I am sad to learn of the passing of Brinkley Messick, a great scholar and ethnographer, a dear colleague with whom I worked very closely with for more than a decade. Here he is at a panel celebrating his wonderful book *Shari'a Scripts: A Historical Anthropology* in 2018.

“If the universities—or in this case a university press—are not willing to stand up for what is core to their mission, I don’t know what they’re doing. What’s the point?”

Extremely grateful to Maëline Le Lay for this review in Cahiers de littérature orale journals.openedition.org/clo/14406

Since everyone is online today, it seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone to send me proposals or initial ideas for book review essays for @amanthro.bsky.social. Open to all kinds of creative and critical ideas! Read more here: tinyurl.com/4f2987rc

Since everyone is online today, it seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone to send me proposals or initial ideas for book review essays for @amanthro.bsky.social. Open to all kinds of creative and critical ideas! Read more here: tinyurl.com/4f2987rc

R.I.P. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o ICYMI here's Ngũgĩ's appearance on the show where we explored the many ways he has fought against the "normalized abnormality" of the colonial world, in language & writing, and in the world at large tinhouse.com/podcast/ngug...

Incredibly embarrassing to cede this clearly bad faith premise about intellectual diversity. “Heterodox faculty” is a well-known, paper thin veil for anti-intellectualism. So disgraceful if unsurprising that liberal academics are giving this cover. hub.jhu.edu/2025/04/21/j...

Starting the quarter with the 1843 Brief an Ruge. Can’t shake the feeling that it’s really a moment for it

@modernlanguage.bsky.social hmm, suddenly very concerned about democratic norms, free speech, and the urgency of the moment.

The only hope for higher ed is the academic labor movement. Join this @higheredlabor.bsky.social call next week to plan our fight us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Contributed a piece to the Lent Edition of the Cambridge Social Anthropology Magazine on the theme of Fiction/s, edited by their thoughtful and creative graduate students

Contributed a piece to the Lent Edition of the Cambridge Social Anthropology Magazine on the theme of Fiction/s, edited by their thoughtful and creative graduate students

a pandemic project is now out: a special issue on prison literatures in the middle east, eds. anne-marie mcmanus & brahim el guabli docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol25... walaa quisay and i wrote a short programmatic piece on how (not) to think about prison islam. i learned a lot from the other pieces

veena das - what even the cowherds and women know: everyday life and its promise www.academia.edu/126710656/Wh... a prospective retrospective

I’m not remotely unbiased but this show is so, so good—incredible to see a big museum show with this kind of conceptual coherence through hundreds of pieces from across a century and much of the world

I've recently joined the American Anthropologist team led by the incomparable @labspeceth.bsky.social as an Associate Editor. One of our goals for this coming year is to re-envision book reviews. Starting in 2025, we will be moving toward soliciting longer, critical review essays.

I've recently joined the American Anthropologist team led by the incomparable @labspeceth.bsky.social as an Associate Editor. One of our goals for this coming year is to re-envision book reviews. Starting in 2025, we will be moving toward soliciting longer, critical review essays.

Winter issue is coming soon!

I'm sorry not to be at AAA this year (I have a conflict this week). Next year, I'll be back in person, but for now, drop by the Ingram table for our recent books, and check out our virtual exhibit.

Can’t believe no one’s come up with a starter pack of anthropologists of literature who are into Wittgenstein

If anyone is looking for some distraction today, I had an incredibly enjoyable conversation with Setrag Manoukian about my @utpress book for @CaMPanthros. campanthropology.org/2024/11/04/a...

If anyone is looking for some distraction today, I had an incredibly enjoyable conversation with Setrag Manoukian about my @utpress book for @CaMPanthros. campanthropology.org/2024/11/04/a...

Incredibly grateful that my book Moving Words received an honorable mention for the DAAD/GSA Prize for the Best Book in Literature and Cultural Studies @thegsa.bsky.social www.thegsa.org/prizes/daadg...

In this new episode of Academics Write, Andrew Brandel (@aobrandel.bsky.social) talks about his book, Moving Words (2023, University of Toronto Press) how he turned his dissertation into a book, and how to find the right press for a monograph. Check it out 👉 t.co/nypOidpVKD

I haven't had a chance to introduce myself yet on this app, but I have a new book out on literature and migration in Berlin, and had a wonderful conversation with Alize Arican about it for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social Check it out here: newbooksnetwork.com/moving-words

I haven't had a chance to introduce myself yet on this app, but I have a new book out on literature and migration in Berlin, and had a wonderful conversation with Alize Arican about it for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social Check it out here: newbooksnetwork.com/moving-words

Next Tues Oct 10 @ 4pm ET (in person & zoom): JHU Anthro discussion about my book "Jewish Primitivism" w/ Clara Han, Talia Katz, Naveeda Khan (all JHU) and @aobrandel.bsky.social (U Chicago). Let's find out what anthropologists think of my book. (...and *what* anthropologists-such an honor!)