Coursekit is now Lore.
What’s the Story?
A discovery engine for meaningful knowledge, fueled by cross-disciplinary curiosity.
A Brain Pickings project edited by Maria Popova in partnership with Noodle.
Twitter: @explorer
anthropology
LATEST
The brilliant Lisa Congdon introduces a new project titled My Nordic Adventure, in which she’ll be illustrating visual mementos from her recent trip to Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Pictured here, Nordic doors.
Lisa’s most recent project, The Reconstructionists, a yearlong illustrated celebration of world-changing women, is a collaboration with yours truly.

The brilliant Lisa Congdon introduces a new project titled My Nordic Adventure, in which she’ll be illustrating visual mementos from her recent trip to Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Pictured here, Nordic doors.

Lisa’s most recent project, The Reconstructionists, a yearlong illustrated celebration of world-changing women, is a collaboration with yours truly.

Our cognitive connection to music may have evolved from an older skill, the ability to glean emotion from motion. People will choose the same combination of spatiotemporal features — a certain speed, rhythm, and smoothness — whether pairing a particular emotion with a melody or with a cartoon animation, the study found. But most surprising, the results held true in people from two starkly different cultures: a rural village in Cambodia and a college campus in New England.
New cross-cultural research explores why music moves us so. Also see how music enchants the brain.

“Cities smash us together. Cities force us to interact and interaction is good. Human friction is very, very healthy.”

Jonah Lehrer, author of How Creativity Works, on why cities are the knowledge engines of the 21st century.

421 playsDownload

Legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead and celebrated poet Allen Ginsberg define “beatnik” and discuss the Beat Generation – rare 3-minute audio excerpt from a 1959 interview courtesy of the PennSound archives.

Photographer Rania Matar captures the inner worlds of teenage girls through their bedroom interiors, from the American upper class to the refugee camps of the Middle East. What emerges is part James Mollison’s Where Children Sleep, part JeongMee Yoon’s Pink and Blue Projects, part something else entirely. 

A visual anthropology of the world’s last living nomads from Dutch photographer Jeroen Toirkens.

A visual anthropology of the world’s last living nomads from Dutch photographer Jeroen Toirkens.