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.

At the Limits of Cure for Tuberculosis

In a new book, anthropologist Bharat Venkat reflects on the history of tuberculosis, a seemingly curable yet increasingly deadly disease.

How Dr. Li Wenliang Went From a Whistleblower to a National Hero

The Chinese doctor who tried to warn the world about the coronavirus but was silenced by authorities—and soon died of the virus—has become a protagonist in a nationalist tale about the Chinese Communist Party’s successful pandemic response.

What Chimpanzees Know About Giving Medicine

New observations of chimpanzees in Gabon lead researchers to wonder if the tendency to medicate ourselves and others really is unique to humans.

The Cultural Anxieties of Xenotransplantation

A genetically engineered pig heart was transplanted to a human body for the first time this year. While many celebrated, others remain uneasy. Anthropologists can shed light on why.

Haunted by My Teaching Skeleton

Many skeletons that students use to learn about the human body are the remains of people with lives and stories. We need to remember and respect that.

Deaf and Incarcerated in the U.S.

An anthropologist investigates how U.S. prison policies systematically deny deaf incarcerated people adequate access to hearing aids—severely hindering their sensory engagement and quality of life.

What Makes Injections Hard to Swallow?

An anthropological assessment of the differences between pills and injections may shed some light on vaccine hesitancy.

Unlikely Blessings

When the unthinkable happens, how do we even speak? A poet-anthropologist finds a way through a poem written during his infant son’s chemotherapy treatments, caught in the haunting terrain between hope and despair.

Death as Something We Make

An anthropologist dives deeply into how “medical aid-in-dying” is transforming the ethics and aesthetics of death.

What Is Vaccination Equity?

With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout now underway, some immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers are being left behind.