San Francisco always seems imaginary to me. Unlike many of my friends I’ve never felt the urge to move here because it would be like asking to live in a daydream: beautiful and otherworldly but insubstantial. But then, the digital worlds that we build of which Silicon Valley is the spiritual home are no more … Continue reading
Tag Archives: culture
New Books in Anthropology Network podcast interview
New Books in Anthropology Network podcast interview Astrid Countee of the New Books in Anthropology Network recently interviewed me about Belly Dance Around the World: New Communities, Performance and Identity. We had a great conversation so please go check it out on the New Books in Anthropology Network. Continue reading
Global Moves Word Cloud
These are word clouds based on my book Global Moves! Designed with Wordle, they’re not just keywords arranged in a pretty pattern: they also provide a visual representation of the frequency of terms in the text. I wasn’t really surprised by the results but some things came out much more clearly than I expected–and other … Continue reading
Historicity
I was introduced to this word a few days ago by Philip K Dick’s novel ‘The Man in the High Castle’, and its certainly a concept that springs to life in Stratford-upon-Avon. Most of the UK, in fact, has a palpable sense of identity, of pride, not only in the objects and stories of history … Continue reading
Entmoot
Okay, it wasn’t really Entmoot. But that’s what I kept thinking in my head every time I heard the term Ward Mote, which is what I actually went to on Monday afternoon. Entmoot, as I am sure you know, is the fictional meeting of tree-like creatures called Ents in Tolkein’s famous fantasy series Lord of … Continue reading
The Creature
Excerpt from Skirt.com, click the link to read the rest 0 Okay, I’ll save you the suspense (what little is left.) I did get a ticket to Frankenstein. Some of you may be wondering, “How on earth does that unemployed PhD with threadbare elbow-patch jackets even manage to afford going to all that theatre anyway?” … Continue reading