Author: Kerim

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 {+}

The Politics of Explaining Taiwan

By Kerim | December 21, 2017

Imagine if, when writing a paper on Donald Trump, you had to start your paper by saying the following:1 The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast of North America. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the {+}

A journal of films? A journal of films!

By Kerim | December 1, 2017

For the first time in the history of Visual Anthropology anthropological film can now be published on par with written articles, assessed by peers, and inscribed in international credential systems of academic publication as the Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) has launched this first edition of Journal of Anthropological Films (JAF) published by Bergen Open Access Publishing (BOAP). Amazeballs! The announcement that the Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) had launched the Journal of Anthropological Films (JAF) really blew me away. {+}