AnthroCurrents – June 12, 2015

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media

• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has its doubts about the book Primates of Park Avenue, which claims to provide an anthropological view of moms of New York’s wealthy Upper East Side. I understand such a book’s appeal—it talks about our own society while at the same time looking at a section of it that we can handily deny membership to when the portrait gets unflattering, which it no doubt does. Have you read it?
• The U.S. Army recently pulled a training manual called “Cultural and Situational Understanding” after it was leaked to some experts who found it full of misinformation and unattributed content pulled from other sources. Anthropologist Roberto González posted his reaction to the manual on his blog.
• An anthropologist decided to make his own deodorant, and this is what happened. Spoiler: he no longer does anthropology.
• Anthropologist Barbara J. King writes about a society steeped in “fat talk” and its effect on all of us as she reviews the new book Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat written by anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh.
• Haaretz talked to Yoram Bilu, a psychologist who became an anthropologist when he realized that Western psychological methods didn’t work for all of his patients.