Two Centuries of Loss in One Night.
This past Sunday, September 2, 2018, a fire broke out at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Built in a centuries old Palace, the museum had celebrated it’s bicentennial celebration in June.
an anthropological spin
This past Sunday, September 2, 2018, a fire broke out at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Built in a centuries old Palace, the museum had celebrated it’s bicentennial celebration in June.
In encouraging readers to learn to view things anthropologically, I study an instrument I bought as a decoration for $3 at a yard sale.
When I started Pedal Powered Anthropology, I thought for a while about what I would “call” myself. Anthropologist didn’t seem to quite fit, although it wasn’t inaccurate. I wasn’t a “documentarian” or “documentary film maker,” although more and more that latter part is coming to the forefront.
I cannot think of anything more representative of the absolute worst that humans are capable of than the words on this gate. Arbeit Macht Frei–Work Makes You Free.
How long did these gates stand before the words on them took on the meaning they now have? I can’t imagine stepping off of a train, not quite knowing what was in store but fearing the worst, and seeing this phrase.
The idea of people being “victims of their time,” and why I think that’s both limited and fallacious, as well as why I think it could also be very well suited to anthropological thought…when taken literally.
Sitting in a pretty packed auditorium, I reflected on the last couple of days. Some rather fortuitous Facebook browsingContinue Reading