In Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains (Crown, 2023), anthropologist Alexa Hagerty learns to see the dead body with a forensic eye. She examines bones for marks of torture and fatal wounds—hands bound by rope, machete cuts—and also for signs of identity: how life shapes us down to the bone. A weaver is recognized from the tiny bones ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Aug 21
Ashanté M. Reese, "Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
Food justice is defined as the understanding that our food system is unequal and that something needs to be done about it. But how can we create a world where everyone has enough? What does it mean to truly nourish ourselves and our communities? In Gather: Black Food, Nourishment ... Show More
38m 46s
May 3
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Sep 2025
The Life Scientific: Jacqueline McKinley
How much information can you extract from a burnt fragment of human bone?Quite a lot, it turns out - not only about the individual, but also their broader lives and communities; and these are the stories unearthed by Jacqueline McKinley, a Principal Osteoarchaeologist with Wessex ... Show More
26m 28s
Sep 2020
Identity After Death with Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Amy Michael, Part 2
The conclusion to Laurah's interview with UNH lecturer and forensic anthropologist Dr. Amy Michael, who talks about some of her biggest cases, search and recovery, and how she uses cold-case investigation in the classroom. The Fall Line is created by Laurah Norton and Brooke Harg ... Show More
40m 36s
Sep 2023
Elyse Semerdjian, "Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide" (Stanford UP, 2023)
Foremost among the images of the Armenian Genocide is the specter of tattooed Islamized Armenian women. Blue tribal tattoos that covered face and body signified assimilation into Muslim Bedouin and Kurdish households. Among Armenians, the tattooed survivor was seen as a living et ... Show More
1h 24m