SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human
67 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 193 ratingsWhat makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join Season 5’s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. For more information, visit sapiens.org
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Episodes
Can We Understand One Another?
December 14, 2023 19:53 - 30 minutes - 68.7 MBHosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau explore the perils and possibilities of the kind of fieldwork that defined Margaret Mead as an anthropologist. They provide answers to the Mead-Freeman controversy but also ask the questions that remain. In this season finale, we circle back to the problems with coming of age … in Samoa and everywhere. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. ...
Weaving Stories: Two Women Speak
December 05, 2023 07:00 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MBWe turn from Margaret Mead’s and Derek Freeman’s conflicting accounts of adolescence and sexuality in Samoa to more stories from Samoans themselves. Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau are two Samoan women from different generations. Yet they share a bond and have a similar experience of terrible violence and survival. They bravely give us a glimpse into the dynamics of power within sexuality and their heartfelt journey of reclaiming it. Sea...
Sex, Lies, and Science Wars
November 28, 2023 07:00 - 28 minutes - 65.2 MBAfter Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, the controversy heats up. Op-eds, documentaries, censure by a leading anthropological organization, and even a debate on the Phil Donahue Show all follow. Was Margaret Mead, “the grandmother of the world,” wrong? Or was Freeman? At stake was the heart of an academic discipline and the nature of being human. Mead’s own daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, launches a defense, an...
Bonus: Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment
November 21, 2023 07:00 - 38 minutes - 52.7 MBSAPIENS is happy to present this bonus episode from Lost Women of Science about another path-breaking thinker. In the 1960s, a Black home economist at Howard University recruited kids for an experimental preschool program. All were Black and lived in poor neighborhoods around campus. Flemmie Kittrell had grown up poor herself, just two generations removed from slavery, and she’d seen firsthand the effects of poverty. While Flemmie earned a PhD from Cornell, most of her siblings di...
Into the Light
November 14, 2023 07:00 - 23 minutes - 54.7 MBThe first missionary arrived in Samoa in 1832, almost a century before Margaret Mead set out to study the culture of the islands. By the time she arrived, the church had been a central part of Samoan life for generations. In this episode, Doris Tulifau explores how Christianity and colonization complicate Mead’s—and her critic Derek Freeman’s—conclusions and continue to shape Samoan identity today. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possib...
Trashing an American Icon
November 07, 2023 07:00 - 28 minutes - 65.1 MBIn January 1983, the front page of The New York Times read: “New Samoa Book Challenges Margaret Mead’s Conclusions.” Anthropologist Derek Freeman had been building his critique of Mead for years, sending her letters and even confronting her in person. Freeman’s resulting book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, was published five years after Mead died. Who was Freeman and why did he take such issue with Mead’s work in American Samoa? Se...
We Need to Tell Our Own Stories
October 31, 2023 06:00 - 28 minutes - 65.2 MBSparked by a provocative encounter in American Samoa, Doris Tulifau explores modern-day Samoan attitudes toward Margaret Mead. With a mix of voices and opinions, we encounter three loud ideas around Mead’s work, ultimately dropping us at the doorstep of Derek Freeman’s central critique about Samoan culture and society. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Flapper of the South Seas
October 24, 2023 06:00 - 25 minutes - 57.4 MBIn 1925, Margaret Mead set sail for American Samoa. What she claimed she found there—teenagers free to explore and express their sexuality—instantly captivated her audience in the U.S. Her book became a bestseller, and Mead skyrocketed to fame. But what were her actual methods and motivations? We trace Mead’s legendary nine-month journey in the South Pacific. Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowme...
Coming of Age … Today
October 17, 2023 06:00 - 23 minutes - 53.9 MBBeing a teenager can be hard. Very hard. Our hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau recount the tough parts from their adolescence to ask whether being a teen is difficult in every culture. It’s the question that inspired Margaret Mead, one of the most influential figures in American anthropology, to begin her research in American Samoa in 1925. And it’s the question that has sparked years of debate about human sexuality, nature versus nurture, and whether we can ever really understan...
