Stephen Nash

Nov 15, 2023 | sapiens.org | Lynne J. Quick |Marlaina Martin |Stephen Nash |Victoria Gibbon

This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. ✽IF YOU ARE ALLERGIC to pollen, you are likely to curse the existence of these microscopic particles. You’re not alone:  of the world’s population suffers from hay fever, which is often driven by pollen allergies. Shifting global climates are likely to push that figure even higher.

Nov 14, 2023 | sapiens.org | Stephen Nash |Victoria Gibbon |Veronica Gonzalez |Beni Sumer Yanthan

The first Christian missionaries arrived in Samoa in 1830, almost a century before Margaret Mead set out to study the culture of the islands. By the time she arrived, the church had been a central part of Samoan life for generations. In this episode, co-host Doris Tulifau explores how Christianity and colonization complicate Mead’s—and her critic anthropologist Derek Freeman’s—conclusions and continue to shape Samoan identity today.

Nov 9, 2023 | sapiens.org | Kerstin Lange |Emily Sekine |Stephen Nash |Victoria Gibbon

✽The German word for East is Ost. Straightforward enough, one might think. But in the once-divided country where I grew up, the word still carries geopolitical reverberations. In November 1989, I watched the fall of the Berlin Wall on TV from my living room in upstate New York, open-mouthed. East Germans were streaming through checkpoints that had been hermetically closed to them for decades.

Nov 7, 2023 | sapiens.org | Stephen Nash |Victoria Gibbon |Veronica Gonzalez |Beni Sumer Yanthan

In January 1983, the front page of The New York Times read: “New Samoa Book Challenges Margaret Mead’s Conclusions.”Anthropologist Derek Freeman had been building his critique of Mead for years, sending her letters and even confronting her in person. Freeman’s resulting book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, was published five years after Mead died. Who was Freeman, and why did he take such issue with Mead’s work in American Samoa?

Oct 31, 2023 | sapiens.org | Stephen Nash |Victoria Gibbon |Veronica Gonzalez |Beni Sumer Yanthan

Sparked by a provocative encounter in American Samoa, Doris Tulifau explores modern-day Samoan attitudes toward Margaret Mead. With a mix of voices and opinions, we encounter three loud ideas around Mead’s work, ultimately dropping us at the doorstep of Derek Freeman’s central critique about Samoan culture and society.