Social and Behavioral Sciences

Latest Articles

Embedded

A casualty of war, and a fierce debate
Linda Bhatia gave her son’s Scout badges to his old pack and his 700 books to his alma mater, Brown University, but she will never let go of the things he had in his final days: his compass, the dimes in his pocket, his wallet, the watch he was probably wearing when a roadside bomb killed him in Afghanistan.
By ELIZABETH RAU | May 26, 2010

Tyme fer moore lernin’

Tee-Partee Lohjik
Much sport has been made of the hilariously misspelled signs created and proudly displayed at rallies by barely literate Tea Partiers.
By JEFF INGLIS | April 28, 2010

Review: Secrets Of The Tribe

Their secrets are indeed disturbing
The tribe of the title, as José Padilha’s deft and outrageous documentary makes clear, are not the Stone Age Yanomami people of the Amazon but the anthropologists themselves.
By PETER KEOUGH | April 15, 2010

Island ventures

USM show uncovers Peaks
Living on an island can be like living in your parents’ basement.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | March 24, 2010

Secret Harbor

The real-life version of Scorsese's Shutter Island imports hundreds of homeless from the South End every evening; they’re among the few allowed on Boston Harbor’s isle of mystery.
A home for the criminally insane it might not be, but the real-life Shutter Island is, like the one in the new Martin Scorsese film that hits theaters this week, a spooky and controversial land mass in Boston Harbor that is indeed off-limits to the public.
By CHRISTOPHER KLEIN | February 17, 2010

A wake-up call

Ranting about money and media; musical musings; and notes from the road
Some months back, Judge Richard Posner, a prolific author and longtime leading figure in the laissez-faire-oriented Chicago school of economics published his latest tome, a little bit of conservative heresy titled A Failure of Capitalism .
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | January 27, 2010

Does Scott Brown’s victory mean doom for RI Democrats?

Fallout
Republican Scott Brown's stunning victory this week in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts has created something approaching panic in the ranks of Congressional Democrats.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 20, 2010

Chafee and the hazards of a bold politics

Tax Dept.
By the time a candidate for major office steps up to the microphone to officially declare for the seat, everyone already knows his intentions.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 06, 2010

Various Artists | Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968

Rhino (2009)
More than three years in the making, the most recent installment of Rhino's legendary archival garage-rock series offers an amazingly comprehensive excavation of an absurdly fertile scene.
By MIKE MILIARD | December 16, 2009

Interview: Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall on her new book, North Korea, and Bible-thumping conservatives
If only there were more trees to be torn down, we could utilize them . . . to fill newspapers with the endless depressing stories out there about the environment and all its hapless inhabitants.
By LANCE GOULD | September 23, 2009

Bigfoot coming to Congress Street

Venue Watch
Mainer Loren Coleman loves sharing his wealth -- the treasures collected during a 50-year career in the field of cryptozoology, which is the study of mysterious creatures (think Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and the chupacabra).
By DEIRDRE FULTON | September 23, 2009

The scene is now

What we can learn about Boston from the local winners
As newspapers cede arbiter status to random bloggers with Fios and afternoons off, the function of polls like our humble offering must change out of necessity. What once was a forecast is now more like a diagnostic — it's anthropology versus tastemakery.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | July 30, 2009

Cicilline, the firefighters, and the politics of protest

Citywatch
It is, on some level, hard to pick any winners in the li'l Rhody's latest battle royale.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 17, 2009

Is the party over for the GOP in RI?

A disastrous election in '08. A depleted war chest. Dismal approval ratings for the outgoing governor. Yet the faithful see hope for a Republican revival
In a state known for its political obsessions, there is remarkably little in the way of rabid protest here.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 13, 2009

Slideshow: 'Dark Arts' at MassArt

Dark Arts Lecture Series at MassArt's Pozen Center , April 24, 2009
American Memory Project, Coyotel Press, and A Year At the Wheel at Mass Art's Pozen Center
By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | April 30, 2009

Ring master

Toback's Tyson tames two egos
At its best, Tyson becomes its subject's psychotherapist, allowing him to disgorge with no judgment and little restraint his memories, fantasies, impulses, and fears.
By PETER KEOUGH | April 28, 2009

Another damn study

Timothy Jay, PhD, discusses words his colleagues won't
Some people argue that scholarly inquiry about profanity is pointless, and even laughable.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 13, 2009

91. George W. Bush

BRAIN-DEAD PREZ
What, did you think we were done ripping the Neanderthal who set the country back five decades in just eight years, just because he’s out of office? Well, we want to be the first to mock all of those involved in building a library commemorating America’s first illiterate president. We’d also like to recommend the first book for inclusion in the project: The Pet Goat .
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

Epochalypse soon

The end is nigh! Or not.
The end times do indeed commence on December 21, 2012. On that date, this fragile blue orb of ours will suddenly cease to be a very fun place to live.
By MIKE MILIARD | March 25, 2009

Culture wars

The Army's controversial anthropology program
American anthropologist Paula Loyd was in Afghanistan, discussing living costs with a local man when suddenly he doused her with fuel from a jug he was carrying and set her on fire.
By PETER PIATETSKY | March 16, 2009

Art beef

Carlson/Strom at the DeCordova, Jonathan Torgovnik at Brandeis, Kenji Fujita at Samson Projects
Bostonians are plenty familiar with the collaborative video works of choreographer Ann Carlson and video-installation artist Mary Ellen Strom, but the DeCordova is the site of their first major museum show.
By EVAN J. GARZA | February 23, 2009

Interview: Ari Folman on Waltz with Bashir

Song and dance
Not long after I spoke with Ari Folman about Waltz with Bashir , a harrowing and black-comic animated memoir of his experience as an IDF soldier in the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Israeli bombs fell on Gaza, in seeming anticipation of a ground offensive.
By PETER KEOUGH | January 09, 2009

Understanding the stink factor

Eat raw
What is that smell?
By CHRISTY MCKINNON | December 17, 2008

Drugs and culture

Books
University of Southern Maine professor Wendy Chapkis usually studies, teaches, and writes about gender issues, so her latest non-fiction outing, Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine , might seem like a bit of a departure.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 04, 2008