The Problems With Coming of Age: Season 6 Trailer
October 10, 2023 06:00 - 3 minutes - 7.59 MBThis special SAPIENS podcast season tells the story of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead’s epic life and controversial research to explore key quandaries about the human experience: sex and adolescence, nature versus nurture, and the question of whether it’s ever possible to fully understand cultures different from your own. In addition, we hear from Samoans themselves about their views on the matter and their lives today. In 1928, when she was just 27 years old, Mead published Co...
Introducing: Going Wild
September 05, 2023 14:00 - 1 minute - 2.36 MBThe chart-topping and Signal Award-winning podcast “Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant” has returned for a brand new season. Produced by Nature on PBS, “Going Wild” is a sound-rich podcast about the human drama behind saving animals. This season, host and acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant takes you on a journey through the entire ecological web—from the tiniest of life forms to apex predators. The new season is guided by one central question: “How can we, humans, look...
Introducing: The Disappearing Spoon
August 15, 2023 10:00 - 16 minutes - 37.3 MBArchaeologists around the world have long unearthed skulls with holes in them. But they were usually dismissed as natural accidents—the result of infections, birth defects, or animal bites. But in 1864 an archaeologist named Ephraim George Squier found a skull in Cuzco, Peru with a hole that was clearly not natural—it was square-shaped. The hole also showed signs of new bone growth around its edge, which meant the person couldn’t have been dead when the hole was cut. This skull was ...
Introducing: The Bioneers – Revolution from the Heart of Nature
May 30, 2023 10:00 - 2 minutes - 1.85 MBThe Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature is an award-winning, international radio and podcast series. Free to everyone, this series offers listeners and radio stations the opportunity to experience the conference year-round, and allows access to in-depth interviews with leading social and scientific innovators. It highlights diverse voices of grassroots leaders and voices that are often marginalized or excluded by corporate media. The programs cover a wide range of topics, ...
Introducing: Outside/In
May 23, 2023 10:00 - 2 minutes - 3.05 MBOutside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio is a show about the natural world and how we use it. The show combines solid reporting and long-form narrative storytelling to bring the outdoors to you wherever you are. The program casts a wide net across the environmental spectrum. They do fun explorations of nature, with lots of sound design and immersive scenes; they cover climate change and sustainability, but try to keep solutions to environmental problems in the spotlight; and they ...
Introducing: Blind Plea
May 17, 2023 10:00 - 59 seconds - 1.36 MBDeven Grey, a young, isolated mother in Alabama, reached a point of no return on December 12, 2017. She shot and killed her boyfriend, John Vance. Rather than face a jury, Deven accepted a “blind plea” deal. This is Deven’s story, reclaimed. From Lemonada Media, this is Blind Plea. You can listen to Blind Plea at https://link.chtbl.com/BlindPleaPodcast Show notes: This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to ...
Finding Mrs. Jackson
May 09, 2023 10:00 - 27 minutes - 37.8 MBWhen archaeologists excavate, they have some idea of what they will find in the ground. But in 2016, a team of archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, was genuinely surprised when they uncovered a Victorian-era cache. In the process, they forged an uncommonly deep connection with an individual from the past. Narrated by Anya Gruber, this story shows how archaeology can humanize the past and how loss can bring us closer. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Huma...
Aneho’s Disappearing Coast
May 02, 2023 16:57 - 29 minutes - 40.7 MBAneho is a little historic West African town that is disappearing due to coastal erosion. But locals defy the sea and continue to live on the water’s edge. In this episode, we hear how their decision to stay in the face of an ever-approaching shoreline affects life along the coast and beyond. As reported by Koffi Nomedji, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology from Lomé, Togo, we learn how as humans we variously face climate change–induced disaster. SAPIENS: A Podcast for ...
