Join Michael Wesch and Elisa (EJ) Sobo for an exciting conversation on how to leverage generative AI for better teaching and learning! Together, they delved into the challenges presented by large language models and generative AI technologies, offering not only concrete suggestions for classroom practice but also timely reflections on the purpose of higher education.

"In meeting this new technology with creativity and purpose, we can reorient education’s compass needle back toward process as opposed to product – toward thinking about as opposed to merely recounting what others have said" – and as we do, we can bolster efforts to increase equity in higher education too: "The adaptations we create, not ChatGPT, could be the real revolution" (Sobo, 2023, 1). By guiding students to apply generative AI in innovative classroom activities and projects, we can empower our students to use this technology as a practical tool for inquiry and discovery while also interrogating its potential sociocultural impacts *(Sobo, E. (2023). Could ChatGPT Prompt a New Golden Age in Higher Education? Teaching and Learning Anthropology, 6(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/T36160114)*



The REAL AI revolution: the benefits of Chatbot Augmented Instruction

A thought-provoking webinar on what it means to decolonize anthropology in different contexts around the world. This event brings together Dr. Gretchen Stolte, Dr. Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, and Dr. Carolyn Rouse, contributors of the American Ethnologist special forum, “Decolonizing Anthropology: Global Perspectives”, to explore the past, present, and future of anthropology. This discussion, moderated by Dr. Faye Ginsburg, will touch on everything from the decolonizing politics of citation, public anthropology, the historical relationship between anthropology and colonial power in different parts of the world, and the degree to which anthropology provided and provides the tools to resist.
 
**Panelists**
 
 Dr. Gretchen Stolte, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia
 Dr. Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, Departamento de Estudios Culturales, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Departamento de Antropologia (emeritus), Universidade de Brasília
 Dr. Carolyn Rouse, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University
 **Moderator**
 
Dr. Faye Ginsburg, Department of Anthropology, New York University

Discussing ‘Decolonizing Anthropology: Global Perspectives'

Many cultures share common constellations and common narratives about the stars in the night sky. Previous research has shown that this overlap in asterisms, minimal star groupings inside constellations, is clearly present across 22 distinct culture groups and can be explained in part by properties of individual stars (brightness) and properties of pairs of stars (proximity) (Kemp, Hamacher, Little and Cropper, 2022). The same work, however, found no evidence that properties of triples (angle) and quadruples (good continuation) predicted constellation formation. We developed a behavioural experiment to explore how individuals form constellations under conditions that reduce cultural learning. We found that participants independently selected and connected similar stars, and that their responses were predicted by two properties of triples (angle and even spacing) in addition to the properties of brightness and proximity supported by previous work. Our findings lend further evidence to the theory that commonality of constellations across cultures is not a result of shared human history but rather stems from shared human nature.


Visual perception principles in constellation creation in individuals

This paper presents interdisciplinary and participatory research conducted with laryngectomees with an aim to widen research paradigms for cognitive sciences. Studying daily communication in an interactive context of people living without larynx, we put special emphasis on methodology combining engaged epistemology with ethnographic fieldwork, novel in the domain of this specific perturbation. Results valuable for designers, therapists and research participants themselves demonstrate that the greater awareness is needed of i) influences of anatomical and physiological adaptations on communication and social relations, ii) multimodal and context-dependent alternative strategies of conversation, iii) the crucial role of participants’ agency. We claim that some of our unexpected observations were possible, because of choosing the research approach that extended our epistemological capacities, namely by remaining open to novel interpretive categories and perspectives. We describe how dialogue between epistemologically engaged cognitive science and ethnographic fieldwork facilitated our understanding of the problem in a specific case.

Researching Communication in Context: Engaged Epistemology and Ethnographic Fieldwork Transforms Understanding of Interactions after Laryngectomy

This webinar brings together scholars involved in the World Anthropologies movement to discuss the current state of this vital project with global scope. Starting with the recognition that the building of anthropological knowledge is mainly constrained both by imperial/colonial structures and the default frame of the nation-state, the session will explore methods of doing anthropology otherwise. As an AAA sponsored event, the session will focus in particular on the role of the US and the AAA. We will reflect on the extent to which USian anthropology positions itself as an (or even sometimes the!) “anthropology without culture”, as well as on how USian institutions and structures produce a USian anthropology. Within the context of efforts from within the AAA and other national or multinational bodies (notably the World Council of Anthropological Associations) and supranational bodies (notably the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), we will discuss the struggle to decenter knowledge production from a place of privilege and domination. We will then consider how the World Anthro movement does or could build bridges with anthropologies that traverse, get around, subvert, or transcend “national” boundaries, and in particular the hegemony of the US, the AAA, and of English, and with movements that seek to queer anthropology, to decolonize it, to crip it, or to burn it down.

World Anthropologies: Building Disciplinary Bridges and Upending Hierarchies of Knowledge

How can anthropological expertise on sex and gender help us better understand the complexities of the world around us, particularly in the face of increasing legislation targeting transgender people and efforts at equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)? This panel discussion–featuring scholars from all four fields of anthropology–will delve deeply into sex and gender as categories, drawing on things like cross-cultural approaches, biological studies, and feminist theory. 

