anthony k webster🐿
@ethnopoetics.bsky.social
linguistic anthropologist, linguistic relativist, philologist, humanist, kayaker, tree grower, midwesterner, purdue alum
Pinned
The art of failure in translating a Navajo poem
The pun, or to use a more erudite, and perhaps more precise term – paronomasia, reigns over poetic art, and whether its rule is absolute or limited, poetry by definition is untranslatable.Roman Jak...
journals.openedition.org
If you're interested, for those that I don't know, here is a thread with some open access articles I've published on Navajo poets and poetry
The art of failure in translating a Navajo poem
journals.openedition.org/jsa/14602
The art of failure in translating a Navajo poem
journals.openedition.org/jsa/14602
Never go the full Robert Trivers
November 13, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Never go the full Robert Trivers
Wasn't this the Robert Trivers defense of Epstein?
November 13, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Wasn't this the Robert Trivers defense of Epstein?
Isabel Sullivan Gallery extends the journey across continents with Frank Webster’s watercolor and gouache on paper Monacobreen (2024) and ReinsdyrflyaI (Monacobreen) (2024), depicting the drama of a large, accessible tidewater glacier in Svalbard, Norway
www.forbes.com/sites/natash...
www.forbes.com/sites/natash...
A Close Look At Galleries That Exemplify The Ethos Of Salon Art + Design
Nevelson’s City Series (1974) anchors the Galerie Gmurzynska booth at Salon Art + Design, amplifying the significance and use of the grid as a seminal and transformative tool in 20th-century art and M...
www.forbes.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Isabel Sullivan Gallery extends the journey across continents with Frank Webster’s watercolor and gouache on paper Monacobreen (2024) and ReinsdyrflyaI (Monacobreen) (2024), depicting the drama of a large, accessible tidewater glacier in Svalbard, Norway
www.forbes.com/sites/natash...
www.forbes.com/sites/natash...
Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. / Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God / And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, / Am not tormented with ten thousand hells / In being deprived of everlasting bliss?--Marlowe, Dr Faustus
there's a moment in PARADISE LOST where Satan arrives in Eden and realizes Hell isn't a place; it's a thing he carries within him and it'll follow him wherever he goes. and i think about that when i see these awful rich men whose monstrous wealth has enriched them not at all
“whatever club he’s invited to join has been devalued by the invitation”
November 11, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. / Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God / And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, / Am not tormented with ten thousand hells / In being deprived of everlasting bliss?--Marlowe, Dr Faustus
Morning reading, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory
November 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Morning reading, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory
Happy Armistice Day
The pines my grandfather planted after he returned from WWI to make green again the world
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori"--Wilfred Owen
The pines my grandfather planted after he returned from WWI to make green again the world
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori"--Wilfred Owen
November 11, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Happy Armistice Day
The pines my grandfather planted after he returned from WWI to make green again the world
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori"--Wilfred Owen
The pines my grandfather planted after he returned from WWI to make green again the world
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori"--Wilfred Owen
Let's go snow
November 9, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Let's go snow
Years ago, when I first read Stevens' The Necessary Angel, I misread a line, "to define poetry as an unofficial view of being places," but, of course, it isn't a view of "being places" but "being" and that "places" it in contrast to philosophy, but I still prefer my first reading of "being places"
November 9, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Years ago, when I first read Stevens' The Necessary Angel, I misread a line, "to define poetry as an unofficial view of being places," but, of course, it isn't a view of "being places" but "being" and that "places" it in contrast to philosophy, but I still prefer my first reading of "being places"
Dear alma mater, if you are going to send a fundraising letter that appears to have been AI generated, then, as a stature victorious human person--,; I'm not going to be sending you any money, or himself
November 6, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Dear alma mater, if you are going to send a fundraising letter that appears to have been AI generated, then, as a stature victorious human person--,; I'm not going to be sending you any money, or himself
When students ask me for recommendations for anthropology books, especially if they are just getting interested in the topic, these are two of the books I still recommend
November 6, 2025 at 12:16 PM
When students ask me for recommendations for anthropology books, especially if they are just getting interested in the topic, these are two of the books I still recommend
Arrived today, looking forward to reading Luis Cárcamo-Huechante's new book
November 5, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Arrived today, looking forward to reading Luis Cárcamo-Huechante's new book
My thoughts on Ong from a few years ago (open access)
Keeping the Word:
On Orality and Literacy (With a Sideways Glance at Navajo)
Anthony K. Webster
muse.jhu.edu/article/2160...
Keeping the Word:
On Orality and Literacy (With a Sideways Glance at Navajo)
Anthony K. Webster
muse.jhu.edu/article/2160...