The Conversion of Julio Tiwiram
April 25, 2023 10:00 - 24 minutes - 33 MBJulio Tiwiram is a famous shaman in southeast Amazonian Ecuador. He is also a leading political figure among the Shuar people of Bomboiza. Growing up at the crossroads of social change and colonial conflict, his path to shamanism was anything but straightforward. As reported by Sebastián Vacas-Oleas, a social anthropologist working with the Shuar people of Bomboiza, we learn how a mysterious shamanic gathering helped Shuar people mobilize their traditional knowledge to fight for t...
People of the Peppers
April 18, 2023 10:00 - 33 minutes - 46.6 MBThe world over people live with plants. Whether it’s in apartment bedrooms or backyards, it’s hard to find a human who doesn’t have some relationship with a plant. Enter paleoethnobotany, a field of archeology that examines plant remains to understand the historic alliance between humans and their vegetation. In this episode, host Eshe Lewis interviews archaeologist Katie Chiou to explore the spiciest human-plant affair: chili peppers. Katherine L. Chiou is an anthropological archa...
The Power of Criminal Prosecutors
April 11, 2023 10:00 - 26 minutes - 36 MBAnyone who is in prison has been charged for a crime by a prosecutor. The charges are important because they determine someone’s punishment. How do prosecutors make their charging decisions? And what are the long-term impacts of those decisions? Reported by Esteban Salmón, an anthropologist born and raised in Mexico City, we learn just how powerful a charging decision can be in the Mexican criminal justice system. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of ...
I Do This for You, Mom
April 04, 2023 10:00 - 32 minutes - 45.2 MBJeri Hutton Green is a mother, daughter, and advocate for survivors of domestic violence and homicide in Baltimore, Maryland. Her journey as an advocate began when her mother went missing in April 2020. A text message launched a 2-year battle for justice for her mother and other missing Black women. Reported by Brendane A. Tynes, a doctoral candidate in anthropology and an interpersonal violence survivor advocate, this episode explores what it means to survive domestic violence an...
A Story of Icelandic Skulls
March 28, 2023 10:00 - 36 minutes - 49.8 MB“Prime harvest”—that’s how one early 20th-century explorer described his collection of Icelandic human skulls. But why did he “harvest” those skulls in the first place? And what should happen to them now more than a century after they were collected? This case of the Icelandic skulls reveals an interconnected story of eugenics, international law, and the limits of current repatriation efforts. As reported by Adam Netzer Zimmer, an Iceland-based anthropologist, we hear how a commun...
SAPIENS Podcast Season 5 Trailer
March 21, 2023 10:00 - 4 minutes - 6.47 MBBeing human is complicated. We require food and shelter. We have histories to contend with. We create rituals to control fate. We steal. We fight. We kill. We love. We shape the environment to suit our needs—sometimes with terrifying results. This season of the SAPIENS podcast embraces the diversity of human experience, digging deep into our human past and how we live today. The throughline of this season is the way in which humans use cultural beliefs and practices not only to exp...
Introducing: Whetstone Radio Collective
May 10, 2022 10:00 - 1 minute - 1.01 MBToday, we're sharing a teaser from our friends at Whetstone Magazine. They've started something called the Whetstone Radio Collective (WRC). The WRC is a collection of podcasts telling narrative stories through the lens of food anthropology. To learn more, visit: https://www.whetstonemagazine.com/radio
Repatriation Is Our Future
April 13, 2022 10:00 - 43 minutes - 101 MBThe Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, or NAGPRA, is supposed to curb the illegal possession of ancestral Native American remains and cultural items. But a year after it was passed by the U.S. federal government, a significant African burial ground in New York City was uncovered. And there was zero legislation in place for its protection. Dr. Rachel Watkins shares the story of the New York African Burial Ground—and what repatriation looks like for Africa...
