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
When Calls for Vengeance Go Online

An anthropologist reckons with how digital media has changed youth gang culture dynamics—and what can be done to combat the…

A Poetics of Liberation: An Imagined Archive

A Tanzanian historian and poet conjures alternative engagements with Black African women who were marginalized by violent colonial histories and…

“Stop This Invader!”—The War on Spotted Lanternflies 

An anthropologist reflects on the racist undertones of some U.S. efforts to eradicate the spotted lanternfly, an insect from Asia…

Erasure I and Erasure VI

In two erasure poems, a poet-anthropologist imagines alternative futures using text from the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, through which the…

Tallahassee Ghazal

Using an ancient Arabic poetic form, a poet-archaeologist from Florida cycles through feelings of entrapment growing up queer in the…

Debitage

Using an original poetic form, a poet chips away at a difficult history—becoming an agent of her own remaking and…

Emic/Etic

A poet-anthropologist offers an “anti-glossary” to contest ways of knowing in social science that objectify people(s) into categories. “Emic/Etic” is…

Heaven on Earth and Jesus Is Palestinian

A poet calls readers to act in the face of interconnected violence, exploitation, and privilege. “Heaven on Earth” and “Jesus…

An Order for My Backpack and Three Stages of Nowhere

A poet moves through rituals of silence and erasure that permeate the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. “An…

Translation Notes

A translator’s notes are refashioned into a poem calling for justice for Indigenous peoples in the Philippines displaced by a…