New Stories All Stories
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
Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
-
Unit 1

Margaret Mead in American Samoa

A dark-haired woman sits cross-legged in a dress and black Mary Jane shoes, leaning against a wall imprinted with leaves and other designs.

In this unit (to accompany SAPIENS podcast S6E1), students will be introduced to anthropology, focusing on the field in the early 20th century. Students will examine Margaret Mead as a historical figure, her work in American Samoa, and her impact on anthropology.

Learning Objectives
  • Summarize the development of anthropology.
  • Explore the significance of Margaret Mead’s work in American Samoa.
Sapiens articles
essay / Decoded

The Life and Meaning of Margaret Mead

Sam Dresser
The famous anthropologist argued that non-Western cultures offered alternative, often better, ways to be human. Why was she so vilified for it?
A group of people with white tunics and animal pelts on walk up a narrow street. One person holds a flare that gives off a red glow. A person wearing dark clothing photographs the event.
essay / Ask SAPIENS

What Do Anthropologists Do?

Chip Colwell
Anthropologists study humans in all our extraordinary history and diversity. Check out this overview of professional anthropology.
Keywords
View All in Methods
A gray-haired man sitting in a chair outside hits a chunk of flint stone with a hammer. The black and white photo is from 1923.
poem / Reflections

Debitage

jade lomas-trejo
Using an original poetic form, a poet chips away at a difficult history—becoming an agent of her own remaking and more than just an estranged daughter.
A pane of glass blurs pink, red and white, and other colored tulips that appear behind it.
poem / Standpoints

Emic/Etic

Khando Langri
A poet-anthropologist offers an “anti-glossary” to contest ways of knowing in social science that objectify people(s) into categories.
A person in army fatigues walks in front of a looming surveillance tower flanked by high fences topped with barbed wire.
poem / Human Rights

An Order for My Backpack and Three Stages of Nowhere

Don Edward Walicek
A poet moves through rituals of silence and erasure that permeate the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
A vibrant, abstract scene features blurred blue and orange lights glowing outward from a central area, with silhouetted figures in the foreground.
essay / Letters

Best of SAPIENS 2024

Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine.
An ape-like mannequin, with protruding facial features and a body covered in fur, stands in a museum exhibition under dramatic lighting. Next to it, a text panel starts, “The human story begins.”
essay / Origins

Lessons From Lucy

Denise Su
Fifty years ago, the remains of an Australopithecus afarensis ancestor, named “Lucy” by archaeologists, rewrote the story of human evolution.
Two people crouch down to create colorful chalk art on a street. Intricate designs and language characters surround a central circular moti
essay / Expressions

Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages

Damián Blasi
A language scientist delves into historic and current efforts to catalog the planet’s 7,000-plus languages, uncovering colorful tales and Herculean challenges.
View All in History
A person wearing a bright-pink jacket, brown slacks, tennis shoes, and a tan, brown, and black hat crouches on a patch of brown dirt with a small instrument in one hand and a bag in the other, collecting a sample from an archaeological site.
essay / Field Notes

Ancient Tools in East Asia Reveal Middle Paleolithic Innovation

Ben Marwick
An archaeologist explains his team’s insights into how Quina scrapers in southwest China overturn long-standing assumptions about the region’s humans more than 50,000 years ago.
A statue of a woman clasping her hands in a prayer-like gesture, her head surrounded by a halo of illuminated stars, stands in front of a large stained-glass window featuring blue and purple shapes with accents of red and green.
essay / Icons

Why Are People Worshipping the Virgin Mary as a Goddess?

Emma Cieslik
Amid a goddess worship revival, some feminists are revering the mother of Jesus as a deity, defying Christian doctrines and confronting the use of Mary as a handmaiden of patriarchy.
In a room with a chalkboard and bright-red walls, a woman stands next to a person wearing a white-colored device that covers the eyes and is strapped onto the head. A third person in a pastel green shirt looks on.
essay / Material Culture

How Virtual Reality Is Restoring Liberia’s Culture

Craig Stevens and Chrislyn Laurie Laurore
Traveling Treasures is a new project led by a team of anthropologists that puts Liberians directly in touch with their dispersed cultural heritage through immersive technologies designed to bridge continents and histories.
A man silhouetted against purple, red, orange, and yellow glass blocks bows with his hands clasped before a candle.
essay / Crossroads

In Japan, Rethinking What It Means to Care for the Dead

Anne Allison
Facing an increasing aging population and other societal shifts, people are looking beyond traditional family-based mortuary practices.
In a bright white art gallery, plaques on the wall spell out interjections such as “Hmm,” “Pff,” and “Ach” in colorful block letters. To the side of the artwork, two people stand gazing into an adjoining room.
essay / Decoded

Huh? The Valuable Role of Interjections

Bob Holmes
Utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t garbage, they keep conversations flowing.
Situated on display in a spacious building is a large, illuminated sculpture of an ancient humanoid face with glowing neon lines highlighting its features.
essay / Uncanny Valley

The Hopes and Hazards for AI in Reconstructing Ancient Worlds

Colleen Morgan
An archaeologist explains how generative artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape our views of ancient people, arguing that a critical perspective is needed to use this technical innovation and avoid misrepresentations.
Glossary
American Samoa

  1. A U.S. territory 40 miles east of Samoa that consists of seven islands and atolls.

Anthropology

  1. The study of “everything human”; consists of archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology.

Culture

  1. The customary norms, values, beliefs, rituals, and traditions of a social group that are handed down to succeeding generations.