Project MUSE - Keeping the Word: On Orality and Literacy (With a Sideways Glance at Navajo)
muse.jhu.edu
November 4, 2025 at 12:09 PM
My thoughts on Ong from a few years ago (open access)
Keeping the Word:
On Orality and Literacy (With a Sideways Glance at Navajo)
Anthony K. Webster
muse.jhu.edu/article/2160...
Keeping the Word:
On Orality and Literacy (With a Sideways Glance at Navajo)
Anthony K. Webster
muse.jhu.edu/article/2160...
Three books on a theme
November 4, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Three books on a theme
One of my favorite Keith Basso papers is his rather critical review of Jack Goody's the domestication of the savage mind in Language in Society (1980)
November 4, 2025 at 11:57 AM
One of my favorite Keith Basso papers is his rather critical review of Jack Goody's the domestication of the savage mind in Language in Society (1980)
Tell me you've read no linguistic anthropology in the last 50 years
"Oral culture is, again, aggregative instead of analytical, dispositionally traditionalist, and homeostatic, with no objective distance. Repetition, cliché, and formulas are essential."
"Oral culture is, again, aggregative instead of analytical, dispositionally traditionalist, and homeostatic, with no objective distance. Repetition, cliché, and formulas are essential."
The short-form video has brought about a second age of orality. That’s partly because phones are addicting, and partly because America’s ruling class wants it that way.
We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack
Technology changes us—and it is currently changing us for the worse.
thebaffler.com
November 4, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Tell me you've read no linguistic anthropology in the last 50 years
"Oral culture is, again, aggregative instead of analytical, dispositionally traditionalist, and homeostatic, with no objective distance. Repetition, cliché, and formulas are essential."
"Oral culture is, again, aggregative instead of analytical, dispositionally traditionalist, and homeostatic, with no objective distance. Repetition, cliché, and formulas are essential."
Linguistic anthropologist Marcyliena Morgan, Founder of Harvard’s Hip-Hop Archive, Dies at 75
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...
Marcyliena Morgan, Founder of Harvard’s Hip-Hop Archive, Dies at 75
www.nytimes.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Linguistic anthropologist Marcyliena Morgan, Founder of Harvard’s Hip-Hop Archive, Dies at 75
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...
"A species cannot fill its living space to absurd excess in number; and still so exalt excess, the extreme, non-mediocrity, in the individual. When excess becomes synonymous with success, a society is doomed, and by far more than Christ."--John Fowles, A Maggot
November 3, 2025 at 12:22 AM
"A species cannot fill its living space to absurd excess in number; and still so exalt excess, the extreme, non-mediocrity, in the individual. When excess becomes synonymous with success, a society is doomed, and by far more than Christ."--John Fowles, A Maggot
Imagine wanting to read anything by snovian public intellectuals pinker or murray, let alone reading a debate between them
November 2, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Imagine wanting to read anything by snovian public intellectuals pinker or murray, let alone reading a debate between them
I'd forgotten that Alessandro Duranti also weighed in on the Mead Freeman controversy, and, like many others, he found Freeman's description of Samoan society wanting
November 2, 2025 at 11:14 PM
I'd forgotten that Alessandro Duranti also weighed in on the Mead Freeman controversy, and, like many others, he found Freeman's description of Samoan society wanting
Among the pines
November 2, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Among the pines
You often read about Andrew Lang in discussions of the history of anthropology, especially Victorian anthropology, but you never get a real sense of just how abysmal his taste in literature was (he reviewed much literature during his heyday); Rider Haggard over Thomas Hardy!
November 2, 2025 at 12:39 PM
You often read about Andrew Lang in discussions of the history of anthropology, especially Victorian anthropology, but you never get a real sense of just how abysmal his taste in literature was (he reviewed much literature during his heyday); Rider Haggard over Thomas Hardy!
AI strikes me as the perfect combination of two great traditions in the US: 1) what Leo Marx might call the ethos of carelessness (see his discussion of The Great Gatsby) and 2) what Richard Hofstadter would call anti-intellectualism in American life
November 1, 2025 at 11:34 PM
AI strikes me as the perfect combination of two great traditions in the US: 1) what Leo Marx might call the ethos of carelessness (see his discussion of The Great Gatsby) and 2) what Richard Hofstadter would call anti-intellectualism in American life
The lake below
October 31, 2025 at 11:54 PM
The lake below
Reposted by anthony k webster🐿
www.statesman.com/news/educati... Gift article. Contact COLA and the Ptovost to oppose this backward move!
UT may merge 'fragmented' departments. What will happen to ethnic studies?
As rumors circulate that UT’s ethnic studies programs may be at risk of consolidation, the school’s College of Liberal Arts told faculty a committee is reviewing “overly fragmented”...
www.statesman.com
October 31, 2025 at 11:57 AM
www.statesman.com/news/educati... Gift article. Contact COLA and the Ptovost to oppose this backward move!