Author: Kerim

We suck at (academic) politics

By Kerim | April 26, 2018

Ninety percent of the time if you were to read a blog post about academics and politics it would be a rant about “identity politics.” This isn’t going to be that kind of post. No, what I’m talking about here are “academic politics” in general. Since academic politics might involve trying to get an academic institution to change to be more inclusive there is obviously some overlap between the two, but academic politics might just as well be about funding {+}

Roll Your Own QDA (Working With Text 5)

By Kerim | April 5, 2018

Many social scientists purchase expensive qualitative data analysis software to code their field notes and interview data, but I want to show how you can accomplish the same thing for free using Dynalist or Workflowy. Neither app is truly free, but they both offer generous free plans that allow you to do a lot before you would need to pay for a subscription. We are also going to ignore most of the features offered by these apps, such as outlining, {+}

Hobbes the Science Fiction Writer (Part II)

By Kerim | March 25, 2018

In Part I, I explored how Hobbes’s myth was a kind of science fiction story designed convince his readers to end the English Civil War by accepting peace under the rule of a single sovereign. (For Hobbes that meant either King or Parliament, but not both.) I also discussed how that myth “requires both the artificial man and the state of nature,” since “one part of the story cannot work without the other.” Now, in the conclusion of this two-part {+}

Hobbes the Science Fiction Writer (Part I)

By Kerim | March 22, 2018

It is common to meet people who believe that much of the world is beset by “tribalism” and that the only thing holding back the chaos of a Hobbesian war of all against all is the presence of “strong leaders.” This worldview reached its apogee during the Cold War, when the US used it to justify propping up numerous dictators around the world, helping them brutally suppress separatist movements and impose authoritarian rule. The argument was that the alternative would {+}

Dendrites, Interns, Contributors, & Guest Contributors

By Kerim | March 15, 2018

Just a short announcement to point out that a couple of names have disappeared from our sidebar as we move to make our list of authors better reflect the actual nature of participation on the blog. Since we started as “Savage Minds” in 2005, the membership roles have been in constant flux and we’ve worked hard to try to maintain a loose democratic collective while still having a certain degree of structure and a clear division of labor. These changes {+}

Lazy PowerPoint (Working With Text 4)

By Kerim | February 22, 2018

We all know we should bike to work, but sometimes the weather is bad, or we are late, or just feeling lazy, and so we take the car. Similarly, we all know that we shouldn’t use use PowerPoint, or if we do use PowerPoint we shouldn’t stuff them full of text and bullet points but instead use illustrative pictures. But sometimes we are running late, or just feeling lazy, or maybe even have a good reason1 for using text-heavy slides, {+}

Text-laundering (Working With Text 3)

By Kerim | January 28, 2018

Ever copy and paste something that should be a solid paragraph of text only to have it end up looking a mess? You could fix it using Regular Expressions, or if you prefer not to have to muddle around with code, there are a number of tools out there which can automate this kind of text cleanup for you. {+}

RegEx 101 (Working With Text 2)

By Kerim | January 24, 2018

Let’s say that there was a revolution in your field site and the “Feline Republic” is now the “Canine Republic.” This is an easy problem to solve. You just open up your word processor and use the find and replace command, replacing every instance of “Feline” with “Canine.” But what if the canine revolution also imposed new rules for personal names, reversing the order of first and last names throughout the republic? That becomes a bit more difficult. If your {+}

Free Your Mind, the Text Will Follow (Working With Text 1)

By Kerim | January 18, 2018

While I’ve written a fair amount of software reviews and how to guides in the past, this year I thought I’d do something different. This is the first of a series of planned posts aimed at getting anthropologists to take back control of their text. I don’t mean that in an abstract way, as in learning to be a better writer, or thinking critically about textual practices. I mean taking control of the actual text files on your computer or {+}

Start an Anthropology Career in 2018

By Kerim | January 1, 2018

Lets put aside for the moment all the usual warnings about pursuing an academic career. Lets say that you are old enough to take responsibility for your own bad decisions and have somehow gotten it in your head that, despite everything you’ve heard, you really like the idea of becoming an anthropologist. If you really will not be dissuaded . . . “Welcome to the club!” But also know that competition is stiff. You probably have better chances of landing {+}