Author: Ryan

Summer anthropologies #2: Leslie White goes to a baseball game (Part 1)

Summer anthropologies #2: Leslie White goes to a baseball game (Part 1)

A couple months ago, just after the 2023 baseball season started, I was sitting in the upper deck behind home plate at Oracle Park in San Francisco, California. It is a great view. I was there to watch the Giants play against the Los Angeles Dodgers with about 30,000 or so other people. This was …

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Salvaging what is good

Salvaging what is good

This post is more practical than nostalgic. Yes, sometimes I like to look back and think about how ‘things were better’ with our various online anthro communities, but that’s not the goal here. It’s clear that the online communities our discipline had are not what they once were, whether on Facebook, Twitter, etc. And those …

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Adventures in chatGPT #2: A conversation with Nick Seaver

Adventures in chatGPT #2: A conversation with Nick Seaver

After writing my last post about chatGPT, I got in touch with Nick Seaver to see what he had to say about some of these issues. Here’s our conversation: Ryan Anderson: So, I just signed up for chatGPT and started messing around with it, and I’m concerned. Are you concerned? “Nick Seaver”: Yes, I am concerned …

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Adventures in chatGPT: Meet David Wilkie, anthropologist

Adventures in chatGPT: Meet David Wilkie, anthropologist

So curiosity finally got the best of me and I started looking into this whole chatGPT thing that is poised to bring about the ruin of society. I decided to see what kind of information it would spit out about anthropological work in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico, which is where I did all my doctoral work. …

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No Open Access Today, Anthropology: On the latest AAA-Wiley Announcement

No Open Access Today, Anthropology: On the latest AAA-Wiley Announcement

Last November, it looked like some good things were on the horizon for Open Access and the American Anthropological Association’s publishing portfolio: At this morning’s #AAA2021Baltimore roundtable on #OpenAccess publishing at @AmericanAnthro, Director of Publishing Janine McKenna announced plans to transition to #OpenAccess beginning in 2023. AND EVERYONE CHEERED. — Dr. Z (@leah_zani) November 18, …

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The search for the worst anthro job ad: An interview with Dada Docot

The search for the worst anthro job ad: An interview with Dada Docot

In September 2021, Dada Docot sent out a half-serious tweet about finding the Worse Anthro Job Ad for 2021. The post got attention, and the search took off. The two threads of the search (for gathering nominations and announcement of results) registered about 173,536 impressions as of February 2022. The search received a total of …

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Fragments of Reparation & Recognition in the Golden State

Fragments of Reparation & Recognition in the Golden State

On September 30, California Governor Gavin Newsome signed Senate Bill 796 into law, which authorized the return of Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of the Black landowners who were dispossessed of the property in the early 20th century. Los Angeles Times reporter Rosanna Xia has covered this story as it has developed over the past …

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