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What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join Season 5’s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. For more information, visit sapiens.org</p>
In 1925, Margaret Mead set sail for American Samoa. What she claimed she found there—teenagers free to explore and express their sexuality—instantly captivated her audience in the U.S. Her book became a bestseller, and Mead skyrocketed to fame.
But what were her actual methods and motivations? We trace Mead’s legendary nine-month journey in the South Pacific.
Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Being a teenager can be hard. Very hard. Our hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau recount the tough parts from their adolescence to ask whether being a teen is difficult in every culture.
It’s the question that inspired Margaret Mead, one of the most influential figures in American anthropology, to begin her research in American Samoa in 1925. And it’s the question that has sparked years of debate about human sexuality, nature versus nurture, and whether we can ever really understand each other.
Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This special SAPIENS podcast season tells the story of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead’s epic life and controversial research to explore key quandaries about the human experience: sex and adolescence, nature versus nurture, and the question of whether it’s ever possible to fully understand cultures different from your own. In addition, we hear from Samoans themselves about their views on the matter and their lives today.
In 1928, when she was just 27 years old, Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, which investigated the sexual lives of young women on the Pacific Islands. The book was an instant bestseller, challenging people in the U.S. to rethink much of what they had assumed to be true about sex, human biology, and growing up. Mead became the most influential anthropologist in history and one of TIME magazine’s most powerful 25 women of the 20th century. She received a U.S. presidential medal of freedom, and a U.S. postal stamp was made with her picture on it.
But what if Mead’s findings about Samoans were wrong?
Five years after Mead’s death, anthropologist Derek Freeman rebutted the central claims Mead made in her career-launching work, sparking a media sensation and challenging the field of anthropology. The controversy that followed sparked questions about the science of intercultural understanding and why Samoans weren’t empowered to speak for themselves.
SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.
Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The chart-topping and Signal Award-winning podcast “Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant” has returned for a brand new season. Produced by Nature on PBS, “Going Wild” is a sound-rich podcast about the human drama behind saving animals. This season, host and acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant takes you on a journey through the entire ecological web—from the tiniest of life forms to apex predators.
The new season is guided by one central question: “How can we, humans, look at our relationship to nature differently?”
Dr. Wynn-Grant speaks to scientists, activists, and adventurers as they uncover all the different ways the natural world is interconnected. Explore the hidden world of extreme microbes thriving in the Boiling River in Peru with Dr. Rosa Espinoza, the “Amazon Jungle Scientist.” Listen to Christian Cooper, the man behind the infamous Central Park “Black birder” incident, on how growing up gay in the 80’s has led to his lifelong love of birds and nature.
Listen to the third season of “Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant” here: https://link.chtbl.com/LTZFSlMP?sid=Sapiens
Archaeologists around the world have long unearthed skulls with holes in them. But they were usually dismissed as natural accidents—the result of infections, birth defects, or animal bites. But in 1864 an archaeologist named Ephraim George Squier found a skull in Cuzco, Peru with a hole that was clearly not natural—it was square-shaped. The hole also showed signs of new bone growth around its edge, which meant the person couldn’t have been dead when the hole was cut. This skull was the first unquestionable evidence of something that scientists had long dismissed as impossible—ancient neurosurgery.
Host: Sam Kean
Senior Producer: Mariel Carr
Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer
Music:
“Trois Gnossiennes 3,” “Stately Shadows,” “Darklit Carpet,” “Vernouillet,” and “Tossed” by Blue Dot Sessions
“Conjunto Sol del Peru,” by Pockra (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos)
“Conjunto Sol del Peru,” by Wuaylias Tusy (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos)
“Conjunto Sol del Peru,” by Ckashampa (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos)
The Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature is an award-winning, international radio and podcast series. Free to everyone, this series offers listeners and radio stations the opportunity to experience the conference year-round, and allows access to in-depth interviews with leading social and scientific innovators. It highlights diverse voices of grassroots leaders and voices that are often marginalized or excluded by corporate media. The programs cover a wide range of topics, including intelligence in nature, climate justice, food and farming, gender equity, Indigenous knowledge, reigning in corporate power, and youth activism. Learn more: https://bioneers.org/podcast-mobile-sign-up/
Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio is a show about the natural world and how we use it. The show combines solid reporting and long-form narrative storytelling to bring the outdoors to you wherever you are. The program casts a wide net across the environmental spectrum. They do fun explorations of nature, with lots of sound design and immersive scenes; they cover climate change and sustainability, but try to keep solutions to environmental problems in the spotlight; and they do pieces that are more philosophical, reflecting on ways in which society thinks about and depicts nature.
Learn more: http://outsideinradio.org/
Deven Grey, a young, isolated mother in Alabama, reached a point of no return on December 12, 2017. She shot and killed her boyfriend, John Vance. Rather than face a jury, Deven accepted a “blind plea” deal. This is Deven’s story, reclaimed. From Lemonada Media, this is Blind Plea.
You can listen to Blind Plea at https://link.chtbl.com/BlindPleaPodcast
Show notes:
When archaeologists excavate, they have some idea of what they will find in the ground. But in 2016, a team of archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, was genuinely surprised when they uncovered a Victorian-era cache. In the process, they forged an uncommonly deep connection with an individual from the past.
Narrated by Anya Gruber, this story shows how archaeology can humanize the past and how loss can bring us closer.
SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell.
Anya Gruber is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, specializing in paleoethnobotany. She previously worked in New Mexico and currently works in coastal Massachusetts. Anya writes about a range of topics, including ancient diets, medicinal plants, mourning practices, and infectious diseases. Follow her on Instagram @anyagruber.
SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.
Check out these related resources:
· Cole’s Hill Memorial Cache: An Introduction at The Fiske Center Blog
· From Dustpan to Daguerreotype
Episode sponsor:
· This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Aneho is a little historic West African town that is disappearing due to coastal erosion. But locals defy the sea and continue to live on the water’s edge. In this episode, we hear how their decision to stay in the face of an ever-approaching shoreline affects life along the coast and beyond.
As reported by Koffi Nomedji, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology from Lomé, Togo, we learn how as humans we variously face climate change–induced disaster.
SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell.
Koffi Nomedji is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at Duke University. He is currently working on questions related to climate change, policymaking, and development in Africa. His dissertation explores communities’ adaptation to coastal erosion in Togo, which is what he will be podcasting and writing about during his time in the SAPIENS fellowship program. Koffi has a rich professional background in international development. Prior to his doctoral journey, he served for eight years as a community organizer committed to local development and climate response in Togo.
SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.
Episode sponsor:
· This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
