AnthroCurrents – October 31, 2014

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

• Medical anthropologist Dana Walrath did a Tedx talk on her experience using comics and stories to help her communicate with her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease.
• Ebola is still hogging the headlines and dominates even anthropology news. Slate reported on Paul Farmer’s claim that the Ebola mortality rate (currently between 50 and 90%) should be much, much lower.
• Iowa Now writes about the new director of Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health—anthropologist Brandi Janssen. In Iowa, agricultural workers experience more deaths and injuries than workers in any other sector.
• Several mainstream newspapers reviewed Bitter Honey, a documentary about polygamy in Bali by anthropologist Robert Lemelson.
• Making my awkward transition from college to my first office job, I once hugged a superior instead of shaking his hand. According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, it would not be such a source of embarrassment were I to hug my boss’s boss today. Anthropologist Amy Best helps explain what has changed about hugging within office culture since the day I wanted to curl up and die of shame.