Anthro Theory + Commons

Yet paying attention to how Palestinians navigate the assaults on their world, which are meant to punish, degrade, and dehumanize them, lets us all see the captive dead body as a site of refusal and anticolonial resistance. Alongside the horrors of death, we have witnessed the haunting images of children collecting and carrying the body parts of their parents in plastic bags, Palestinians reburying the bodies of the dead according to tradition, and writing names on body bags so that they may be identified. These moments of endurance should not be celebrated as resiliency—doing so entails accepting the crazed, colonial-manufactured conditions that Palestinians were miraculously able to survive. Rather, these moments of witnessing the living lend a form of dignity to the dead in its revocation should be understood as a rejection of Israel’s sovereignty and colonization. The dead body becomes a site of anticolonial resistance for the living, an example of Palestinian refusals to relinquish autonomy over death, and a form of self-determination and agency that is necessary to imagine and achieve liberation for both land and its peoples.

Amid genocidal violence in Gaza, "the dead body becomes a site of anticolonial resistance for the living, an example of Palestinian refusals to relinquish autonomy over death, and a form of self-determination and agency that is necessary to imagine and achieve liberation."

Inside Amazon’s Union-Busting Tactics An anthropologist, who worked in an Amazon warehouse, reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying.

From the archive. An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying. Read more: www.sapiens.org/culture/amaz...

Vinson Sutlive Book Prize and Lecture

Submit your book nominations to the Sutlive Book Prize!

It goes to the best book published in prior year, in any discipline, that makes use of anthropological perspectives in order to examine historical contexts and/or the role of the past in the present.

www.wm.edu/as/anthropol...

What Constitutes a Person? Inalienability, Value, and Personhood in Anthropological Theory

In ATC, Adrienne Cohen considers how conceptions of inalienability - what parts of you can you never lose, can you never give away? - are fundamental for understanding various human conceptions of personhood.

www.at-commons.com/pub/8wem4ske...

Anthropology’s Postapocalyptic Turn: New Temporalities for New Times

New in ATC: Anna Willow argues that, given war and climate change, anthropology should embrace a postapocalyptic turn:
www.at-commons.com/pub/6kdi8mfu...

rounding out Ghostly Lessons are two reflective pieces:

* Emma Kowal considers how an anthropologist can haunt www.at-commons.com/pub/givlpi3v...

* Warwick Anderson comments on the series, theorizing ghosts act as of noise in a system www.at-commons.com/pub/3ngd8x6m...

today in Ghostly Lessons we have two contributions considering the treatment of human remains:

* Thiago Barbosa and Amanda Domingues on human remains identification methods www.at-commons.com/pub/x2v2mu1j...

* Trevor Engel on how museums hold bodies www.at-commons.com/pub/bi2wxnk4...

Screenshot of a headline and many joking tweet responses: Disney Reportedly Planning Full Reboot of the INDIANA JONES Headline: It looks like Indiana Jones might actually be headed for the reboot treatment. According to a recent report from Disinsider, Disney and ... Michael A. Levin @michaelalevin.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE POST TENURE REVIEW Pi @therationalpi.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE RESEARCH ETHICS BOARD Melissa Stewart @lissajostewart.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE LOST NEH GRANTS Ken MacLennan @historiken.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE ANTIQUITIES EXPORT PERMITTING PROCESS Meredith Rose @mrose.ink INDIANA JONES AND THE INTERMINABLE FACULTY MEETING Sarah Fackrell @design-law.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE NEW COURSE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE Maggie Koerth @maggiek.bsky.social INDIANA JONES AND THE CURSORY EXCAVATION TO MAKE WAY FOR A NEW INTERSTATE ON-RAMP

INDIANA JONES AND THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION CAPITULATING TO EVERY DEMAND OF A REACTIONARY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

two more in Ghostly Lessons!

* Ricardo Roque considers the ghostly dynamic of the historical archive www.at-commons.com/pub/u9q4ocbz...

* Lisette Jong asks if orangutans can speak and whether they conjure ghosts of human evolution science www.at-commons.com/pub/pneeteps...

continuing our roll out of Ghostly Lessons:

*Vivette García-Deister on forensic scientists' attempts to identify deceased migrants: www.at-commons.com/pub/dbu8b0wc...

* Lydia Gibson on mediums, refractions, and the inner lives of ghosts www.at-commons.com/pub/ybaqzlrr...

Haunting as Anti-Method: Ecological Rage in the Wake of Organized Disappearance

* Mara Dicenta on terraforming beavers and those who would exterminate them, all occurring in the penumbra of settler colonialism and indigenous erasure www.at-commons.com/pub/inj74h5t...