Sex is Complex: Discussing Sex and Gender Across Anthropology

Show Me an Anthropologist and I'll Show You a Librarian

Historical artifacts only have meaning because of the stories we tell through and about them.

What kinds of stories emerge from the artifacts found in the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum? These storylines weave together artifacts, documentary film, and online storytelling. We take objects donated to the museum, explore their meaning for donors, and then interweave these stories with those relating to other Museum objects. Can these extended storylines become launching points for conversations about the nature of work, the value of community, and what it means to be an American? Can they help us reimagine our collective futures?

The Stories We Tell — The Southeast Chicago Archive & Storytelling Project

The Dobbs decision was shocking if not surprising, particularly in the context of movements to make abortion care accessible elsewhere around the world. In the United States, more than half of states are enforcing or enacting bans and restrictions that are severe and extreme. This is a moment requiring the deeper and broader perspectives of anthropologists working in reproduction. This roundtable features contributors to The Routledge Handbook on Reproduction and Anthropology speaking on how changes in US law and policy are affecting the local communities where they work and the global landscape of reproduction. Drawing from their research, they also discuss sources of insight and inspiration in the continuing struggle for reproductive justice.

Navigating Reproduction After Dobbs

 The terms “culture” and “cultural group” admit several readings. A prevalent one takes them to be sortals: terms that pick out countable entities. I’ll call such countable entities sortal cultures. Sortal cultural are frequently used in policy, jurisprudence, and empirical work. These are entities usually picked out with national or ethnic labels, like “the Basque” or “the Kwakwaka’waka”. Because they facilitate counting, sortals require two criteria: one for identifying the entities at stake (a criterion of application) and another that tracks their existence over time (a criterion of identity). 

Recently, philosophers have fleshed out these criteria by analogy to the phylogenetic account of species. Identifying similarities, these authors suggest sortal cultures should be underpinned by a similar metaphysical picture: relational essentialism. This, I’ll suggest, is sensible—but doesn’t fully specify the criteria needed. Further pursuing the analogy between species and culture puts pressure on current accounts, and suggests four possible routes forward: to (i) merely use the analogy instrumentally; (ii) adopt analogize a different species concept; (iii) abandon the idea that cultures are lineages, or; (iv) adopt a “rank-free” account of culture. I’ll close by highlighting the novelty—and plausibility—of (iv), that cultures should be understood as “rank-free” entities.

Cultural Lineages and Rank Freedom

Archaeological and anthropological research on war has linked the taking of human body parts as trophies with transitions to sedentism, farming, and political centralization: trophies could increase status of warriors in societies with achieved inequality, project political power for leaders relying on violent coercion of internal and external populations, and were often linked with beliefs about agricultural fertility. This study tests whether institutionalized trophy-taking in war was more likely in societies 1) at intermediate levels of social complexity, 2) engaging in violent political expansion, and 3) dependent on agriculture. A dataset of 113 societies was coded from ethnographic and secondary historical/archaeological sources. Bayesian logistic regressions were used to test the likelihood of trophy-taking from the predictors, using a DAG to adjust for appropriate covariates. None of the hypotheses was supported. There was some evidence for a negative effect of social complexity (95% CI largely negative across models). This could be interpreted as less display-oriented violence in complex societies reliant on more egalitarian/cooperative ideologies. It is also possible the sample or coding was biased, such as with the measurement of social complexity, or that trophy-taking is too broad a phenomenon to be consistently associated with any of the hypothesized drivers.

A cross-cultural analysis of social complexity and the taking of human body parts as trophies during war

Educational gag orders -- legislative restrictions on the freedom to learn and teach -- have been passed by state legislatures around the country with alarming speed. These bills targeting higher education, seeking to silence the core anthropological topics of race, gender, and their function in culture and society, are part of a sustained political assault on the part of state legislators. Watch a presentation from PEN America on the landscape of gag orders and other legislative threats to public education. Following this presentation, you will hear from a panel of anthropologists who can provide perspective on how these issues impact their work. 

Underline digital video library

The REAL AI revolution: the benefits of Chatbot Augmented Instruction

Discussing ‘Decolonizing Anthropology: Global Perspectives'

Visual perception principles in constellation creation in individuals

Researching Communication in Context: Engaged Epistemology and Ethnographic Fieldwork Transforms Understanding of Interactions after Laryngectomy

World Anthropologies: Building Disciplinary Bridges and Upending Hierarchies of Knowledge

Sex is Complex: Discussing Sex and Gender Across Anthropology

Show Me an Anthropologist and I'll Show You a Librarian

The Stories We Tell — The Southeast Chicago Archive & Storytelling Project

Navigating Reproduction After Dobbs

Cultural Lineages and Rank Freedom

A cross-cultural analysis of social complexity and the taking of human body parts as trophies during war

Educational Gag Orders and Anthropology in Higher Education

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES