Anthropology

Mathers Museum celebrates 50th anniversary

April 4, 2013

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Indiana University’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures marks its 50th anniversary this month with a new exhibition and a series of free programs  The “Treasures of the Mathers Museum” exhibition opens Sunday, April 28. As its name suggests, the exhibition is an overview of the breadth of the museum’s collections. “While it’s a celebration of the museum’s [...]

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World cultures museum gets new director

January 29, 2013

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Jason Jackson, associate professor of folklore at Indiana University Bloomington, has been named the new director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. He is the Mathers’ third director. With the appointment, Jackson comes full circle, having worked at the museum during his first year of graduate school at IU, studying cultural anthropology and folklore. [...]

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Downton Abbey, consumer culture, and the real sustainability issue

January 11, 2013

If you’re a Downton Abbey fan (and yes, we are legion), you know that the Grantham family is in turmoil, their aristocratic privilege threatened by financial disaster. Still, it seems unlikely that their lavish  lifestyle will be too much affected. We Americans will just have to wait for Season 3 to unfold to know the [...]

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Mintzi Martinez-Rivera

November 9, 2012

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Pursuing a dual Ph.D. in anthropology and folklore, Mintzi Martinez-Rivera studies how young people are redefining the meanings of ‘traditional.’”

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Susan Seizer

October 18, 2012

Anthropologist and first-time film producer Susan Seizer has made a documentary about stand-up comics in middle America: what inspires them, what motivates them, and what makes them funny.

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Human (biology) eats!

May 25, 2012

When HBO’s four-part documentary “The Weight of the Nation” (presented with the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health) premiered in mid-May, the media was overstuffed with stories on America’s virulent obesity epidemic. The films and accompanying website offer a full plate of resources and action recommendations [...]

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Studying stress in endangered species

March 26, 2012

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Wild orangutans who have come into contact with eco-tourists over a period of years show an immediate stress response but no signs of chronic stress, new research from an Indiana University anthropologist has found. Other species exhibit permanent alterations in stress responses . IU anthropologist Michael P. Muehlenbein can’t say yet what makes the wild [...]

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