Category Archives: Anthropology

Minimum size for a four-field Anthropology Department?

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

We are in the midst of considering a curricular re-shaping of our department, and I was hoping to solicit some thoughts on the minimum size necessary to produce a four-field, undergraduate Anthropology department. Wellesley College is obviously a small, liberal … Continue reading →

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Links for the new week

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Just passing along a number of links to things that, in a world made of more time, I might have written more about: Interested in climate change? Anthropology News is starting a listserv on the topic Sample size issues in … Continue reading →

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In praise of the pollex

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Anatomists, those masters of the dark arts of naming each and every of our body parts, refer to our thumb as the pollex, to which I can only say bollocks. A thumb is a thumb and be glad you have … Continue reading →

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The new Koobi Fora early Homo fossils

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

UPDATE: For some additional takes, check out Erin Wayman’s piece at Hominid Hunting (Smithsonian) and Zachary Cofran’s great discussion of these new fossils alongside the material from Malapa, South Africa, at Lawnchair Anthropology. Meave Leakey, Fred Spoor and colleagues have … Continue reading →

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Anthropological training and pedagogy

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

There were a number of articles out a few weeks ago highlighting the difficulty in finding jobs for trained PhDs. This is a bit of an old story, already, but the new spin on this round of stories was that … Continue reading →

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My life on the web: peer review, conferences and work abroad

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

By coincidence, my current to-do list is finding itself replicated in other people’s blog posts today. First, Bonnie Swoger, writing for Scientific American, sings the praises of the peer review system. This is why peer review has become the standard … Continue reading →

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Philip Tobias: 1925-2012

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am late on this story, but Philip Tobias, South African anatomist and paleoanthropologist, a real giant in the field (despite being a very diminutive person in actuality), died last Thursday at the age of 86. The NY Times published … Continue reading →

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The upside of fieldwork…

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am outside eating batrajani (deliciously sautéed eggplant with a walnut paste), which can only mean I am back in Tbilisi. A delicious salad of tomatoes (pomodori) and cucumbers (kvitri) cannot be too far behind…

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More on the biological treatment of race

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Following up on my partial defense of teaching race in the context of human biological variation, Anne Fausto-Sterling has a review of three recent books on the subject for the Boston Review. All three of the books reviewed seem interesting, … Continue reading →

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In defense of the treatment of race, in part, on biological/scientific grounds

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the first issues I want to unpack from my just completed seminar on race is the treatment of race, in part, as a topic of biological and scientific relevance. The history of scientific racism is the history of … Continue reading →

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