Slavery, Sustenance, and Resistance
March 30, 2022 10:00 - 37 minutes - 85.4 MBArchaeology helps reimagine a fuller range of experiences, including how people ate, innovated, and rebelled. In this episode, “slave cuisine” opens a window to honor the legacy of Black creativity, resistance, and community. Dr. Peggy Brunache, a food historian and archaeologist, finds shellfish remains in a village of enslaved people, uncovering an untold story of how people found ways to resist. Dr. Kelley Deetz uses Southern food, which is really African food, to initiate diff...
More than a Mountain
March 16, 2022 10:00 - 33 minutes - 75.9 MBThe sky island of Dzil Nchaa Si'an is more than a mountain. It is a significant landmark in Arizona for Apache tribal members to collect medicinal plants, perform ceremonies, and connect with their ancestors. It is also a site of resistance against the development of an observatory informally known as the “Pope Scope,” for its ties to the Vatican. (00:01:47) A history of competing interests atop Dzil Nchaa Si'an, or Mt.Graham. (00:04:18) Introduction. (00:05:06) Nick and the ...
Curating as Caretaking
March 02, 2022 11:00 - 35 minutes - 81.6 MBIn this episode, museum curators challenge the status quo and connect their ancestry to advance how history is told in cultural institutions. Mary Elliot brings listeners behind the scenes into the Slavery and Freedom exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. And Dr. Sven Haakanson helps re-create an angiaaq, which is like a kayak, at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington. (00:01:24) Meet Mary Elliott, the curator of American slav...
At the Heart of It All
February 16, 2022 11:00 - 25 minutes - 59.3 MBFor its practitioners, archaeology can feel like it is unearthing events deep in the past … until it doesn’t. What is the experience of researchers who discover their life stories are tied to an archaeological site? Dr. Kisha Supernant and Lenora McQueen share their journeys to the unmarked graves of First Nations and Métis peoples and African American burial grounds, respectively, and how their connections to their ancestors transform their work. (00:00:16) The Truth and Reconc...
Redrawing Boundaries
February 02, 2022 11:00 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MBFor many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and colonial. What would it mean to leave ancestors and belongings where they’re found? In this episode, Gabrielle Miller, a PhD student studying African Diaspora Archaeology at the University of Tulsa shares a story about excavations in St. Croix. And Dr. Ayana Flewellen and Dr. Justin Dunnavant discuss how black archaeologists began uncovering sunken sla...
Guided by the Past
January 19, 2022 11:00 - 21 minutes - 50.1 MBHosts Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali share how they found their way to archaeology and what it means to be Black and Indigenous archaeologists. From defying the status quo in a classroom to diving through sunken ships, Ora and Yoli bring listeners on a journey of reclaiming stories and reimagining history. (00:00:10) How hosts Dr. Ora Merek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali met. (00:03:27) Why Indigenous archaeology is not the same as non-Indigenous archaeology. (00:09:11) ...
Our Past is the Future
January 12, 2022 11:00 - 3 minutes - 8.11 MBWe're launching a new season, asking what makes you … you? And who tells which stories and why? SAPIENS hosts Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali explore stories of Black and Indigenous scholars as they transform the field of archeology and the stories that make us … us. (00:00:02) Meet Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali. (00:00:51) How season four came to be. (00:01:53) Season four previews. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and s...
A Startling Link Between Neanderthals and COVID-19
December 08, 2020 06:00 - 21 minutes - 49.5 MBSAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with evolutionary geneticist Hugo Zeberg about his surprising discovery of a connection between Neanderthal DNA and a greater risk for severe COVID-19. Zeberg is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.Read the paper in Nature Zeberg co-authored announcing the discovery: “The Major Genetic Risk Factor for Severe COVID-19 Is Inherited From Neanderthals.”
