Starting the 2021 Fall Semester with HRAF |
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As the fall semester approaches, find out how to incorporate the eHRAF databases and our other research and teaching tools into your classroom, plus learn more about important updates coming to eHRAF World Cultures. HRAF is delighted to share the great success of our first NSF-supported Summer Institute for Cross-Cultural Anthropological Research. Find out more about the fascinating research topic of our featured HRAF Global Scholar this month, Manat Kanagatov of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Finally, please join us in welcoming the newest member of the HRAF IT team, Ben Kluga, Digital Services Production & Development Specialist.
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Share your feedback and enter to win a $25 gift card |
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Are you enjoying our new eHRAF World Cultures database? Users from member institutions can switch to the new application today by following the prompts in the pop-up window upon entering eHRAF World Cultures. Once you have had time to explore the new design, we would love to know what you think. You will find a link to the survey on the main page. Completed responses will be entered into our giveaway for a chance to win one of five $25 Amazon eGift Cards!
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Have you started preparing for teaching or learning in the fall? HRAF's educational resources are ideal for any anthropology, archaeology or cultural psychology course.
In addition to nearly 70 sample teaching syllabi and activities in our Teaching eHRAF repository, our eHRAF Workbooks for Introductory Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology now contain a total of 44 activities across dozens of topics. They are ready to assign in any online, offline, or hybrid classroom.
Explaining Human Culture (EHC), HRAF's open access database of over 1,000 cross-cultural studies spanning more than 100 years, contains 11 topical summaries providing an overview of cross-cultural research into global practices and beliefs.
There is much more to explore from HRAF, including important changes coming in the 2021-2022 academic year that may impact how you choose to teach and learn with eHRAF World Cultures.
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The first NSF-supported HRAF Summer Institute for Cross-Cultural Anthropological Research was held virtually this summer with 20 participants.
It was an intense three weeks including a hefty mix of instruction, hands-on exercises, and substantial progress on a new cross-cultural project designed by each participant.
The participants who attended the institute came from a variety of backgrounds including cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, psychology, and philosophy.
The topics and theories explored were diverse. Most participants focused on some aspect of cultural variation, such as varying expressions of gratitude, marriage eligibility, production of alcohol, the depiction of hybrid (human-animal) beings, criteria for evaluating men's bodies, male sexual coercion, permanent body modifications, physically-demanding religious rituals, and moralizing gods.
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Please join us in warmly welcoming our newest staff member, Ben Kluga, who has taken up the role of Digital Services Production & Development Specialist in the HRAF IT team.
Ben holds a B.S. in Media Studies and a minor in English Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University.
While living for nearly a decade in Seoul, South Korea, he developed an interest in linguistic and cultural preservation and revitalization. Ben has also worked as an English instructor, volunteered as a tutor at an NGO supporting North Korean refugees, worked as a research assistant, and interned with Discover Financial Services.
Ben will be assisting the IT team with the production and development of our cross-cultural research databases.
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Our featured HRAF Global Scholar this month is Manat Kanagatov, a doctoral student in Cultural Studies at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan. He has published about twenty articles and monographs to date.
Kanagatov's research investigates the phenomenon of an altered state of consciousness in the culture of the Kazakh people. He recently returned from fieldwork focusing on the cultural diversity of the regions of Kazakhstan, particularly in the southern regions of the country.
eHRAF World Culture has been an invaluable source for this research, especially the Kazakh (RQ02) collection. Kanagatov conducts comparative analyses on these documents by comparing the ethnographic data from the studies in eHRAF with the contemporary realities of his field location, as well as utilizing the methodological components from the eHRAF data.
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