Angela K. VandenBroek, PhD Anthropologist of Innovation (and all the hype that entails)

Networking as a graduate student is crucial for enhancing academic opportunities and career prospects. Personally, I've found that connecting with professionals outside my department has been pivotal in advancing my research and securing funding. Attending conferences isn't just about panels; it's about forging meaningful relationships that can lead to collaborations and mentorship. Preparation is key: from memorizing introductions to identifying key individuals for casual meetings or deeper discussions over coffee. Big conferences offer diverse networking chances, while smaller ones provide focused interactions. It's essential to carry business cards and maintain a professional online presence for easy follow-ups. Networking isn't about being transactional; it's about building genuine connections that can last beyond the conference hall. Post-conference, follow-ups via social media or email are crucial to sustain these connections. Ultimately, networking is about confidence, preparation, and genuine interest in others' work, ensuring that each interaction is meaningful and productive.

In my reflection on the first year of my anthropology PhD at Binghamton University, I completed six courses, logging 276 hours in class and tackling a daunting 12,380 pages of reading. I wrote 52,830 words across 29 graded papers and engaged in extensive academic writing. The year included presenting at conferences, balancing 748 hours as a web developer, and achieving a perfect GPA of 4.0. Despite its challenges, this year has been immensely rewarding, preparing me to dive into my dissertation research questions in year two.

The post explores the evolution and current challenges of the concept of culture in anthropology. Originating from 19th-century definitions linked to civilization and Kultur, culture has been reshaped by figures like Tylor, Boas, and Levi-Strauss. Today, culture is seen less as a unified whole and more as contested and fragmented, influenced by postmodernity's challenges. Contemporary anthropologists navigate these complexities, some seeking stability in science while others explore interpretation and description. The debate over culture's role — whether it should remain central or be de-emphasized — persists, shaping how anthropology understands human societies in a world marked by flux and diversity.

Superconnected is an ambitious review of the literature on how information and communication technologies (ICTs), primarily the Internet and its related technologies, have impacted social life, covering sociology, communication, and media studies literatures.

In 1984, Sherry Ortner predicted that practice would be the key symbol of anthropology in the 1980s. Research on practice, agency, structure, and power actually filled not only the 1980s, but also the 1990s and extended into the 2000s as well. Issues of inequality, oppression, and resistance have been a staple of anthropological literature and have influenced its many theories, both before and after the 1980s. However, time, from the 1980s up to and including today, has seen a steady strengthening and thickening of agency-related theories. The critiques of feminism, postcolonialism, and race and ethnicity studies brought to light the many problems with earlier constructions of agency. […]

Documentation for the award winning "LSU Delicious Subject Guide" Project. This article provides an overview of Delicious and provides techniques (including CSS code and step-by-step directions) and examples of using Delicious to distribute resources on a library web site. The LSU Delicious Subject Guide Project is described in depth, with instructions, ideas to expand it, and an invitation to contribute to it. Delicious provides a platform for academic librarians to use technology to share resources quickly and free of cost, and this article explains several complementary innovations that have the potential to make the gathering and sharing of resources among librarians, and with students, faster and easier. Louisiana academic librarians are moving ahead with identifying and sharing resources, while facing waning fiscal resources.