Moments of Resilience Amid a Pandemic
November 24, 2020 06:00 - 26 minutes - 61.2 MBSAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with Melanie Adams, the director of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM), about #Moments of Resilience, the ACM’s effort to document and eventually tell African Americans’ stories about the times we're living through now. They also discuss the unique role of a community museum, the value of oral history, and the communities the ACM serves from its home in Washington, D.C. Check out these links to the three stories Melanie reads in thi...
Is the Pandemic Slowing Down Love?
November 12, 2020 05:30 - 26 minutes - 60.3 MBSAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between. Fisher is the author of six books, the chief scientific adviser for the online dating site Match.com, and a leading researcher on dating trends in America. In this episode, Fisher shares insights from a recent survey. The New York Times piece Fisher references in this episode is available here: “How Coronavirus Is Changing the Dating Game for the ...
When at Home, Bake as the Romans Baked
October 27, 2020 05:00 - 26 minutes - 61.3 MBSAPIENS host Chip Colwell talks with experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco about her work re-creating ancient Roman bread and what it means to reconnect with bakers of the past. Farrell also offers some tips for pandemic-era bakers who want to take their new hobby to the next level. For more from Farrell, her award-winning website is Tavola Mediterranea. Read more about experimental archaeology, including Farrell and her work, at SAPIENS.org: “Pandemic Bakers Bring the Past ...
A Vaccine Will Not Be Enough
October 14, 2020 16:32 - 24 minutes - 55.8 MBSAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with Agustín Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, to unpack his insight that the COVID-19 pandemic is a biosocial phenomenon. They also discuss his recent suggestion that the virus “is not the only hazard to human health and well-being” right now. Recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fuentes is a decorated anthropologist and an author of many books. His latest is Why We Believe: Evolution and the Hum...
We're (Still) Going Viral
August 28, 2020 04:30 - 2 minutes - 5.37 MBThe SAPIENS podcast will return in several months, and we want you to help us understand what it means to be human amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you have a question, thought, or idea about what it means to be human right now? Tweet at us @SAPIENS_org, message us on Facebook, or leave us a voicemail at 1-970-368-9730.
The Problem With Abstract Threats
July 02, 2020 04:01 - 34 minutes - 78.6 MBEveryone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem “somewhere out there” and started being a very real and personal threat. In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell interrogate the problem with abstract threats with the help of anthropologists Hugh Gusterson and Kristin Hedges. In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss a different abstract concept: time. Hugh Gusterson is a professo...
What Pandemics Leave Behind
June 18, 2020 04:01 - 34 minutes - 79.6 MBAt some time in the future, the novel coronavirus pandemic will fade. What will this globally traumatic contagion leave in its wake? In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell keep an eye on the future while looking to the past for answers: In the 14th century, the Black Death killed as much as one-third of the population of Europe, but it also sparked new ideas that linger to this day, including one of our favorite modern myths. In closing, Steve N...
Police Violence and the Pandemic
June 12, 2020 04:01 - 24 minutes - 55.4 MBSAPIENS host Jen Shannon interviews Laurence Ralph, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Ralph is also a co-director of Princeton’s Center on Transnational Policing, the editor of Current Anthropology, and the author of the new book The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence, which exposes the Chicago Police Department’s history of torturing black men and women, and documents the community activism intent on stopping such violence. The poll Jen mentions in...
Could the Coronavirus Pandemic Be Good for the Environment?
May 29, 2020 04:01 - 16 minutes - 37.2 MBSAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent article for SAPIENS that considers how the global pandemic may impact climate change—for better or for worse. Weitzel is currently working on his dissertation on the environmental effects of the Black Death on 14th-century Eurasia and the depopulation of Native Americans in the wake of European colonization. Read his SAPIENS article: “Are Pandemi...
