“Don’t chase me away”: The crisis of social belonging in tumultuous times
A desperate mother makes a painful sacrifice: she sends her son away to an uncertain future in order to spare him from an almost certain death.  The last thing she tells him is “Go, live and become” and these words will resonate heavily throughout [...]

Angelique Kidjo is one of my favorite African singer along with Salif Keita and Cesaria Evora. Of those who are no longer among us, I also love Miriam Makeba, Lucky Dube and Brenda Fassie. Last night, Angelique Kidjo had a concert in Chicago and I obviously went to the performance. The ticket was 30 dollars [...]

New scam email got into my inbox today.  And it’s pretty disgusting. However, one can only wonder how people fall for this in the first place. One day I’ll tell you the story about the first scam email I ever received way back when I was a 15 year old student in Galati, Romania. And [...]

The idea that you can make a musical about apartheid gives me chills. To see it on my laptop screen seems even more inappropriate. In recent times, some wise directors tried to give a new perspective on the Holocaust by using movie genres other than dramas, and they succeeded. I cannot say the same about [...]

On February 10th Victor Ponta, a young member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies was elected President of the Romanian Social Democrat Party (SDP) during an extraordinary party congress that took place in Bucharest. He narrowly defeated Mircea Geoana, the candidate who lost elections against Traian Basescu in the recent presidential elections that took place [...]

After I reviewed Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Invictus, an anthropologist I care deeply for sent me an email with her insights on the movie. She had this to say at the time:
“I have complex feelings about Eastwood and his libertarian politics: for me, he has never understood social processes, and works with lone, heroic figures [...]

Somewhere in West Africa, Karaba is a mean sorceress who has killed almost an entire generation of warriors. She is so loathed and feared that she lives away from the village, on top of a hill, where her only friends are dreadful walking trees and little robot-like spies that keep her informed at all times. [...]

This is what I consider a food-for-thought essay. It’s a little long (3.5 pages single-spaced) but I think it’s worth reading it.
“New Situations Demand New Magic…”[1]
In Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande, E.E.  Evans Pritchard analyzes a society which is broadly characterized by unchanging traditions. However, various events that are out of the immediate [...]

A French team of journalists traveled to Congo, Brussels and Paris in order to reveal to the general public some of the reasons why the Democratic Republic of Congo is still a war torn zone. Instead of providing the audience with a larger picture, something I would have done instead, they focused on one commodity [...]

The State of Denial is a heartbreaking documentary that explores the difficulties HIV-infected South Africans face on a daily basis. And their inspiring struggles. It provides an insider’s view, South African born director Elaine Epstein, into the complicated factors that allow HIV/AIDS to spread at such an alarming speed.
The documentary focuses on what used [...]