anthropology

#683 Allen Buchanan - Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism

Sep 26, 2022

Dr. Allen Buchanan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University, and Laureate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He has written six books covering such topics as applied ethics (especially bio-medical ethics), social justice, and international justice, including the foundations of international law. He is the author of Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism. More»
#678 Gilbert Herdt: The Anthropology of Sexual Orientation

Sep 15, 2022

Dr. Gilbert Herdt is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded the Summer Institute on Sexuality and Society at the University of Amsterdam (1996). He founded the PhD Program in Human Sexuality at the California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco (2013). He conducted long-term fieldwork among the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, and has written widely on the nature and variation in human sexual expression in Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and across cultures. More»
#676 Hector Qirko: Human Cooperation, Altruism, Kinship, and Institutions

Sep 9, 2022

Dr. Hector Qirko is Professor of Anthropology at the College of Charleston. His research interests include applied anthropology, organizational and institutional cultures, evolutionary theory and cultural patterning, and popular culture and identity. More»
#675 David Sloan Wilson: Religion, Multilevel Selection, Group Selection, and Designing Society

Sep 8, 2022

Dr. David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, both in his own research and as director of the Evolution Institute, a unique campus-wide evolutionary studies program that recently received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society; and This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. More»
#671 Victor Kumar - A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made us Human

Aug 29, 2022

Dr. Victor Kumar is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. He is director of the Mind and Morality Lab. He is also a member of the interdisciplinary Moral Psychology Research Group. His primary philosophical interests are in ethics, cognitive science, and evolutionary theory. He also has interests in epistemology, philosophy of mind, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of race. He is the author (with Richmond Campbell) of A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made us Human. More»
#662 Christopher von Rueden: Leadership and Hierarchy from an Evolutionary Perspective

Aug 8, 2022

Dr. Christopher von Rueden is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. An anthropologist with expertise in traditional human societies, his research focuses on how humans form status hierarchies, why we evolved to do so, and the demographic and ecological factors that cause our hierarchies to be more or less coercive. Relatedly, he studies the role of leader-follower relationships in the evolution of human cooperation. In addition to his work on status and leadership, he has published on topics such as why humans differ in personality traits and why we have such unique life histories among primates. More»
#659 Nick Chater & Morten Christiansen - The Language Game; Language as a Game of Charades

Aug 1, 2022

Dr. Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. He works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. More»
#655 Anne Pisor: Studying Subsistence Societies, Long-Distance Relationships, and Climate Change

Jul 22, 2022

Dr. Anne Pisor is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Her research interests include long-distance relationships and resource management, long-distance relationships and the downsides of climate change, and the evolution of human sociality. More»
#645 Steven Churchill: Homo naledi, Australopithecus sediba, and Human Evolution

Jun 30, 2022

Dr. Steven Churchill is a Professor and past Chair of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. He is also an Honorary Reader in the Evolutionary Studies Institute and Centre for Excellence in PalaeoSciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a paleontologist who studies the fossil record of human evolution, especially that of early members of our genus (Homo) that lived between about two million to ten thousand years ago. More»
#642 Douglas Kenrick & David Lundberg-Kenrick - Solving Modern Problems with a Stone-Age Brain

Jun 23, 2022

Dr. Douglas Kenrick is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. More»