Have you watched this episode of Freakonomics yet? Our professor, Gökçe Günel @drgokcegunel.bsky.social, is the guest of episode 643, "Why Do Candles Still Exist?", and she discusses obsolescence, commodities, and energy. Listen to her here: freakonomics.com/podcast/why-...

How can we study automation as anthropologists? Where do we start? What would a CS/anthropology collaboration look like? Our professor, Ilana Gershon, wrote a piece about it: "An Anthropologist’s Guide to Better Automation", co-authored by Caitrin Lynch, has now been published.

Join the Rice Cinema and us for a special screening featuring work by Tish Stringer, a Rice Anthropology alum and former technical exhibition manager at Rice Cinema! Friday, December 19, 7:00 PM, Sarofim Hall, Pitman Cinema Theatre.

We have great classes coming up for Spring semester! ANTH 206: Intro to Indigenous Environmental Movements Dr. Huatse Gyal Fridays 12-2:30pm Reach out to our professor, Huatse Gyal, for more information. Read below for the class description.

Zahid took the cake! CONGRATS to our graduate student Zahid Ali for receiving the prestigious Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant 2025. Read more about his amazing research on the Rice Anthropology website: profiles.rice.edu/student/zahi...

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “Enterprising Spirit and Entrepreneurial Practice, Religion, and the Making of Entrepreneurs in Post-colonial Zimbabwe” with Josiah Taru, Postdoctoral Associate, Boniuk Institute, Rice University, on Friday, November 14, 12pm, Sewall 570 and Zoom.

Join Rice Anthropology PhD Candidate Alejandra Osejo Varona, and Carlos Ramón, for an immersive sound walk that is part of her doctoral research, tomorrow, 5-6:30pm, Herring Hall Courtyard.

Join us for the second Ethnographic Design Co.Lab event of the year: Archeology and Object-Oriented Ethnography led by our esteemed professor Khadene Harris, November 7, 12-2pm, Sewall Hall 570. Advanced registration is encouraged.

JOIN US for a Grad Admissions Info Session on Thursday, November 6, from 12-1pm (CST) via Zoom. Prospective grad students have the opportunity to meet with faculty members Dr. Gokce Gunel, Dr. Huatse Gyal, and Dr. Cymene Howe. Register for the meeting here: tr.ee/VJJWtV

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “Community Engagement and the Bolivar Archaeological Project, Texas” with Maria Franklin, Professor and Department Associate Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, on Friday, October 24, at 12:00pm in Sewall 570 and Zoom.

Join our professor, Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Ilana Gershon for a Scientia Lecture Series: Knowledge Under Fire, "You Say You Want a Revolution: The Appeal of the Illiberal", tomorrow, October 21, 4 pm, Kyle Morrow Room at Fondren Library.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “Rot and Repair: Crafting Ecological Futures in a Broken World” with Anand Pandian, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, on Friday, October 10, at 12:00pm in Sewall 570 and on Zoom.

Read the news article and listen to Alejandra Osejo Varona share her exciting research: "Escobar’s Hippos: How a Rice Anthropologist Is Rewriting the Story of Colombia’s Most Unlikely Ecological Problem": tr.ee/H0a2MF

JOIN US and the Program in STS for a Brown Bag Talk “Irreversible returns: Controversies Over Glacier Geoengineering in Chile” with Cristián Simonetti, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, on Friday, October 3, at 12:00pm on Zoom.

Join our professor, Dr. Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo, and the School of Social Sciences for Research Relays on Friday, October 3, 4:30 - 6:30 PM, Kraft Hall 130. Other speakers include: Kevin Thomas (SOCI), Guillaume Pouliot (ECON), Jae-Hee Jung (POLI) RSVP: form.asana.com?k=dAlNpxVjRK...

New article on NYA Sciences co-written by our professor Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo: "Early Humans and the Balance of Power: Homo habilis as prey" Read it online: nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We are having our first Ethnographic Design CoLab meeting of the year! Affect Theater with Cristiana Giordano, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, September 26, 12-4pm, Location TBA.

