Kate B. Harding

  I am on a Claude Lévi-Strauss kick, so indulge me, kindly. During World War II, Lévi-Strauss escaped Vichy France for New York, where he taught at the New School and developed a great affection for America. I was especially taken aback by this passage this morning from Tristes Tropiques: “Those who maintain that New [...]

  Today, as I write my dissertation on anthropology and the art of storytelling, I am steeped in Claude Lévi-Strauss and his writings on myth and meaning. I discovered this interesting passage in which he explained that he had always hoped to become a musician.   Central Park, NYC “I have always dreamed since childhood [...]

    Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution. – Vladimir Nabokov     There Is No Word   By Tony Hoagland   There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack that should have been bagged in double layers   —so that [...]

  People ask me all the time why anthropology matters. Here’s my answer: I grew up in a small college town where there were two fates: either you were going to college or you weren’t, and it was painted on your forehead from the time you were born. The kids who were going to college [...]

  Let out your social song, you lonesome wretch, you sack of bones. Be unafraid. There are others, alone, who want to listen. Mary and Louis Leakey digging at Oduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Africa.   The Heart’s Archaeology On some fundless expedition, you discover it beneath a pyracantha bush carved from the hip bone of a [...]

    I had to send some footage to a production company ASAP, so I quickly hopped on the subway to Chinatown and made this video to send off to them.    

  I’ve been living in New York City for a year and a half now. I love it. I love it. But that doesn’t stop me from missing the upstate farmland of my childhood and daydreaming about a future that involves things like a “second home in the country.” You know, a small fixer-upper that [...]

  “A new broom sweeps clean, but the old broom knows the corners.” – Irish proverb  

  I’m a real nerd for textiles (!) and I get equally excited by the collections at Saks as by those at the Museum of Natural History. So I had a bit of a “moment” when I stumbled upon these amazing fabrics from the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection at the Library of Congress. These photos were taken [...]

  NGOs are notorious for their overly-ambitious missions (e.g.,  “We alleviate human suffering”). So I am always inspired by those organizations that set out with more humble goals. Refugees United stands out as one such place: simple mission, profound impact. Using the same technology that many of us use every day on Facebook, the organization [...]