemysl, I must have been ten or eleven years old. In his thickly Yiddishized English, my maternal grandfather must have been telling me something about his early life. And I must have been listening more intently than I realized. I don’t recall exactly what he was recounting. Maybe it was something about his parents requiring him to drop out of school after third grade so he could spend his days on the streets with a pushcart, selling stuff and more stuff to contribute to his family’s meager household income. Maybe it was something about his decis ..read more

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 finally harnessed my guilt and bundled these beauties into a group. No author interviews this time (who has time for that in a pandemic?), but below, you’ll find capsule descriptions of why I love every entry in this archive. To be sure, my selection is idiosyncratic. I don’t claim that ..read more

Source here. Educators are wringing their hands these days about how much students have “fallen behind” the past year.  News story after news story laments a year of “lost learning.”  Source here. Those premature dirges assume a very narrow definition of “learning.” Students everywhere have learned a great deal the past year. But what they’ve learned is far from the classic facts that they get tested on in English and algebra classes. If math and reading scores are down, knowledge about the world is up.  Way up. This past year, K-12 students have learned about viruses and epidem ..read more