Preppers and the Pandemic
May 19, 2020 04:30 - 28 minutes - 66.2 MBWith the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the SAPIENS podcast is going viral. In this first episode of season 3, SAPIENS hosts Chip Colwell and Jen Shannon revisit a story about preppers from our first season. Jen calls Chad Huddleston, one of the anthropologists featured on that show, to find out how he and the preppers he studies are handling the COVID-19 crisis. In closing, Chip reaches out to SAPIENS columnist and anthropologist Steve Nash to discuss panic buying, toilet pap...
What Does it Mean to be Human? Your Questions, Answered
December 03, 2019 05:01 - 25 minutes - 59 MBIn this season 2 finale of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon, Chip Colwell, and Esteban Gómez field questions from listeners on Twitter and at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about what it means to be human. They address human origins and self-awareness, discrimination, social media, and more! You can follow all of our expert guests on Twitter: Augustin Fuentes at the University of Notre Dame (@Anthrofuentes); Daniel Miller at the University College London (@DannyAnth); ...
Does Generosity Come Naturally?
November 19, 2019 05:00 - 33 minutes - 77.2 MBUntil very recently, Colin Turnbull was the only anthropologist who had lived and studied with both the Mbuti people of the Congo region and the Ik of Uganda. Because of his writings, one community became known for its egalitarianism and the other for its selfishness. His observations of the Ik in particular, as “inhuman” and “inhospitable,” led to them being dubbed as “the loveless people.” Then in 2009, Cathryn Townsend earned the chance to live with the Ik to study to generosity....
How Belonging Shapes the Vaccination Crisis
November 05, 2019 05:01 - 25 minutes - 59 MBAnthropologist Elisa Sobo never wanted to study the issue of vaccination. The topic was too fraught, she says, and she didn't want to touch it. But then she initiated a children’s health study at a school in California. Today her work on vaccine hesitancy offers insights into how those on opposing sides might better understand each other and work through this highly controversial issue. For more, check out Elisa Sobo’s SAPIENS piece about her work on vaccination: “Beyond the Vaccin...
The Deep Roots of Navajo Country Music
October 22, 2019 04:30 - 34 minutes - 79.7 MBWhat is it about certain musical traditions that cause them to take root in communities far away from where they originated? Anthropologist Kristina Jacobsen leads SAPIENS hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell on a musical journey into the U.S. Southwest to understand the phenomenon that is Navajo country music. In addition to authoring the book The Sound of Navajo Country: Music, Language, and Diné Belonging, Jacobsen is a singer-songwriter. This episode includes one of her songs and ...
Are Colors Universal?
October 08, 2019 06:03 - 30 minutes - 69.4 MBHow do language, biology, and culture shape an individual’s experience of color? A journalist investigates the anthropological debate about whether color is a human universal. Remember the meme #TheDress? Was it white and gold, or blue and black? With the help of Nicola Jones, a freelance science journalist who writes for Nature and SAPIENS, SAPIENS host Jen Shannon explores the question of color perception to find answers. She learns about the book The World Color Survey, an Amaz...
Stringing Together an Ancient Empire’s Stories
September 24, 2019 05:00 - 33 minutes - 77.2 MBAnthropologist Sabine Hyland attempts to uncover the secrets held in twisted and colored Andean cords called khipus. Thanks to the collaborative approach of anthropologist Sabine Hyland and local communities, outsiders are finally coming to understand what these khipus mean—for the people of the Andes and for the rest of us. Sabine Hyland is a professor of anthropology at the University of St. Andrews. Follow her on Twitter @Coyagirl. For more on khipus, read Hyland’s article abou...
Do You Dream What I Dream?
September 10, 2019 04:00 - 23 minutes - 52.7 MBAnthropologist Roger Lohmann sees a ghost in a dream while working in Papua New Guinea. Even though he knows it's just a dream, he's scared long after he wakes up. To make sense of his dream, Lohmann explores the role dreams play in our waking life and how different cultures make sense of dream worlds. Do all humans dream the same? Or do the cultures we are immersed in shape our dreams? Lohmann has six cultural dream theories that offer some answers to what dreams are and what they ...