In Dr. Arditi's new article, “Video Game Concerts: Unending Consumption on Video Game Platforms", he explores the way video games and music have gone from competitors to collaborators. Video games are a way for record labels to turn gamers into music fans and music is a way for video game companies to turn music fans into gamers.
Link to Dr. Arditi's 2024 articleBased on in-depth interviews and non-participant observation collected with various actors in four surrogacy markets (India, the U.S., Germany, and Ukraine), in this article, Heather Jacobson and colleagues examine the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the war in Ukraine on the infrastructure of the global surrogacy industry.
Link to Dr. Jacobson’s new articleIn “Responses to Uncertainty: Cosmopolitanism, Traditionalism, Modernism, or Fatalism?,” Robert Kunovich explores social psychological responses to living with uncertainty in the context of contemporary Poland.
Link to Dr. Kunovich’s book chapterIn this book chapter, “How the Past Shapes the Future: A Life Course Perspective on Poverty,” Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek and Robert Kunovich examine changes in poverty status in Poland over six five-year periods: 1) 1988– 1993, 2) 1993– 1998, 3) 1998– 2003, 4) 2003– 2008, 5) 2008– 2013, and 6) 2013-18. We identify the social forces that lead to changes in poverty status in post-communist Poland.
Link to Dr. Kunovich’s book chapter with Dr. Życzyńska-CiołekIn this new article, “Work and the public understanding of science,” Robert Kunovich explores the connection between the type of work that we do and our attitudes toward science, including science knowledge, interest in science, and trust in the scientific community.
Link to Dr. Kunovich’s articleRitu Gairola Khanduri published a chapter in the popular anthropology textbook, Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology.
Link to Dr. Khanduri’s textbook chapterStreaming disrupted the entire entertainment industry, upending the DVD-purchasing, film-renting, moviegoing model of decades past. In this article, Dr. David Arditi explains why sharing 2% of revenue from films and shows on streaming platforms is a sticking point.
Link to new Dr. Arditi’s new pieceFrom The Voice to House Hunters, Reality Television shows undercut the power of labor. These shows are cheap to produce, partly because they pay their works so little. Dr. Arditi shows that while hosts of The Voice make upwards of $14 million per season, contestants do not earn a dime for their work. As Hollywood writers and actors strike, it is important to remember that TV networks fill the gap with these cheap high-profit shows as a strategy to undermine labor.
Link to Dr. Arditi’s September 2023 pieceDavid Arditi continues to cover the Hollywood writers strike with an addition of some big name actors.
Link to Dr. Arditi’s July 2023 PieceSociologist David Arditi explains how the rise of streaming upended the TV industry – and as the industry change, so did the working conditions for writers, which started to reflect many characteristics of the gig economy. While Hollywood writers might earn a lot more per hour than a DoorDash driver, they now lack the protections, wages and job security once taken for granted in pre-streaming days.
Link to Dr. Arditi's May 2023 PieceIn his new book, Digital Feudalism: Creators, Credit, Consumption and Capitalism, David Arditi argues we are in a new phase of capitalism, which he calls “digital feudalism.” We find precarious employment via digital platforms, we buy goods and services in perpetuity through subscriptions, and we pay for it all with debt.
Link to Dr. Arditi's BookShould museums show visitors more about evolution than fossil evidence and examples of natural selection? In this article, Professor of Anthropology Shelley Smith argues that they should and explains why.
Link to Dr. Smith's ArticleIn this new post on the Reprotech Collective’s Blog, Heather Jacobson and Virginie Rozée discuss their call for the use of ethnographic and empirical data when examining surrogacy.
Link to Blog PostIn her new book, Dr. Lemke explores ancient hunting sites, stone constructions from all over the world that were used by peoples in the past to hunt wild animals. The book outlines these structures and how they work and introduces new data from such sites found underwater in the Great Lakes. The book combines history, ethnography, and archaeology to explore these structures through time and how they impacted the cultures that used them.
Link to Dr. Lemke's BookIn this new article, Heather Jacobson and colleague Virginie Rozée (INED, France (The French Institute for Demographic Studies)) examine assumptions about surrogacy and argue for a more nuanced approach to research on third-party pregnancy using empirical and ethnographic data.
Link to Dr. Jacobson's June 2022 articleInterested in the temporal limits of fertility and reproductive timing? Check out this new article by our own Heather Jacobson in which she proposes a new concept: the ART Clock.
Link to Dr. Jacobson's March 2022 articleThe National Science Foundation awarded Christian Zlolniski, Professor of Anthropology, a $255,000 grant to study the labor and environmental implications of natural resources being marketed as sustainably sourced products.
Link to news articlePerceiving morality in everyday life: This research addresses the ways in which morality and immorality are perceived by individuals, not only in the actions of others, but also in the inanimate objects of encountered in everyday life.
Link to Dr. Young's articleDr. Jacobson was interviewed on the North Carolina NPR show Embodied about her surrogacy research.
Link to Dr. Jacobson's PodcastThe Money 4 Nothing Podcast interviewed Dr. Arditi about his book, Getting Signed.
Link to Dr. Arditi's PodcastDr. Lemke's 2021 underwater archaeology field school is featured in this episode of Shipwreck School.
Link to Dr. Lemke's VideoRecently published in Social Movement Studies "Targeted Appeals: Online Social Movement Frame Packaging and Tactics Customized for Youth" is coauthored with Monica Whitham (Associate Professor of Sociology, Oklahoma State University). It investigates how social movement organizations tailor their frames and tactics to appeal to different age groups, including young children.
Link to articleReprowebs: a conceptual approach to elasticity and change in the global assisted reproduction industry
Link to Dr. Jacobson's September 2021 articleDr. Cleghorn's fieldwork in South Africa was the feature of this recent Leakey Foundation Lunch Break Science Talk.
Link to Dr. Cleghorn's VideoDr. Smith remembers C. Loring Brace on the Human Biology Association's podcast.
Link to Dr. Smith's Podcast