social

  • A Brief History of Race in the Western Thought

    Race, as a concept, has an important ontology in American society. In order to understand the relationship between race, genetic research, and the American class structure, it is necessary to first understand the historical production of race. The following section does not intend to be a comprehensive history of race but merely highlights trends in

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  • The Paradox of Hyper-connectedness and Solipsism in Contemporary America

    Try walking around the mall, on a crowded sidewalk, or through a university campus, and there is one thing that stands out: people are engulfed in their phones. Whether they are moving from point A to B or simply hanging out, many people rarely ever look up from their screens. Parents of teenagers know this

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  • The Personhood and Rights of Apes

    I spent the earliest part of my career as an anthropologist studying captive chimpanzees at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. While there, I always made a concerted effort to engage with zoo-goers while performing focal animal sampling (studying juvenile time budgeting and play behavior). If you’ve done any primate behavioral ecology, you will

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  • This is the transcript for the talk I gave at Skeletal Biology in the Carolina conference. You can see the PPT here: Slipping into Darkness Slide 1 Introduction Slide 2 This project examines the state of anthropology, particularly paying close attention to diversity at the undergraduate level. If you take a look at these two charts;

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  • New Semester: Science Studies Course

    It’s a new semester and I am teaching two sections of LBST 2213 (STS) along with two sections of introduction to anthropology. The Science Studies course focuses on the nature of science and issues with biological determinist arguments in human sciences. You can see the syllabus here: Syllabus for Science Studies Course: LBST 2213 On the

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  • Book Review: You Shall Know Them

    You Shall Know Them (1953), or Les animaux dénaturés in the French, is a novel by Jean Marcel Bruller under the pseudonym Vercors. He is most famously known for The Silence of the Sea (1942), which explores the experience of a French family and a German occupying officer who attempts to convince the family of

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  • Syllabus for Intro to Anthropology: ANTH1101

    Intro to Anthropology (ANTH 1101-006) UNC Charlotte, Spring 2018 Mon/Wed (11:00-12:15pm) in CHHS 380   Instructor: Adam Johnson Office Hours: T/TR 11:00-12:00pm ajohn344@uncc.edu by appointment in Hickory 42B       This syllabus contains policies and expectations I have established for this course.  Please read the entire syllabus carefully and refer to it regularly throughout

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  • Syllabus for Science Studies Course: LBST 2213

    Science Studies (LBST 2213-015) UNC Charlotte, Spring 2018 Tues/Thurs (2:00-3:15pm) in Kennedy 236   Instructor: Adam Johnson Office Hours: T/TR 11:00-12:00pm ajohn344@uncc.edu by appointment in Hickory 42B       This syllabus contains policies and expectations I have established for this course.  Please read the entire syllabus carefully and refer to it regularly throughout the

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  • Abstract for “Geno-colonisation: How science executes structural violence”

    Social institutions such as healthcare and education have been examined through a lens of structural violence— the systematic ways by which social institutions place certain members at a disadvantage thus causing various types of harm. However, science has escaped such scrutiny. In a post-colonial world, new forms of colonisation have taken the place of traditional

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  • Purity and Danger Revisited: Dirt and Racism

    Mary Douglas defines ‘dirt’ as “matter out of place.[1] In revisiting her work in the context of my current research and the protests of professional athletes, it made me consider this definition, its implications, and the lengths to which we go as a society to “reorder” the world and cleanse. “Dirt offends against order. Eliminating

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