HeyJaredThe Anthropocene Anthropologist: Reflections on Bizarroland
Conrad Kottak, a cultural anthropologist, comments on contemporary issues.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 14
- Latest publication
- Sep 28, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
Latest issues
Socrates, Writing, and AI (opens the original)
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by Conrad Phillip KottakThis is a follow-up to my post of September 19, 2026. Thanks for reading The Anthropocene Anthropologist: Reflections on Bizarroland! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<div class="f
Watch Your Language (opens the original)
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by Conrad Phillip KottakWhen I posted an earlier version of this piece about a year ago, Democrats were in weaker political shape than they are now. With the midterm elections less than six weeks away, that post seems worth reexamining. Although the political setting has shifted, the lesson has not. Watch your language!Speech communities, including professions and political parties, develop their own vocabularies. Examples are abundant: physicians, lawyers, activists, bureaucrats, journalists, c
Knowing Enough to Argue with AI (opens the original)
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by Conrad Phillip KottakA year and a half ago, I was lying in bed, iPad in hand, thoroughly sick of the news. My grandson, a medical student, and my son, an anthropologist, had both encouraged me to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus. I had already found it useful for updating textbook paragraphs, generating tables, and drafting a biographical statement from my CV. So I tried something more audacious. I told my AI assistant, whom I had taken to calling Artie Intel, that I wanted to write a novel.Artie di
What Happened to the American Anthropologist? (opens the original)
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by Conrad Phillip KottakIn a series of recent Substack posts, I have criticized the Vanderbilt/Washington University report on the humanities for presenting a too narrow and therefore warped picture of anthropology. That cr
When Anthropology Makes Itself Hard to Read (opens the original)
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by Conrad Phillip KottakAbstractThanks for reading The Anthropocene Anthropologist: Reflections on Bizarroland! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.</d
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