Home » Posts tagged 'Anthropology' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: Anthropology
U.S. Historical “I am” Poems
By Samantha Sarafin, John Hart, George Littlefield, and Ginny Walsh, V Form
U.S. Historical “I am” Poems
Each of our United States History courses revolves around eight major themes prevalent throughout history. One of those themes is the question of “Who is an American” at any given time in the nation’s history. In keeping with our work and also trying to connect what we do inside our classroom to the broader St. Mark’s community and world at large, each class took their Community and Equity Day “I am” poems and looked at them from a historical angle. Each student was asked to look at an “I am” poem from the perspective of a figure from history. Some students were asked to be someone as specific as Alexander Hamilton, while others were (more…)
La Realidad de la “Democracia Racial” entre Brasil (En Español and English)
By Theo Bartlett, V Form
La Realidad de la “Democracia Racial” entre Brasil (En Español and English)
Our core objective in our Spanish IV class is to study Latin American history in order to understand how and why Latin America has been shaped into the region that it is today. Within our curriculum, we accomplish this task by doing case studies on many different countries in Latin America, in which we study the national history of the country and then connect it to recent publications regarding its modern day situation. Within these case studies, we explore the demographics, economics, politics, and social scene of a country by immersing ourselves in Latin American literature, political debates, documentaries, and movies, and we reflect on what we have learned in both classroom discussions and written responses throughout the studies. Most recently, at the end of our case study on Brazil, we were asked to take the information that we learned in the PBS documentary “Black in Brazil”, which talks (more…)
To Go Through Hell and Resurface
By Isabella Cruz-Nascimento, V Form
To Go Through Hell and Resurface
Crazy, insane, bipolar, OCD–all terms that have worked their way into colloquial language. Most people use them to describe themselves; “Oh my God, I am so OCD, I can’t handle messy rooms” is a sentence that could be heard regularly among teenagers. However, swap in a teen that genuinely displays compulsive behavior and the declarations turn into murmurs of, “What’s wrong with her?” “She needs to calm down,” “They need to medicate her already”. Mental illness is inconsequential and intriguing, until one sees its effects in person. In a community like St. Mark’s, being diagnosed with a mental illness can be onerous, not only because of the rigorous environment, but also because of the burden of the connotations that come with having a diagnosis. In an environment that demands perfection, I sometimes feel branded as incapable of success because of my diagnosis. For the majority of the past two years I have kept my dishonorable secret closely guarded. I refuse to do that now. (more…)
The World Behind the Curtain
By Yusra Syed, IV Form
The World Behind the Curtain
Over the summer, I was fortunate enough to travel to different parts of India and visit schools, universities, and orphanages for a ten-day service trip with three other girls from the United States. My favorite part of the trip was our first stop, Hyderabad, India, where we visited Challenger Girls Orphanage. (more…)
Biracial Me: Life as an “Other”
By Sophie Haugen, IV Form
Biracial Me: Life as an “Other”
As I walk through school, talk to people, and go through normal, day-to-day activities, I don’t feel as though I have a large sign pinned to my forehead that reads “Biracial.” When I wake up in the morning, it is not the first thought that crosses my mind. In fact, I don’t think about being biracial very often, and I don’t feel biracial most of the time, unless someone or something makes me aware of it.
Something that is an aspect of being biracial is having to choose. In my case, my mom was born in Korea and moved to America when she was young. My dad is 100% Norwegian, but has lived in America for his
entire life. I have been asked if I feel more Korean than Norwegian and vice versa, but in reality I don’t feel (more…)
The Pillars of Herakles: At the Bridge Between Europe and Africa
By Stephen Hebert, Religion Faculty
For his tenth labor, the lion-skin-wearing, club-wielding, Greek hero Herakles fetches a bunch of cattle belonging to Geryon, a monster living on an island beyond the far western end of the Mediterranean. Geryon is a fearsome creature, so fearsome that centuries later, Dante Alighieri will depict him in the Inferno as a flying manticore who embodies fraud. In order to reach this great mythical beast, Herakles must go beyond the edge of the known world, past where “Europe meets Libya,” in the words of Apollodorus. To get there, Herakles splits a mountain in two, creating a strait between Europe and Africa now known as the Strait of (more…)
Intersecting Struggles
By Brittany Bing, VI Form
Feminism: a word so heavy it often feels like an elephant in the room when mentioned amongst a group of people.
Feminism pisses people off. Feminists are supposed to be man haters and bra-burning idealists who think that women are superior to men. As ridiculous as the stereotype sounds, the true modern feminist doesn’t believe that women are inherently better than men. Unlike misogyny, feminism simply refers to one’s belief in the equality of the sexes. Of course, feminist ideals are exponentially more complex than just wanting equality. Over the summer, I explored these concepts in depth at the Independent School Gender Project held at the Hotchkiss School.
As a veteran conference attendee, I knew what to expect. ISGP is a small, all-women’s conference (more…)
Why You Should Study or Take Anthropology!
By Dr. Laura Appell-Warren, Director of Global Citizenship
Ever since I graduated from college I have been faced with the challenge of explaining what it is that I do. When I tell people that my field is anthropology, they almost always say something like this: “Wow, that is cool, what do you dig up?” or (and this is even worse) “Oh, just like Margaret Mead.” Now, I am NOT an archeologist so I never dig anything up (well maybe some worms in my new garden in Maine). And, while Margaret Mead may be a well-known female anthropologist, she is very controversial within the field and I would rather not be associated with her. Sometimes when I have energy I say that I am a psychological (more…)
LEO 