News, Events and Photos
2009 Press Releases from the Office of News and Information
Neuroanthropology Conference Held at Notre Dame 
By: William G. Gilroy
Date: October 2, 2009
“The Encultured Brain: Building Interdisciplinary Collaborations for the Future of Neuroanthropology,” a first-ever neuroanthropology conference, will be held Thursday (Oct. 8) in the University of Notre Dame’s McKenna Hall. The conference is a gathering of scientists and scholars interested in how the human brain intersects with our cultural and social lives.
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Anthropologist Researches Evolution of Darwin's Theory
By: Shannon Chapla
Date: September 2, 2009
New research by Notre Dame anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, published recently in the European journal Anthropology Today, states that although Darwin’s basic ideas still form the core of our understandings, recent innovations in evolutionary theory help expand the way we think about evolution.
“The social lives of humans, the way we live with other animals and the way we change the world around us all play major roles in making us who we are today,” Fuentes said.
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Notre Dame study describes evidence of world’s oldest known granaries
By: William Gilroy 
Date: June 23, 2009
A new study coauthored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world’s oldest known granaries. The appearance of the granaries represents a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods.
Anthropologists consider food storage to be a vital component in the economic and social package that comprises the Neolithic period, contributing to plant domestication, increasingly sedentary lifestyles and new social organizations. It has traditionally been assumed that people only started to store significant amounts of food when plants were domesticated.
ND Expert, Cynthia Mahmood: U.S. must help calm nuclear-armed Pakistan
By: Shannon Chapla
Date: April 27, 2009
The danger of either an Islamic takeover of Pakistan or a complete collapse of the Pakistani state is the most serious danger the U.S. currently faces, and it must do what it can to facilitate a calming in the region, according to University of Notre Dame anthropologist Cynthia Mahmood, who has lived among and studied terrorist militant groups and is an expert on terrorism and religious motivations for war, especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
“This instability in Pakistan, which has been going on for 50 years, has reached a head and overflowed into Afghanistan and we felt the repercussion of that in the 9/11 attacks,” Mahmood said.
ND Expert, Carolyn Nordstrom: Pirates a product of global economic crisis
By: Julie Hail Flory
Date: April 13, 2009
Recent pirate attacks on the high seas, including the one that ended with the safe rescue of an American ship captain this weekend, are partly the result of a lack of attention paid internationally to illegal global economies, according to a University of Notre Dame anthropologist.
“Piracy is actually a very small part of the entire world of what’s taking place illegally,” says Carolyn Nordstrom, a professor of anthropology who specializes in transnational crime and globalization. “We have a huge flow of goods, money, people and services moving around the globe, crossing the lines of legality and illegality to try to maximize profit."
Lende receives 2009 Ganey Award
By: Paul Horn
Date: April 7, 2009
Daniel Lende, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has been named the winner of the 2009 Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D., Faculty Community-Based Research Award.
The award, which includes a $5,000 prize, honors a Notre Dame faculty member whose research has made a contribution to a local community organization.
Lende’s work focuses on medical anthropology, the synthesis of biological and cultural anthropology, and applied anthropology. His research centers on behavioral health problems, particularly substance use and abuse.
In 2005, Lende took part in his first community-based research project, “Cultural Barriers and African-American Women in South Bend: Improving Breast Cancer Screening” with Notre Dame undergraduate Alicia Lachiondo, and Margaret McKinney-Arnold of African American Women in Touch. Furthered by a Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D., Mini-Grant, the study became part of Lachiondo’s senior thesis, and was later published in Qualitative Health Research.
New book examines plagiarism among college students 
By: Shannon Chapla
Date: February 11, 2009
Susan D. Blum, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of a new book titled “My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture,” which explores the prevalence of plagiarism among American college students and why it exists.
Blum is a cultural and linguistic anthropologist who has been researching deception, truth, lying and cheating for several years, mostly in the context of China but also cross-culturally. In “My Word!” she examines in greater depth the specific area of plagiarism, in which those same accusations are made.
Link to review by Inside Higher Ed
Link to review by The Wall Street Journal
2008 Press Releases from the Office of News and Information
Spotlight: Myth-busting in human nature
By: Susan Guibert
Date: December 23, 2008
It’s been nearly 150 years since Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was introduced, and we humans continue to grapple with issues about what it means to be, well, one of us.
University of Notre Dame anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, who specializes in biological anthropology, primatology and evolution of social organization and behavior—among other areas—examines human evolution from several perspectives.
Death Comes to Babysit 
By: Carol C. Bradley
Date: December 8, 2008
An oblivious single mom, in a hurry to leave on a date—what’s she going to do
when Death—you know, The Grim Reaper, with the shroud and the cythe—appears at the door instead of the teenage babysitter? Slip Death a few bills and head out the door, of course, leaving little 9-year-old Whitney to show Death how to
play her favorite violent video game and make macaroni and cheese out of a box.
Anthropologist publishes new book on human behavior
By: Susan Guibert
Date: November 12, 2008
University of Notre Dame anthropologist Agustin Fuentes examines how and why humans evolved behaviorally in a new book titled “Evolution of Human Behavior,” published by Oxford University Press.
Incorporating recent innovations in evolutionary theory with emerging perspectives from the current fossil record, ethnographic studies and genomic approaches, Fuentes’ book is the first text to synthesize and compare the major proposals for human behavior evolution from an anthropological perspective.
