Have you Liked anything today? A year ago, I wrote about the psychology behind Liking, noting that Liking a status update on Facebook could help reinforce relationships and Liking articles and media on the web could help build online reputations Liking shows that we’re paying attention, and allows us to be recognized as a participant [...]

This is an installment in the On My Shelf series—reviews about books demonstrating anthropology in practice. Book details follow the post. I learned something recently: Twine was once a contraband item. Picture this: It’s almost harvest time, and it promises to be a good one—in fact, you’ve taken out a bank loan to cover your [...]

Ed. Note: What better way to round out Halloween than by considering why it is that clowns can strike fear into our hearts when they’re supposed to be harmless? Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns. And I’ll admit that they make me nervous. I’m not totally crazy about hanging out with folks who think wearing [...]

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would [...]

Ed. Note: This article originally appeared on Anthropology in Practice on May 2, 2011.   Lunch is an often neglected meal of the day: sometimes skipped, many times hastily consumed, lunch is often over before it begins. It feels like an intrusion: we have to stop what we’re doing, pause our stream of thought or [...]

Why are we drawn to tragic heroes much more then to conventional ones? Perhaps because tragic heroes, because of the flaws and ambiguity inherent in their nature, continue to intrigue us long after we have finished admiring the essentially simple and good character of conventional heroes. Hamlet catches hold of our imagination much more than [...]