SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

Latest Episodes:

Is the Pandemic Slowing Down Love? Nov 12, 2020

Show notes

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between. Fisher is the author of six books, the chief scientific adviser for the online dating site Match.com, and a leading researcher on dating trends in America. In this episode, Fisher shares insights from a recent survey.

The New York Times piece Fisher references in this episode is available here: “How Coronavirus Is Changing the Dating Game for the Better.”

When at Home, Bake as the Romans Baked Oct 27, 2020

Show notes

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell talks with experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco about her work re-creating ancient Roman bread and what it means to reconnect with bakers of the past. Farrell also offers some tips for pandemic-era bakers who want to take their new hobby to the next level.

For more from Farrell, her award-winning website is Tavola Mediterranea.

Read more about experimental archaeology, including Farrell and her work, at SAPIENS.org: “Pandemic Bakers Bring the Past to Life.” And go ahead and try to make the Roman bread recipe described by Cato the Elder.

A Vaccine Will Not Be Enough Oct 14, 2020

Show notes

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with Agustín Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, to unpack his insight that the COVID-19 pandemic is a biosocial phenomenon. They also discuss his recent suggestion that the virus “is not the only hazard to human health and well-being” right now.

Recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fuentes is a decorated anthropologist and an author of many books. His latest is Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being.

For more from Fuentes, an excerpt of Why We Believe is available at SAPIENS.org: “How Did Beliefs Evolve?” Also on SAPIENS.org, he hosted the debate, “Why Are Humans Violent?”

We're (Still) Going Viral Aug 28, 2020

Show notes

The SAPIENS podcast will return in several months, and we want you to help us understand what it means to be human amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you have a question, thought, or idea about what it means to be human right now? Tweet at us @SAPIENS_org, message us on Facebook, or leave us a voicemail at 1-970-368-9730.

The Problem With Abstract Threats Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

Everyone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem “somewhere out there” and started being a very real and personal threat. In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell interrogate the problem with abstract threats with the help of anthropologists Hugh Gusterson and Kristin Hedges. In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss a different abstract concept: time.

Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @GustersonP and read his recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: “The Problem of Imagining the Real.”
Kristin Hedges is an applied medical anthropologist who studies how understanding cultural constructions of illness is essential for successful health intervention campaigns. She is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Follow her on Twitter @kristinhedges6 and read her recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: “The Symbolic Power of Virus Testing.”
Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Follow him on Twitter @nash_dr, check out his column Curiosities, and read the column post he mentions in this episode: “The Long Count.”

What Pandemics Leave Behind Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

At some time in the future, the novel coronavirus pandemic will fade. What will this globally traumatic contagion leave in its wake? In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell keep an eye on the future while looking to the past for answers: In the 14th century, the Black Death killed as much as one-third of the population of Europe, but it also sparked new ideas that linger to this day, including one of our favorite modern myths.

In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss the plague doctors of Venice and the many meanings of masks.

Sara Toth Stub is a journalist based in Jerusalem who writes about religion, business, travel, and archaeology. Follow her on Twitter at @saratothstub and read her recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: “Venice’s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine.”
Matteo Borrini is a forensic anthropologist in the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. Check out one of his academic papers for more about “Carmilla.”
Jane Stevens Crawshaw is a senior lecturer in early modern European history at Oxford Brookes University and the author of Plague Hospitals: Public Health for the City in Early Modern Venice.
Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Check out his column Curiosities and follow him on Twitter @nash_dr.

Police Violence and the Pandemic Jun 12, 2020

Show notes

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon interviews Laurence Ralph, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Ralph is also a co-director of Princeton’s Center on Transnational Policing, the editor of Current Anthropology, and the author of the new book The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence, which exposes the Chicago Police Department’s history of torturing black men and women, and documents the community activism intent on stopping such violence.

The poll Jen mentions in this episode was conducted by Monmouth and published on June 2, 2020.

Could the Coronavirus Pandemic Be Good for the Environment? May 29, 2020

Show notes

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent article for SAPIENS that considers how the global pandemic may impact climate change—for better or for worse. Weitzel is currently working on his dissertation on the environmental effects of the Black Death on 14th-century Eurasia and the depopulation of Native Americans in the wake of European colonization. Read his SAPIENS article: “Are Pandemics Good for the Environment?”

Preppers and the Pandemic May 19, 2020

Show notes

With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the SAPIENS podcast is going viral. In this first episode of season 3, SAPIENS hosts Chip Colwell and Jen Shannon revisit a story about preppers from our first season. Jen calls Chad Huddleston, one of the anthropologists featured on that show, to find out how he and the preppers he studies are handling the COVID-19 crisis. In closing, Chip reaches out to SAPIENS columnist and anthropologist Steve Nash to discuss panic buying, toilet paper, and more.

Chad Huddleston is an adjunct assistant professor at St. Louis University and an instructor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Read his SAPIENS article: “For Preppers, the Apocalypse Is Just Another Disaster.”
Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Check out his column Curiosities and follow him on Twitter @nash_dr.

What Does it Mean to be Human? Your Questions, Answered Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

In this season 2 finale of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon, Chip Colwell, and Esteban Gómez field questions from listeners on Twitter and at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about what it means to be human. They address human origins and self-awareness, discrimination, social media, and more!

You can follow all of our expert guests on Twitter: Augustin Fuentes at the University of Notre Dame (@Anthrofuentes); Daniel Miller at the University College London (@DannyAnth); and Barbara King, professor emerita at William and Mary (@bjkingape).

Mark Shriver, professor at Pennsylvania State University, did a study on human nose shape and climate adaptation that also informed our conversation. Finally, here's a link to the nose-picking gorilla photos mentioned in this episode.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is a part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.