Links I Find Interesting
1. In praise of art forgery 2. The Not-So-Great Professor: Jeffrey Sachs’ Incredible Failure to Eradicate Poverty in Africa 3. “Mr. Zuckerberg’s belief that connectivity is a human right is honorable. Where he and his allies err is in imagining that fun is not, and in underestimating the power of entertainment to transform society.” 4. “Something amazing… Read More »
Probably the most severe Airbus A380 commentary you’ll read
…the pinnacle of aesthetic disregard was achieved upon rollout of Airbus’s biggest and most ballyhooed creation: the enormous, double-decked A380. With maximum takeoff weight of more than a million pounds, the Airbus A380 is the largest, most powerful, and most expensive commercial plane in history. And possibly the ugliest. There is something grotesquely anthropomorphic about… Read More »
Links I Find Interesting
1. Keith Hart and Horacio Ortiz are reviewing the anthropology of money and finance 2. “she arrived with a gift of bespoke lingerie: a camisole with an image of Sigmund Freud printed on it—a Freudian slip”. A profile of Claire Danes 3. A profile of Paul Kagame. And a critique of the profile 4. An economics-sociology… Read More »
Anthropology for Kids
Some friends and I are working on a series of books titled Anthropology for Kids. Each book will contain different ways of relating to a major human question – what Dostoevsky called “cursed questions” – such as death, family, love, state, money, war and so on. The books will contain and expatiate on, in very… Read More »
Links I Find Interesting
1. Teju Cole’s Letter from Lagos: Madmen and Specialists 2. How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad 3. Challenging neoliberal population control 4. “As it turns out, high-functioning sociopaths are full of handy lifestyle tips.” You really shouldn’t take it too seriously 5. “The National Security Agency has an intelligence problem: It won’t admit how dumb it is.”
“A letter to the village” by Sharon Dodua Otoo
“Dear Elders, You may already know that I am legally required to send my sons to school because we live in Germany and home education is not permitted here. In this country, all children are taught a curriculum designed with only white children in mind. A quick flick through most standard school atlases will reveal… Read More »
Focusing on the poetics of the belly
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, publisher of Cassava Republic Press talks about book publishing in Nigeria.
*African Development in the 21st Century*
A sizable chunk from a lengthy piece by the ever insightful Keith Hart: Every person of African descent, whatever their actual history and experience – they could be Barack Obama, for example — suffers the practical consequences of being stigmatized by colour in a world built on racial difference. This situation will only be ended… Read More »
Links I Find Interesting
1. George Bush, Nicholas Kristof and the Hunger Games 2. On the rich symbolism and ribald comic vitality of Pedro Almodovar’s I’m So Excited 3. Transnational Gender Vertigo (deserves a post all to itself. highly recommended) 4. The Man of Steel is no-one’s fictive kin 5. Ed Carr wonders whether ethnographies should have an expiration date. Tobias Denskus responds.