AAA Conference 2009

Lots of good deals on books, including an ethnography of strippers, how can you go wrong with that?

No nibbles on the academic front, I haven't decided if I should put that down to an inherent limitation of liberal-influenced departments who are uninterested in military anthropology, or my own personal lack of a serious CV. I plan on working on the latter and see if that helps next year. What with all the books I've purchased, I should be able to get some book reviews out of them, at the least.

Otherwise, there were some very interesting sessions, and the anti-military anthropologists seem to have calmed down, although there were still many discussions that transitioned seamlessly from ethical to political concerns over use of the military.

Finally - the main question raised for me over the course of the weekend was where did all the hottie anthropologists come from? My recollection of students in my grad classes were all mousey, and a bit leathered. Yet, wall to wall hotties at this conference. One answer I realized at the end of the conference was that a lot of them were from the academic presses which were selling their wares at the book fair, so that explains some of it - but there were still a lot more attractive women that I could have reasonable expected.