http://funnytranslator.com/ lets you type in a phrase, then it translates to another language, then back to English. This cycle repeats for the number of round-trip translations you specify. This vividly illustrates what happens in literal (word-level, not full context-level) translation.

2010-09-04

materials and experiences from Peace Corps lives

Activities and lessons based on Peace Corps Volunteers' cross-cultural experiences
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/publications/

Building Bridges: A Peace Corps Classroom Guide to Cross-Cultural Understanding
Thirteen exercises for grades 6–12 to help students understand other cultures and promote tolerance for them.

Uncommon Journeys: Peace Corps Adventures Across Cultures
Compelling stories from Peace Corps Volunteers about cultures around the world, with standards-based lessons for language arts, social studies, and geography classes.

Voices From the Field: Reading and Writing About the World, Ourselves, and Others
More Peace Corps Volunteer stories about their service overseas, with standards-based lessons for classes in reading and writing literature.

CyberVolunteer Letters: Stories From In-service Peace Corps Volunteers
A collection of letters written by actively serving Peace Corps Volunteers from 2000 to 2005 for students in the United States. The authors of these evocative stories, who sent their letters by e-mail, were known as CyberVolunteers.

Insights From the Field: Understanding Geography, Culture, and Service
Readings and exercises that focus on the Dominican Republic as a vehicle to help students learn about geography, culture, and service—a quest that can lead anywhere in the world.

Looking at Ourselves and Others
Activities and readings prompt students to define culture, to achieve new perspectives on their own culture and other cultures worldwide, to recognize differences in perception among cultures, and to challenge assumptions.

Culture Matters: The Peace Corps Cross-Cultural Workbook
Designed for Peace Corps Volunteers, this practical, hands-on guide is also a rich and useful resource for students who want to look into their own culture and become more understanding of people of other cultures.

Folk Tales: Stories From Peace Corps Countries Around the World
Folk tales often represent the soul and history of a place. Peace Corps Volunteers hear these stories woven into conversations and daily life. Here, Volunteers retell some of these remarkable tales from more than 25 countries.

Crossing Cultures: Peace Corps Letters From the Field
A newly gathered collection of letters written by Peace Corps Volunteers capturing the adventures and challenges, joys and sorrows, trials and rewards of service in another land.

2010-09-03

anthro education

Anthropologist About Town [excerpts]

Diary for September 2010

Thursday 16th September- Wales Anthropology Day

Similar to the London Anthropology Day, the Wales Anthropology Day is a free open day for teachers, students and the general public who are interested in learning more about what it is like to study anthropology at university. On the day, participants will be able to take part in a series of workshops run by University of Lampeter staff and talk to students currently studying anthropology. To find out more and book your free place visit the following website.

The controversial art of representation...

Melville J. Herskovits (1859-1963) was a pioneering and controversial American anthropologist who played a prominent role in shaping African Studies as a distinct discipline. Herskovits's academic work was both influential and controversial and still emerges in on-going debates on questions of identity and representation. Herkovits at the Heart of Blackness is a documentary which tracks the development of Hervokits's career in relation to African American and Jewish experiences of exile, political oppression and exclusion. The film gives a critical review of anthropologist's role in representing and documenting other societies. Take a look at a preview of the film here.

Small Places Large Issues

The third edition of Thomas Eriksen's book is now available. Small Places Large Issues has become a classic for introduction to social anthropology for undergraduate students as well as those who are new to anthropology. It gives an excellent overview of topics such as kinship, ethinicity, ritual and political systems. The new edition has updated information and has increased emphasis on the interdependence between societies. Take a look here for other introductory texts to social anthropology.

Anthropology Education

The September issue of the American Anthropological Association's official newspaper Anthropology News is entirely devoted to topics concerning anthropology and education. The issue includes articles on pre-university education, online courses, pedagogical standards and assessment models and much more. Take a look here for more information.

2010-09-01

future shock today

Here is a discussion prompt re: the pace of change.

Every so often, it hits home that we are actually living in one of those science-fiction worlds that I read about as a young nerd in the 1970s. Not, it turns out, one where we commute with jet packs; nor are Soviet and American colonists bantering about just how red the Red Planet should be. But now, while putting my keys in my pocket, I will sometimes accidentally hit a button on the BlackBerry that causes a robotic female voice to bark, "Say a command!"

Never having gotten around to programming any in, it always feels like I'm letting her down.

We're all walking around carrying devices that are in contact with unimaginably vast systems of information. You get used to it. It ceases to seem strange – which is, arguably, the strange part. Future shock becomes second nature. (To remember what things were like before requires something like the exact opposite of the willing suspension of disbelief.) And discussing any of this with friends or colleagues in their 20s is out of the question. It leaves me feeling like I have become my own grandfather...

source, Surrendering to Tomorrow [September 1, 2010 by Scott McLemee]
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee305

anthroview

2010-09-17

archeology beneath Phoenix, Arizona

2010-09-13

losing in translation