Students in Eat Me: Food & Culture in Global Contexts (ANTH 210, Fall 2025), taught by Professor Cymene Howe, spent an afternoon at Seibel Servery in conversation with Chef Joe Stayshich, Assistant Dining Director, and the dedicated servery crew.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “No Malagasy Science? Politics and Paradox of Post-Colonial Sciences in Madagascar” with Quinn Georgic, PhD Candidate, Rice University, on Friday, September 19, at 12:00pm in Sewall 570 and Zoom. Register for the Zoom meeting: tinyurl.com/5dez6v43

JOIN US and the Center for Environmental Studies for their next lunch series on Tuesday, September 16, at 11:30 am, at the Cohen House. Assistant Professor Huatse Gyal (Anthropology) will be one of the panelists, along with Dean Rachel Kimbro, Cassandra Diep, and Chin Jou.

JOIN US, Dr. Günel, and Friends of Fondren for an event, The Books that Shaped My World, this Wednesday, September 10, 6 p.m., Fondren Library, Kyle Morrow Room, 3rd Floor. RSVP here: riceconnect.rice.edu/fondren/BTSM...

JOIN US and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies for a talk: "Spanish Speakers as Racialized Social Types: Hearing for Deficiency and Deception" by Jessica López-Espino. Dr. López-Espino will be introduced by our professor Amarilys Estrella. Scan QR for more info.

TOMORROW! ✨ JOIN THE RICE ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT FOR A BROWN BAG LECTURE WITH MELISSA CEFKIN:

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “Positioning Possibilities: Anthropological Engagements Across Careers” with Melissa Cefkin, Lecturer and Senior Consultant, on Friday, September 5, at 12:00pm in Sewall 570 and Zoom. Register to join on Zoom: tinyurl.com/38nzrjkm

This Labor Day, we are reading "More Than Pretty Boxes: How the Rise of Professional Organizing Shows Us the Way We Work Isn’t Working" by Carrie M. Lane Read our professor, Ilana Gershon, interviewing Carrie M. Lane about the book on SAW website: tinyurl.com/mrkuvakz

New Year, New Members of the Anthro Department! Welcome our new student, Sangharsh Telang! Sangharsh's work examines the interrelationship between highly affluent neighborhoods and the politics of redistribution. #riceanthro #newstudent #riceuniversity

The Anthropology Brown Bag Calendar is up! Join us this fall semester and listen to our favorite anthropologists in our favorite room, Sewall 570. Links and descriptions will be provided before each meeting. Stay tuned! ✨

New Year, New Members of the Anthro Department! Welcome our new student, Kevin Yu! Kevin's research lies at the intersection of law, politics, gender, and transnational governance, with a particular focus on China and the Global South.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Talk “Autogestión and Autonomy in a 21st Century Mexico City Tianguis” with Rigoberto Quintana, PhD Candidate, Rice University, on Friday, August 29, at 12:00 pm on Zoom. Register for the Zoom meeting: tinyurl.com/bp7ymxdc

New Year, New Members of the Anthro Department! Welcome our new student, Nabiya Khan! Nabiya's research focuses on the formation of political subjectivities among Indian Muslim women, with a focus on everyday life, memory, and resistance.

Another amazing course from the Anthropology department for the Fall semester! Jerks, Bullies, and Toxic People: The Anthropology of Bad Behavior (ANTH 304) Prof. Ilana Gershon Mondays/Wednesdays: 2:00 - 3:15 pm

Are you ready for the fall semester?! 🍁🍂 Social Design Studio (ANTH 368/568) Prof. Dominic Boyer Fridays 2:00-4:30pm Read more below. #riceanthro #socialsciences #socialdesign

Our professors Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer helped lead the world's first funeral for a glacier, Okjökull. The funeral project is now featured in 'Breaking the Ice', in connection with the United Nations’ International Year of Glacier Preservation. Read it on Rice News: tinyurl.com/3urpy4yw

