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SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

SAPIENS

What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why?

In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join Season 5’s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

For more information, visit sapiens.org

All content included is used with permission or licensed for exclusive use by SAPIENS.

What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why?

In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join Season 5’s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

For more information, visit sapiens.org

All content included is used with permission or licensed for exclusive use by SAPIENS.

The Problem With Abstract Threats

Thumbnail for "The Problem With Abstract Threats".
July 2, 202034min 20sec

Everyone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem “somewhere out there” and started being a very real and personal threat. In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell interrogate the problem with abstract threats with the help of anthropologists Hugh Gusterson and Kristin Hedges. In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss a different abstract concept: time.

  • Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @GustersonP and read his recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: “The Problem of Imagining the Real.”
  • Kristin Hedges is an applied medical anthropologist who studies how understanding cultural constructions of illness is essential for successful health intervention campaigns. She is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Follow her on Twitter @kristinhedges6 and read her recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: “The Symbolic Power of Virus Testing.
  • Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Follow him on Twitter @nash_dr, check out his column Curiosities, and read the column post he mentions in this episode: “The Long Count.”