Culture is a force that makes us who we are. It drives social interactions and relationships, shapes beliefs and politics, ignites imaginations, and molds identities. Cultural conflicts are at the heart of many crises facing the world—increasing inequality, persistent bigotry, ecological collapse.
In this season of the podcast, we’re investigating these intersections of culture: how past flashpoints echo into today, how present flashpoints are forging our futures. Through the lens of anthropology, we will examine what happens when human cultures meet, merge, and clash—and what these encounters reveal about humanity’s shared fate.
Join Season 8 host Eshe Lewis and the latest cohort of SAPIENS public scholars fellows as we journey across continents to uncover where cultures collide.
SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor.
SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.
This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Where Cultures Collide
Eshe Lewis: SAPIENS is back, with a new season of stories from our Public Scholars Fellows. Get ready for …
Dozandri Mendoza: There’s music, there’s people dancing, there’s people throwing things, but how does that all make sense?
Charlotte Williams: Archaeological landscapes in Central America subject to United States imperialism.
Yejoo Kim: In Korea, while the North and South are not in active warfare and technically in a ceasefire, psychological warfare have long been deployed by both states.
Luis Alfredo Briceño González: This is important to the production of our knowledge in anthropology.
Nicole van Zyl: This is a community that’s long been known for resisting threats to their way of life, fighting against the colonial government until the very end.
Thayer Hastings: Police raided Columbia, and then they raided City College that night.
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias: This paper generated a big conversation within the anthropological community.
Justin Lee Haruyama: And so they literally create a new language from scratch that mixes English vocabulary with Chinese grammar.
Giselle Figueroa de la Ossa: It is as if we were all caught up in a racialized desire for gold.
Anahí Ruderman: This is the bad part of globalization, and you feel like there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Eshe: All that and more this season on SAPIENS. Check it out wherever you listen to podcasts.
