About

About

anthro{dendum} /anTHrəˈdendəm/ or /anTHrōˈdendəm/ n 1. anthropological annotations of a community’s practices, expectations, experiences, and relationships. 2. an additional text, directing the reader to that which is alongside or parenthetical. 3. that which possesses the power to add or change conditions or contexts, as well as acknowledging the responsibility to do this ethically, and with consideration of shifts in historical and political context. 4. the constant building of anthropological knowledge over the decades resulting in sedimented layers of thinking and activism and writing of those scholars and community members who came before us.

Anthro{dendum} is a group blog devoted to ‘doing anthropology in public’ — providing well-written relevant discussion of sociocultural anthropology that everyone will find accessible. Our authors range from graduate students to tenured professors to anthropologists working outside the academy.

Anthro{dendum} began as the blog “Savage Minds” in 2005. In 2006 Nature ranked Savage Minds 17th out of the 50 top science blogs across all scientific disciplines. In 2010, American Anthropologist called Savage Minds “the central online site of the North American anthropological community” whose “value is found in the quality of the posts by the site’s central contributors, a cadre of bright, engaged, young anthropology professors.”

The new site, anthro{dendum}, launched on November 28th, 2017. The reasons for the name change were discussed in the following posts on the old site:

While you are free to write “anthrodendum” if you prefer (it is certainly quicker to type), we consider “anthro{dendum}” to be the official name of the site (without caps), just like “Yahoo!” considers the exclamation point as part of their name.