Episodes

Welcome back listeners new and old to the new and exciting season of This Anthropological Life! This season we at TAL have a lot of new content and exciting interviews ahead. To bring everyone up to speed, tune in to …

Sometimes ethnographic investigations are pretty straight forward. Sometimes, its like getting submerged in a ball pit with the task of sorting all of the colors, figuring out which ones are older than the others, and grappli...

Ever wanted to know what its like to be an archaeologist? Can you really dig a whole and interpret the past with the materials you find? Is anything about Indiana Jones accurate? Tune and listen to host Ryan Collins talk …

Join us for our 50th episode! Return guest host Ben Gebo joins Adam, Aneil, and Ryan as we uncover the human quest to endure, and to push ourselves to the limit. From marathons to surviving evolution, we tackle time and …

It’s winter time here in the northern hemisphere, and in New England that means snow… a lot it. What can we learn from it? Join Aneil and Ryan as they dive (or attempt to unbury) the human connections between snow, …

Today we dive into the world of food! Come hungry as we introduce the world of food studies and explore the changing roles and meaning food has had over the millennia, and how we can explore ways to fight local …

How do humans cope in the face of uncertainty, challenges, and trauma. Join your friendly neighborhood co-hosts Adam and Ryan as we explore coping across time, scales and space! From the individual to the cosmos, we find conn...

Ryan and Adam explore genderless gingerbread cookies in Australia – do these cookies reveal something about shifting gender paradigms? Also, we explore a bit about how and why we wear costumes. It may not be Halloween here in...

Join us for part two in our series on Ebola. This episode we discuss recent moves and displays by journalists and media outlets to cover various parts of the Ebola epidemic, the use of Ebola as a trope in political …

Smile! What is the relationship of happiness to place? What is the where of happiness? In part one of our series on happiness, we explore happiness as a place-based phenomenon. Episode 44 --- Send in a voice message: https:...

With the yearly release of new mobile phones, companies like Apple and Samsung have to sell the idea that we need a new device. With the release of wearable peripherals like Google Glass and Apple Watch, information communica...

Join Amy, Ryan, Aneil and Adam and special guest Delande Justinvil for an important episode of This Anthropological Life as we take head-on the complex issues of race in the United States, security, law enforcement and police...

Join us for our funnest episode yet! Amy, Aneil, Ryan and Adam Exploring humans as a playful species through the world of gameshows, trivia, and popular culture – from TV to Movies and Music. Michael D’Angelo is the writer, p...

Join us for our first ever extended conversation, part of our new “This Anthropological Life After Hours” extended episode series. On occasion we will keep the conversation going well after our regular show time to bring you ...

Episode 41, Season 4 Join Adam, Aneil, and Ryan with returning guest expert and commentator Ben Gebo as we dive into the rabbit hole of Burning Man. Ben recently returned from the Burn, and we recount his experiences with you...

Episode 38, Season 3 Amy and Adam are joined in studio again by season 1-2 host Ryan Collins, recently returned from fieldwork in Mexico. We turn our anthropological eye to the world of viruses and the recent outbreak of Ebol...

Episode 37, Season 3 Join us for a special episode with guest researcher, consultant, and author Rachel Katz for an intimate look at the lives of Chinese truckers. Rachel’s work explores and brings together an exploration of ...

Episode 36, Season 3, Aired 7/29/14 Urban cycling is both a global and local phenomenon. From Boston to Bombay to Beijing, bike cultures differ across the globe but bring many people together for commuting, recreation, exerci...

Episode 35, Season 3. Aired 7/22/14 From Access Denied to Transforming Access, numerous cases of the re-appropriation of space from occupy protesters to Shock Top beer fests, cars to bikes, city spaces and pavement to guerril...

Episode 34, Season 3 This week Aneil and Adam tackle Space in all of its complexity and multi forms, from the universe to the space between atoms we will dive into the numerous connotations of space. We explore outer space, …

Episode 33, Season 3 Feeling Stressed? Join Aneil and special Guest Luke Hanlin, Psychology PhD student, as they discuss the psychology of stress and the human capacity to deal with stress in a variety of ways. Aired 7/8/14 ...

Episode 32, Season 3 Special Episode on the Supreme Court’s rulings over religious freedom and freedom of speech. On this week’s episode we take on 5 recent and ongoing court cases that deal with first amendment rights of fre...

Episode 31, Season 3, Aired 6/24/14 Gooooooooooolllllll!!!!! Today we turn our anthropological lens towards the most popular sport in the world and perhaps the most global sporting competition in human history, the World Cup,...

Episode 29, Season 3 Vulnerability evokes multiple feelings simultaneously-intense discomfort, respect and awe, intimacy, and fear. Why does it resonate so broadly and deeply across contexts? What should we make of it when, i...