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.

Must Conservation and Indigenous Rights Clash?

As over 50 countries sign on to the “Thirty by Thirty” plan that would set land aside from human use, some scholars worry about its effects on marginalized communities.

What Makes Vaccines Social?

Some people are wary of or may refuse vaccines. Social scientists are part of a movement to encourage self-empowerment to end the current pandemic.

Waterloo-Redfern and the Racism Rooted in Cities

Protestors toppling statues spur an anthropologist to look at the underlying urban politics that reproduce colonial and racist systems in Australia’s Waterloo-Redfern housing plans.

Wildfire Archaeology and the Burning American West

Archaeologists in New Mexico are pioneering surprising research methods—involving tree rings, pottery, and blasts of light—to explain why wildfire suppression doesn’t work.

The Public Problem With Counterterrorism

Ethnographic research with people who have survived terrorist attacks and with those who protect the public reveals how little these two groups understand each other.

The Dead Must Be Counted

An unknown number of people who die from COVID-19, like migrants who die during perilous journeys, are left out of governments’ official death counts.

Communities Grapple With Exposure to “Forever Chemicals”

Toxic chemicals known as PFAS pollute the water at more than 2,000 sites across the U.S.—and reside in the bodies of most Americans. How do residents cope with contamination?

Will U.S. University Students Spread COVID-19?

Universities are planning to open across the United States with strategies based on fantasy documents and magical thinking.

Police Violence and the Pandemic

An interview with anthropologist Laurence Ralph, who wrote The Torture Letters, reveals how legacies of anti-black racism connect to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is the Pandemic a Chance to Challenge Global Inequality?

A Pakistani anthropologist who studies the perilous journeys of irregular migrants argues for reimagining ways to close the gap between the rich and poor, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.