As the government of bavaria/germany is still planning to cut the funds of our institute, the students organization of the Institut für Ethnologie and Afrikanistik wrote a position paper (application/pdf, 104 KB) (german) declaring the importance of the anthropological research which is done in Munich. Please sign on the lists in case of affirmation (even if you studying it as minor subject). Lists can be found in the tea kitchen and in the classes.

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"'Nerd' is a term invented by Dr. Seuss in 'If I ran [into] the zoo' in 1950, where it represented a small comically angry-looking and unpleasant humanoid creature - 'And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!' Initially popularised in the 1970s as a reference to uninteresting persons, as the information technology revolution turned playful hippies into serious businessmen, later films such as 'Revenge of the Nerds' [1984] granted them intelligence as bespectacled, but unathletic maths student wizards (in opposition to the athletic and sportive jovial 'jock') who turn the world upside down with their wizardry." (Houtman & Zeitlyn 1996: 2, fn 1 -- hyperlinks added by me)

HOUTMAN, GUSTAAF AND DAVID ZEITLYN. 1996. Information technology and anthropology, Anthropology Today 12(3): 1-3.

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Finally Africars is online! The beautifully desigend website is a project by one of our students, originally stemming from his own extensive fieldwork in western Africa. And I am so generous a man to host it on our university's server. The overall theme of the site is the cultural adoption of the automobile in Africa. The site contains vast image-material which in itself already is worthwhile to view. Those capable of reading German will find accompanying texts (work in progress). The whole site will grow more -- there are already some interesting parts in the making.

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