Archaeology lessons for elementary school teachers 
By: Carol C. Bradley
Date: August 14, 2008
“What would your garbage tell us about you?” asks Indiana State Museum education program coordinator Gail Brown.
Five elementary schoolteachers from around the region sort through accumulations of trash—fast food wrappers, empty yogurt cartons, dog food cans—in a classroom in the University of Notre Dame Department of Anthropology’s Reyniers Laboratory on the north end of campus.
Dog food can—can we infer a pet owner?
It’s all part of Project Archaeology, a workshop cosponsored by the anthropology department and the museum.
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A good companion in the Holy Land 
By: Michael O. Garvey
Date: July 28, 2008
On Sept. 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s Likud Party, took an escort of Israeli police officers and went for a very conspicuous stroll on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and around al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. He later insisted that his visit was innocent tourism, but it was read by thousands of Palestinians as deliberate provocation, and within hours what has since become known as the Second Intifada was boiling away.
Anthropologist recognized by national association 
By Susan Guibert
Date: June 12, 2008
James J. McKenna, Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, was named the 2008 recipient of the Anthropology in Media Award (AIME) by the American Anthropological Association (AAA).
McKenna will be formally honored in November at the annual meeting of the AAA in San Francisco.
Teaching beyond the term paper
By Gail Hinchion Mancini
May 28, 2008
How many people read a student research paper? There’s the student writer. Maybe a friend offers to proofread it. Finally, there’s the professor who assigned the project. Not a very large audience.
The exception is research done by students in anthropologist Daniel Lende’s class, “Alcohol and Drugs: The Anthropology of Substance Use and Abuse.” By now, their research has been viewed some 2,600 times over the Internet.
Anthropologist Mark Schurr receives Ganey Award
By Paul Horn
April
3, 2008
Mark Schurr, associate professor and chair of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame has received the 2008 Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D. Faculty Community-Based Research Award from the Center for Social Concerns.
The $5,000 award annually honors a Notre Dame faculty member whose research has made a contribution to a local community organization.
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Fighting Irish research heritage of real Irish
By Shannon Chapla
February 20, 2008
A ghost town of stone houses frozen in time for decades, the island Inis Airc, located just off the western coast of Ireland, is an uninhabited graveyard where roofless buildings remain untouched after the islanders were forcibly relocated to the mainland by the government in 1960.
“It’s eerie,” said Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.
Kuijt, who in 2005 wrapped up a 5-year excavation studying the origins of agriculture at a Neolithic site next to the Dead Sea in Jordan, decided his next project would take place in a more hospitable climate and now, along with some of his students, is exploring the history of Inis Airc, and other eroded, abandoned villages along Ireland’s west coast.
2007 Press Releases from the Office of News and Information
Infant co-sleeping expert James McKenna authors new book
Anthropologist James J. McKenna, director of the University of Notre Dame's Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory and a world-renowned expert on infant co-sleeping, breast-feeding, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), is the author of a new book titled "Sleeping With Your Baby: A Parent's Guide to Co-sleeping."
Newly released by Platypus Media, the book states that simplistic recommendations against any and all forms of co-sleeping are not only scientifically inappropriate, but dangerous and morally wrong. In taking readers through various ways to safely co-sleep, McKenna provides the latest information on the potential scientific benefits, and minimizes hazards and risks of co-sleeping.
Blum's new book examines honesty and lies in China
Susan D. Blum, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of a new book titled "Lies that Bind: Chinese Truth, Other Truths," which explores the ideology of truth and deception in China and elsewhere.
Offering a nuanced perspective on social interaction in different cultural settings, Blum draws on decades of fieldwork in China, providing an authoritative examination of society's rules, expectations and beliefs regarding lying and honesty.
Published by Rowman & Littlefield, "Lies that Bind" points to a propensity for deception in Chinese public interactions in situations where people in the United States would expect truthfulness, yet Blum argues that lying is evaluated within Chinese society by moral standards different from those of Americans. Chinese, for example, might emphasize the consequences of speech, Americans the absolute truthfulness, according to the book.
Anthropologist writes new book on illegal international trade
"Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World," by University of Notre Dame anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom, has been published by the University of California Press.
A product of three years of intensive research in the field, Nordstrom's book examines the illegal means by which weaponry, drugs, diamonds, oil, food and more exotic merchandise are internationally traded. Her research included travel to dangerous and often violent areas of the United States, Africa, Europe and Asia, as well as numerous interviews with a wide variety of authorities ranging from war orphans to war profiteering capitalists.
Anthropologist receives American Film Institute fellowship
University of Notre Dame anthropologist Devi Snively has received an American Film Institute (AFI) fellowship to take part in the group's Directing Workshop for Women.
Snively is one of just eight women to receive the award from a pool of several hundred candidates. She is the only college or university faculty member and the only recipient from outside the film industry to be selected this year.
Fellowship recipients will participate in a three-week training workshop at the AFI conservatory, followed by several months of pre-production work, shooting, editing, post-production work and marketing. Films produced by the workshop participants will be screened at the AFI Theatre in Los Angeles.
Past recipients of the Directing Workshop for Women fellowship include Maya Angelou, Joanne Woodward, Anne Bancroft and Cicely Tyson.