Eugenics

  1. A scientifically inaccurate theory that strives to select and reproduce desirable hereditary characteristics in order to improve future generations.

Franz Boas

  1. (1858–1942) A German-born American anthropologist who founded the relativistic, culture-centric American anthropological school of thought that developed as a dominant 20th-century paradigm.

Margaret Mead

  1. (1901–1978) A renowned American cultural anthropologist who studied under Franz Boas and who wrote several noteworthy works, beginning with Coming of Age in Samoa, about gender, sexuality, and motherhood; Mead became a famous public figure through her writing and radio and TV appearances and was also known for her commentaries on race relations, environmental protection, and nuclear nonproliferation.

Participant Observation

  1. A research methodology in which the researcher is immersed in cultural activities as both a participant and an observer.

Samoa

  1. A Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands and several smaller islands and officially known as the Independent State of Samoa; “Samoa” can also be used to describe both the Independent State of Samoa and American Samoa, including its culture and people.

Sociocultural Anthropology

  1. The branch of anthropology that deals with human culture, specifically social structure, language, law, politics, religion, art, and technology; many sociocultural anthropologists document the meanings humans make of the different worlds they inhabit.

Professor Talking Points
  • Anthropology is the study of the development of human biology, language, material objects, society, and culture. Discuss with students the four fields of anthropology: archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology.
  • Modern anthropology has its roots in 18th-century Europe, as part of the cultural movement to advance knowledge and reason. Lead a discussion about the history of the science.
  • Explore how anthropology, as in other sciences, is continually evolving, and anthropological theories that were once considered sound have changed or been rejected as anthropologists gain more information.
  • Margaret Mead was a student of Franz Boas, who is credited as the “father” of modern American anthropology and who famously advanced the theory of cultural relativism.
  • In 1925, Mead traveled to American Samoa to explore how culture and biology can impact the experience of adolescence. Discuss with students how she sought to discover if adolescence was as traumatic and stressful there as it was in the United States or whether it is culture that shapes the experience.
Academic Articles

  1. Garver, Kenneth L., and Bettylee Garver. 1991. “Eugenics: Past, Present, and the Future.” American Journal of Human Genetics 49 (5): 1109–1118.

  2. Rubin, Vera. 1979. “Margaret Mead: An Appreciation.” Human Organization 38 (2): 193–196.

  3. Willis, Matthew. 2019. “The Life and Times of Franz Boas.” JSTOR Daily, December 1.

Student Discussion Questions
  • In her book, Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead describes her research method as “speaking their language, eating their food, sitting cross-legged upon the pebble floor. I did my best to minimize the differences between us.” This type of participant observation was a relatively new method at the time. How do you think this approach helps reveal a culture and its dynamics? What are this method’s limitations?
  • In your own words, define anthropology.
  • How has anthropological research helped people from different parts of the world understand cultures and societies that are not their own?
Activities
  • Watch the video An Introduction to the Discipline of Anthropology under Additional Resources. Create a timeline with four points that summarize the development of anthropology. Describe each point and how it has helped anthropology evolve.
  • In a two-page essay, explain how Mead’s methods in American Samoa differed from those used prior to that period and how they impacted future anthropological study.
  • An anthropologist from the mid-19th century is debating with an anthropologist from the early 20th century. Explain one point of likely disagreement in how each of them compares societies. You may use “History and Branches of Anthropology” in Additional Resources as a reference.
Slides

Infographic: “Get to Know Margaret Mead”

Presentation: “Margaret Mead in American Samoa”

Additional Resources

  1. Article: National Geographic’s “History and Branches of Anthropology”

  2. Book: Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa

  3. Book: Paul Shankman’s The Trashing of Margaret Mead

  4. Film: Frank Heimans’ Margaret Mead and Samoa

  5. Video: Macat iLibrary’s An Introduction to the Discipline of Anthropology

  6. Video: Alan Macfarlane–Ayabaya’s Coming of Age: Margaret Mead

Unit By

Aimee L. Richards, Freedom Learning Group

Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
-
Unit 2

Adolescence as a Social Category

Portrait of two female friends with arm around outdoors on sunny day. One friend has dark curly hair and lots of jewelry, while the other girl has bangs and short cropped hair.