I’m sitting in a semi-dark room, the electricity has just cut out, and there’s a slight chill in the air. I love being in MohenjoDaro (Sindh, Pakistan) in December. It’s cold at night and it’s hot during the day, unlike the summer, where there is nowhere to hide from the heat. The winter is more …
When I first heard about chatGPT, the main thing I was concerned about, like many others, was that students would use it instead of writing their own work. I tried to take an open approach with it all to try to head off any potential problems. Rather than trying to ban GPT, I talked about …
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 …
+ Read More Adventures in chatGPT #2: A conversation with Nick Seaver
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. …
+ Read More Adventures in chatGPT: Meet David Wilkie, anthropologist
Here’s a New Year’s Resolution for everyone for 2023: Question everything about how we teach, do research, and select students or job applicants. – Question grades – Question letters of recommendation – Question peer review What else should we question about academia this year? (Sorry for the paywalled links, I usually try to avoid them, …
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 …
+ Read More The search for the worst anthro job ad: An interview with Dada Docot
[Content advisory: This article discusses harassment and discrimination in archaeology, including discussion of sexual assault.] On the morning of March 30, 2021, three articles on the culture of harassment within archaeology dropped. And it was epic. Across three articles, Barbara (Barb) Voss reviewed and analyzed current research about the prevalence and patterns of harassment within …
+ Read More On The Culture of Harassment in Archaeology: An interview with Barbara L. Voss
cw: transphobia, mention of suicide and murder I started writing this piece in June. It was during Pride month, amidst JK Rowling’s ongoing public transphobia, and the same time as I was getting occasional news alerts about Trumpian cuts to protections around trans healthcare. It was also amidst some discussion here in Canada about Prof. …
In a departure from more conventional communication methods in academia, I’m exploring how comics–a medium I love to read and am learning to make (thank you to my teacher in pre-pandemic times, Julian Peters!)–speak to ethnographic practice. In particular, I am wrestling with how the gutter between comics panels is something to consider in terms …
Following my introductory post, I now describe the first of three parts of my call for transformation in museums and the academic-industrial complex. The first part is to: (1) end (finally) the narrative that museums and academic institutions are neutral. Museums and academic institutions are not neutral. Instead, they are often rooted in inequality: the …
+ Read More A Call for Transformation: Ending the Myth of Neutrality