Opening with the provocative query "what might an anthropology of the secular look like?" this work explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities in the modern West and Middle East. It proceeds to dismantle commonly held assumptions ......
Surveying contemporary networks and practices in Peru, Australia, and China, anthropologist Alex K. Gearin explores the visionary marvels, wonders, and diversity of ayahuasca drinking today.
Ceremonies of drinking the psychoactive brew ayahuasca have flourished across the planet in recent decades. Emerging from ......
The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down
An anthropologists quest to understand the deep social and political divides in American society, and the everyday strategies that can overcome them.
In 2016, Anand Pandian was alarmed by Donald Trumps harsh attacks on immigrants to the United States, the appeal of that politics of anger and fear. In the years that ......
The year 1888 marked the last year of Friedrich Nietzsche's intellectual career and the culmination of his philosophical development. In that final productive year, he worked on six books, all of which are now, for the first time, presented in English in a single volume. Together these new translations provide a fundamental and complete ......
Can there be good social policy? This book describes what happens to Indigenous policy when it targets the supposedly 'wild people' of regional and remote Australia. Tess Lea explores naturalized policy: policy unplugged, gone live, ramifying in everyday life, to show that it is policies that are wild, not the people being targeted. Lea turns the ......
What is a rule, if it appears to become confused with life? And what is a human life, if, in every one of its gestures, of its words, and of its silences, it cannot be distinguished from the rule? It is to these questions that Agamben's new book turns by means of an impassioned reading of the fascinating and massive phenomenon of Western ......
From a globally renowned expert on Russian military strategy and national security, The Russian Way of Deterrence investigates Russia's approach to coercion (both deterrence and compellence), comparing and contrasting it with the Western conceptualization of this strategy. Strategic deterrence, or what Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky calls deterrence a la ......
Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy
China is unique in modern world history. No other rising power has experienced China's turbulent history in its relations with neighbors and Western countries. Its sheer size dominates the region. With leader Xi Jinping's political authority unmatched, Xi's sense of mission to restore what he believes is China's natural position as a great power ......
How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism
Just about any social need is now met with an opportunity to "connect" through digital means. But this convenience is not free-it is purchased with vast amounts of personal data transferred through shadowy backchannels to corporations using it to generate profit. The Costs of Connection uncovers this process, this "data colonialism," and its ......
