Cris

LATEST ARTICLES ( 560 )

• Aboriginal “Religion” & Ethnohistory

  

  While having lunch with a friend yesterday, he asked what I had been doing this summer. I had to confess that other than a wondrous trip to Bear Butte and... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Full Moons & Near Deaths

  

  A rigorous new study in Current Biology demonstrates that the full moon deeply impacts human sleep. This won’t come as any surprise to wearers of the magical... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Anthropology’s Ritualist Hour

  

  Over at the Toronto Star, Rick Salutin salutes anthropology for providing keen insights into the human condition. In the process, Salutin astutely observes:The... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Primitivist Assumption

  

  A new study in Science investigated lethal aggression in 21 hunter-gatherer societies and concluded that most deaths were due to personal disputes rather than... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Eliding Mircea Eliade

  

  After reading 13 of Mircea Eliade’s books, an exasperated Edmund Leach had had enough. Leach was, when he published this review of those 13 books in 1966, one o... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Eternal Returns: Myth of the Mythical

  

  Over the past week I’ve been following Calvin Martin’s journey from academic historian to animist wanderer. While it’s hard to know what he was thinking and... Read more

  Posted on 15 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Homo Jellyfishus

  

  Humans are of course transforming the oceans in ways that we barely understand, but one vicar of change is the massive proliferation of jellyfish. Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Accidental-Lyrical Evolution

  

  Over at aeon, bird biologist Lewis Spurgin discusses the role of chance in evolution. He studies birds, especially island birds, and has concluded that chance o... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Squatting Monkeys

  A friend sent me this the other day on the assumption that I would find it funny, which I do:Other than the fact that Dana Carvey has a humor gene, what makes i... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Animist People Hunting

  

  In 1978 former Rutgers historian Calvin Martin published Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade. A year later, at the annual... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Sasquatch Pareidolia

  

  According to this story, a canyon explorer in Utah believes he has found the first fossilized evidence of a Bigfoot:It doesn’t require paleontological... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Spirit of Bear Butte

  

  For nearly 10,000 years Native Americans have been visiting Bear Butte just north of the Black Hills (Pahá Sápa) in South Dakota. It’s not hard to... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Aestas Excursi

  

  Having been away for a while on a much needed camping excursion to the glorious Pine Ridge of Nebraska and Black Hills of South Dakota, the blogging has taken... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Anthropologizing the Bible

  

  Wouldn’t it be great if some really astute people trawled the web every day in search of the best writing? It is in fact great and it’s being done by the good... Read more

  Posted on 16 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Enlightened Enchantment?

  

  Over at The Atlantic, anthropologist Christine Folch wonders why Americans love science fiction and fantasy films, whereas Indians don’t. It’s Hollywood v. Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Ignoble Savages & Napoleon Chagnon

  

  When I first began studying anthropology it was de rigueur to have an opinion about Napoleon Chagnon and his work on the Yanomamo. Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• “A Tremendous Machine”

  On June 9, 1973 at the Belmont Stakes, a stunned track announcer uttered these inimitable words:They’re on the turn, and Secretariat is blazing along! The... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Sourcing Hunter-Gatherer “Religions”

  

  Last week I received an email from a graduate student whose research requires some knowledge of “hunter-gatherer religion.” He asked if I could recommend some... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Physics and Metaphysics

  

  In a near perfect follow to my recent post on animist and quantum worldviews, Margaret Wertheim explains why physics — supposedly the most “hard” of all science... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Religion as Action & Belief

  

  Over at the NYT, Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann has posted a curious op-ed piece arguing that action rather than belief constitutes the larger part of... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2013 DEBATE, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY