Anthropologist and Writer

Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger · Jun 25, 2026 · 42m · transcript

One of my favorite writers—one of my favorite commenters on social affairs—is Conrad Kottak. He writes at The Anthropocene Anthropologist: Reflections on Bizarroland. Maybe I could quote from the introduction of this new Q&A:

… our guest today is Conrad Kottak, one of the leading anthropologists in the world. He is a cultural anthropologist—rather than an archeologist, say, or a primatologist—but he has his fingers in many pies.

He is a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1968. I myself had the privilege of taking one of his classes. He has done…