Viral Spectres, Haunting Journeys

* Michelle Bootcov on the strange travels of the Hep-B virus, and on the haunting nature of viruses generally. www.at-commons.com/pub/wyvbup7c...

Two more in our Ghostly Lessons series:

Ghosts · Anthropological Theory

we are thrilled to announce Ghostly Lessons, a new special Theory Forum at ATC, edited by Emma Kowal and Amanda Domingues. Their intro is here www.at-commons.com/pub/k3r17d8f... and keep checking our @ as the entire Forum will be rolled out in the next two weeks here: www.at-commons.com/ghosts

see Public Anthro's important Special Issue "On Speaking Out: Refusing Complicity with Genocide" brill.com/view/journal...

The Rest and the West In the wake of a pandemic that tested economies and societies, geopolitical conflict has taken on a new intensity. The Rest and the West locates the origins of this development in the turbulent dynami...

can we interest any anthropologists (of security, capitalism, logistics, war, their intersections) in reviewing the new Mezz and Neil @versobooks.bsky.social? Those two are always a good time
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...

Book Reviews · Anthropological Theory reviews

for more on our book reviews, see: www.at-commons.com/reviews

The Late Marx’s Revolutionary Roads In his late writings, Marx went beyond the boundaries of capital and class in the Western European and North American contexts. Kevin Anderson carries out a systematic analysis of Marx’s Ethnological ...

anyone want to review, in an anthropological theoretical vein, this new one on late Marx? So much to sink teeth into, given anthro's recent and longstanding concerns with colonialism, gender, and communism (indigenous and otherwise).
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...

check out Cambridge University Social Anthropology Society (CUSAS) Magazine's new issue: ‘Excess’

fittingly, there's too much good stuff in there:
www.cusas.socanth.cam.ac.uk/magazine-hom...

Errant phenomenology: an interview with Cheryl Mattingly

AT author Cheryl Mattingly reflects on how she does theory
www.at-commons.com/pub/pcmcrp4w..., examining how anthro takes on phenomenology can assist in grasping how we think about stigma and disability. Her interview continues our series with AT authors, see here: www.at-commons.com/interviews

Hurray - „Leaking panic as policy“, now published! Thanks so much @anthrotheory.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Book Reviews · Anthropological Theory reviews

we are soliciting anthropologists to review books of theory for how they apply to anthro (see here www.at-commons.com/reviews). Pitch us, and we'll get you a book for your trouble (press willing)

Anthropological Theory Anthropological Theory Home Page

feeling like we are in weeks where decades happen? want to theorize it, anthropologically? see www.at-commons.com and submit something.

Communitas revisited: Victor Turner and the transformation of a concept - Sarah Haggar, 2024 Victor Turner's concept of communitas has been used in and beyond anthropology for years in a variety of ways. It is an effective concept for understanding one ...

📰new article📰 by Sarah Haggar tackles Victor Turner's concept of communitas, arguing for a more nuanced understanding of the underdeveloped concept journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Immanent Externalities

any economic anthros (or adjacent) interested in reviewing Immanent Externalities for ATC? www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2403-i...

🚀 New Website! 🚀
#BlueAnthro - we at Anthro Theory Commons are pleased to announce that our new website at-commons.com is up!
This website can mint DOIs, which, when combined with our peer review process, makes your short-form theory more recognizable as scholarly text.

Social connections and ethical entrapments: On doing anthropology of and through the border regime - Viola Castellano, 2024 The article aims to conceptualize the relational dimension of the border regime and its function in reinforcing and reproducing global inequalities. It does so ...

find her article, "Social connections and ethical entrapments: On doing anthropology of and through the border regime," here journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🎙️interview🎙️
Viola Castellano describes the "friction between wanting to uphold the right to move of people who are de facto immobilized and the fear of accidentally contributing to their encounter with the necropolitical forces of the border regime." www.at-commons.com/pub/tnlxpxyc...

"Interview: Human Remains and Essentialist Assumptions" www.at-commons.com/2023/10/09/i... - in which
Jonatan Kurzwelly and Malin S Wilckens discuss their AT article “Calcified identities: Persisting essentialism in academic collections of human remains”

Stringer Bell telling everybody that ATC is back up

Hi Hi Blue Sky! The new and improved ATC is coming your way soon! Watch this space for author interviews, idea incubator essays, thematic collections, and more – all with peer review and editorial support. Your new fav home for theory in short form.