Dr Emma Louise Backe

Important News about SAPIENS

1/
THREAD: It’s with deep regret we share the news that SAPIENS will halt publication of new content by the end of this year. We are so proud of everything SAPIENS has achieved and for our role in furthering public anthropology. Wenner-Gren’s letter to our community. wennergren.org/important-ne...

As Universities Cede to Fascism, Faculty Must Refuse to Follow Once upon a time, universities sought to be spaces where critical thought was championed, diversity was celebrated, and academic freedom was valued. Since the Civil Rights Movement, many universiti…

In my latest blog post I lay out some things we as faculty can do to ensure that higher education remains an incubator that prepares future generations for a multiracial democracy as opposed to an incubator for Trump's fascist agenda. Check it out!
educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2025/07/24/a...

Donate to help out Mohammed and his little one here: www.gofundme.com/f/help-moham...

Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent abuse survivors, dies by suicide Other Epstein victims credited Giuffre with giving them the courage to speak out.

A reminder that after years of speaking out against Epstein and giving other survivors the courage to come forward, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April at the age of 41.

Let's not forget that there are real human tragedies behind everything we're discussing.

Please help out Nour and her family if you can - donate here: www.gofundme.com/f/i-want-hel...

do NOT apply for the scab jobs at columbia

In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials.

NEW: The death shadow cast by Musk.

“When U.S.-supported soup kitchens were forced to close, babies starved quietly, their mothers said, while older siblings died begging for food.”

The world’s richest man did this to the world’s poorest children.

Don’t ever forget.

Police Hurt Thousands of Teens Every Year. A Striking Number Are Black Girls. HAGERSTOWN, Md. — On a warm September Sunday in 2016, a small Black teenager in a pink T-shirt biked through narrow city streets and rolled into an intersection. So did a Chevy Cruze, driven by an…

A 9-year-old pepper sprayed in handcuffs, crying for her dad. A teenager wrestled to the ground, and another pepper sprayed while waiting for the bus.

All were Black girls hurt by police.

Being a feminist academic on Twitter never ceases to be a delight 🥲 I could write a whole new PhD thesis based on these comments to my tweet about Johnny Depp alone.

BREAKING: At least 21 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza this morning, sources at local hospitals tell our team.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/m4ewkf

This is moderately terrifying but I’m trying out TikTok to provide some much needed context around Trump’s claims of a white genocide, why rates of crime and violence are so high in South Africa, and what simplistic narratives about the need for more policing leave out. www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8MXG1q2/

Actor Jonathan Joss, best-known for voicing Native characters on King of the Hill and Parks and Recreation, was murdered in a hate crime perpetrated by a San Antonio homophobe. Here is what his husband wrote about what happened.

“One in six female survivors surveyed felt forced to engage in ‘survival sex’ for necessities after 2023 catastrophic Hawaii fire.”

The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future.

NEW: The US government has collected DNA from over 100,000 migrant children—including a 4-year-old—and uploaded their genetic profiles into a national biometric database meant for sex offenders and violent criminals.

www.wired.com/story/cbp-dn...

Trump administration cancels plans to develop a bird flu vaccine The Department of Health and Human Services is ending a $766 million contract with the vaccine company Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine for flu strains with pandemic potential, including bird flu.

22 years ago I pivoted from working on antibiotic resistance to pandemic viruses.

Since then, I've argued that if we care about saving US lives in expectation, advance capacity for producing bird flu vaccine offers by far the greatest expected return on investment.

...

We were so goddamn close.

Support Needed for SAPIENS Magazine and its Staff Union! We, SAPIENS staff, write to our supporters with an urgent request for support. We were informed this week that our funder, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, may choose to close SAPIENS Anthropology Magazine...

Anthropologists: please support @sapiens.org magazine and staff (who are trying to unionise!) by writing a letter to the Wenner-Gren Foundation that may choose to shut it down. At a time in which eugenics 2.0 is now debated in US politics, people need anthropology!

actionnetwork.org/letters/urge...

When you’re dead inside but can finally call yourself a doctor and a book author.

Today's the day! Join us on the National Mall from 10 AM to 5 PM to celebrate trans freedom with a day full of music, fun, and the unveiling of our historic Freedom to Be quilt.

Get details at aclu.org/freetobe-dc

#WorldPride

More conversations with GBV and trauma-informed practitioners need to happen to disrupt narratives of “mutual abuse.” But this episode from It’s Been a Minute is a good start, especially to contextualize the Diddy case, Depp v Heard, and why survivors stay in abusive relationships.

We’re Just Human Incubators to Them Thirty-year-old Adriana Smith, who is brain dead, has been kept on a ventilator for months due to Georgia’s abortion ban.

Wrote about Adriana Smith, who has been kept alive for months on a ventilator, brain dead, against her family's wishes—all because of Georgia's six-week abortion ban.

www.thecut.com/article/adri...

RAINN Drops Resources After Trump’s D.E.I. Executive Orders Fearing funding cuts, the anti-sexual-violence organization RAINN barred referring callers to resources for L.G.B.T.Q. people, immigrants and other marginalized groups.

"RAINN (the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) has removed more than two dozen resources for L.G.B.T.Q. people, immigrants and other marginalized groups from its list of permissible referrals…employees…are instructed not to deviate from that list"

My grandma was the first woman in the family to go to college. And now I’m the first PhD in the family. #phdone

I’m graduating with my Doctorate this week & reflecting on how taxing it’s been been. Developing a chronic illness has meant I’ve had to radically rethink my productivity, academic hustle culture, and work through the shame of not having the next big job lined up so that I prioritize my health.

If you do only one thing, keeping political sway out of science and other agencies is the one action to take.

Go online and make a comment. The sheer volume of comments WILL make a difference.

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

Remembering ‘MOVE' as American religion on the 40th anniversary of Philadelphia bombing its own residents Forty years ago today, the city of Philadelphia dropped a bomb on itself. The city of Philadelphia let that fire burn for more than a day while firetrucks and firefighters stood watching the flames d...

With thanks to @mxabdulaliy.bsky.social, @intersectionist.bsky.social, @geedee215.bsky.social, @hystericalblkns.bsky.social, @philaprint.bsky.social, and everyone else working to make sure MOVE and its people aren't forgotten

religiondispatches.org/remembering-...

Washington Post Shamefully Endorses RFK Jr's Pseudoscience Report On Trans People The paper, which has had no problem critiquing other pseudoscience efforts by RFK Jr's HHS, appears to fully embrace anti-transgender pseudoscience and conversion therapy.

1. Shamefully, the Washington Post Editorial Board has just endorsed the junk-science report put out by RFK Jr's HHS department on trans people.

The paper is willing to put science aside when a politically juicy target like transgender people is involved.

Subscribe to support real journalism.

Trump Abruptly Fires Librarian of Congress, Sparking Widespread Outrage Carla Hayden is the first woman and first African American to lead the largest national library in the world.

Trump has sparked widespread outrage by abruptly firing Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman and first African American to lead the national library, after a right-wing group claimed she was “woke” and “anti-Trump.”

Also newly gluten free and I have been having dreams about all the foods I can’t eat anymore 😓