Are you ready for the fall semester?! 🍁🍂 We have great courses coming up: Zooarcheology (ANTH315/515) Dr. Mary Prendergast Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:25-10:40 am Fridays 10-10:50 am

Are you ready for the fall semester?! 🍁🍂 We have great courses coming up: "Kings, Queens, and Commoners: Archeology of Ancient Mesoamerica" ANTH 392/592 Dr. Molly Morgan Meeting times: M&W 2:00-3:15pm

Read our professor Dr. Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo's latest article: "The Ecology of an Elephant Kill: Lion Defleshing of an African Elephant in the Okavango Delta (Botswana), and Limited Kleptoparasitic Opportunities for Meat-Eating Scavengers" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Home Values: Land, Labor, and the Economy of Retreat in the Eastern Himalayas” with Sarah Besky, Prof of the Anthropology of Work, the IRL School, Cornell University, on Friday, April 18, at 12:00pm in Room 570, Sewall Hall and via Zoom.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Eldercare and Technology: Visions of Positive Futures” with Caitrin Lynch, Professor of Anthropology, Olin College of Engineering, on Tuesday, April 8, at 12:15pm in Sewall 570 and via Zoom.

This weekend, we are in Austin! the 14th New Directions in Anthropology (NDIA) Conference is hosted by UTAustin Dept of Anthropology in collaboration with the grad students of Rice Anthropology The theme is ‘Rupture and Repair: The Modalities of Anthropological Practice in Contemporary Times

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Exceptional Blackness: Neoliberalism and the Homeland Brand in West Africa”with Bayo Holsey, Associate Professor, African American Studies and Anthropology, Emory University, on Friday, April 4, at 12:00pm in Room 570, Sewall Hall and via Zoom.

JOIN our PhD Candidate Laurin Baumgardt for his Doctoral Dissertation Defense “Meantime Design: Architecture, Infrastructure, and Housing Struggles in Post-Apartheid Cape Town” on Wednesday, April 2 at 12:00 PM CDT on Zoom.

Join our PhD Candidate Zeynep Gizem Haspolat for her Doctoral Dissertation Defense “Cheap Meat, Plastic Lives: Cattle Imports, Veterinary Care and Shifting Livestock Economies in Turkey” on Monday, March 31 at 12:00 PM on Zoom. Link below.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Securitizing Birth in South Texas: On Midwives, Birth Certificates, and Bureaucratic Doubling” with Orlando Lara, Doctoral Candidate, Anthropology, Race and Justice Emphasis, UC Irvine, on Friday, March 28, at 12 pm in ROOM 307, Sewall or Zoom.

Join our professor Dr. Khadene Harris for a talk hosted by the Center for African and African American Studies, "A Conspiracy of Industry and Violence: Caribbean Plantations and the (Un)making of the Plantationocene, March 26, 12pm, Rayzor Hall 119.

JOIN US for this year's Mutant Anthropologies public lecture, Living and Writing War with Dr. Munira Khayyat, Friday, March 13, 2025, 12pm, Sewall 572 or Zoom.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the last Ethnographic Design CoLab of the year! We watched Pema Tseden's Snow Leopard and shared our thoughts after the movie. Special thanks to TransArt Foundation for Art and Anthropology for hosting our event.

JOIN US for a Reception and Screening of Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden! Friday, March 7, 2025 4-5pm Reception 5-7pm Screening of Snow Leopard Location: The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, 1412 W Alabama St, Houston, TX 77006 #EthnographicDesignCoLab

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Fostering Global Partnerships: Best Practices for Secure and Ethical International Collaboration” with Tam Dao, Assistant Vice President for Research Security, Rice University, on Friday, March 7, at 12:00pm in Room 570, Sewall Hall and via Zoom

Join us for a reading of Undocumented Motherhood with Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, Chicana author and medical anthropologist, as she shares her insights on identity, health, and resilience. Event is hosted by Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies and supported by Rice Anthropology Department

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Navigating the Desert of the Unreal” with Lisa Messeri, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yale University, on Friday, February 28, at 12:00pm in Room 570, Sewall Hall and via Zoom.