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George Paul Meiu

George Paul Meiu awarded the 2019 Nelson Graburn Book Prize

November 25, 2019
George Paul Meiu, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, was awarded the 2019 Nelson Graburn Book Prize of the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group for his book Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money, and Belonging in Kenya. The prize is awarded for a best first book by an author who contributes to the anthropology of tourism. Congratulations Professor Meiu!
NEJM: "Medicine and the Mind — The Consequences of Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis"

NEJM: "Medicine and the Mind — The Consequences of Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis"

October 31, 2019

Arthur Kleinman, the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychiatry and of medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School, co-authored this article in the New England Journal of Medicine critiquing the medicalization of psychiatry. An excerpt is below:

bout 100 years ago, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers observed that biologic and psychological investigations of the mind were like “the exploration of an unknown continent from opposite directions,...

Read more about NEJM: "Medicine and the Mind — The Consequences of Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis"
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Professor Joseph Gone on how colonization shapes mental health in Native American communities

October 25, 2019

Professor Joseph Gone went on the Mad In America podcast to discuss colonization and mental health outcomes in Native American communities. A brief except is below:

The consequences of our colonization are the enduring mental health inequities or disparities, particularly addiction, trauma, and suicide. These inequities didn’t arise because our brains suddenly went bad or because we had bad genes. This came about in the process of conquest, colonization, and dispossession. Ordinarily, the mental health professions make sense of these...

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HARVARD MAGAZINE: Julie Chung '20 discusses the controversial origins of anthropology

October 18, 2019

In a piece in the Fall 2019 issue of Harvard Magazine, social anthropology concentrator, Julie Chung ’20, grapples with the colonialist origins of anthropology and discusses how that affects young anthropologists conducting field research today.

The first day of class, we discussed Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s classic text on the “savage slot,” a critique of anthropology’s role in placing certain peoples and cultures in imperial categories of non-Westerness, otherness, and the “primitive.” In our weekly sessions, we reckoned with...

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GAZETTE: Professor Christina Warinner on her research into humans, the food they eat, and the evolution of the microbiome

October 16, 2019

"As an anthropologist, Warinner studies the relationship between humans, their food, and their microbiomes. By examining traces of food and microorganisms left behind on dental tartar, paleofeces, and ancient ceramics, she is able to uncover lost details of human history that can inform modern humans’ diets and health. Warinner is part microbiologist, part paleogeneticist, part human evolutionary scientist."

Read more...

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TIME: "How I Learned to Be a Better Doctor From My Wife’s Struggle With Alzheimer’s" by Arthur Kleinman

TIME: "How I Learned to Be a Better Doctor From My Wife’s Struggle With Alzheimer’s" by Arthur Kleinman

September 26, 2019
In his new book The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Professor Arthur Kleinman discusses the challenges of becoming the primary caregiver for his late wife during her degenerative illness. Read an adaptation of the prologue here. Read more about TIME: "How I Learned to Be a Better Doctor From My Wife’s Struggle With Alzheimer’s" by Arthur Kleinman