Featured Archived
Seasons Episodes
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Announcement

After ten years of exploring humanity in all its diversity, SAPIENS has concluded its publishing chapter.

While the magazine has closed, its living archive endures—open to all and preserving the many ideas, voices, and discoveries that deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.

When Disaster Tests the Strength of Human Cooperation

In the Andes, minga, a form of collective labor, has existed for centuries, often helping communities weather disasters. But how…

In Lebanon, Solar Power Is Booming. Why?

An anthropologist explores whether Lebanese turning to solar power is a story of resilience, environmental triumph, or something else. ✽…

Should You Feel Bad About Your Pandemic-Era Plastic Waste?

Anthropologists in Hong Kong explore how COVID-19 has intensified consumers’ reliance on single-use plastics—revealing the limits of individual action in the face of a global crisis.

The Nightmare of Pandemic-Era Teaching

Two researchers pull the curtain back to provide a look at the alarming reality of elementary teachers in the United States who are working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Best of SAPIENS 2021

The SAPIENS editorial team looks back at the year through an anthropological lens—and closes with a roundup of some of our favorite pieces published in the magazine in 2021.

You Won’t Survive the Apocalypse Alone

In times of societal collapse—including pandemics—past societies persevered not by running away but by banding together.

We All Live on Permafrost

Thawing permafrost isn’t just a problem facing the Arctic. An anthropologist who works with Indigenous communities in Siberia argues that the way to turn around climate catastrophe is by engaging all knowledge systems.

Adapt or Abandon? Hard Choices in the Himalayas

Anthropologists are documenting how global warming is transforming Asia’s water tower and threatening the livelihoods of farmers and herders.

Retracted: Did an Asteroid Shape This Famous Biblical Story?
Analysis of debris at the site of an ancient city demolished by a cosmic impact has led an archaeologist and his colleagues to theorize the same event destroyed Sodom.
These Unheralded Workers Are Helping Prevent the Next Wildfire

In Southern California, an anthropologist’s research aims to illuminate his late father’s work of weed abatement. He’s learning how crews of migrant Latinx workers bring deep environmental knowledge to stop destructive fires at the wildland-urban interface.