Anand Pandian
@anandian.bsky.social
Ethnographer, tinkerer, earthling | Baltimore | Johns Hopkins University | Ecological Design Collective Find me at https://anand.studio/
Such a treat to talk with the wonderful Anab Jain of Superflux on the Entangled Curiosity podcast. We talked about speculative design, more-than-human art and anthropology, and collective imagination as a tool to reclaim the future and build more livable worlds. youtu.be/KsAQQ9sPBAk?...
Designing the Futures We Imagine | Anab Jain & Anand Pandian
YouTube video by Accelerator Media
youtu.be
The new Japanese translation of my 2019 book, A Possible Anthropology! So exciting to have this elegant edition in hand. Sincere gratitude to professors Katsumi Okuno and Keiya Hanabuchi for the translation, publisher Akishobo, and anthropologist Shoko Yamada for making all of this possible.
We see and hear chimney swifts circling overhead each evening. Rarely, a nestling falls through our chimney down into our basement, keening up a storm, unable to climb back up. So glad to find a new home for this little one, thanks to the good folks at the Phoenix Wildlife Center.
Imagine watching your neighbour's house burn down and, instead of helping, complaining about the smell of the smoke.
Can we actually get to a just and regenerative collective future? A few days in the generous and imaginative company of transition design folks in Mexico City gave me reason to believe in this horizon. Terry Irwin: “Let’s ask speculative, difficult, even heretical questions.”
"We know how to mourn grandparents, spouses, friends, and neighbors, but we do not know how to mourn disappearing species, damaged rivers, altered coastlines, democratic institutions, or the healthy futures we expected to inherit." www.theguardian.com/environment/...
We know how to mourn other humans – but what about ecological grief?
In Iceland, people commemorated its first glacier formally declared lost to climate change. Western culture needs more of these rituals
theguardian.com
Attention all you cheapskates for democratic living: You can now get 40% off my colleague @anandian.bsky.social 's wild trip through these United(?) States, *Something Between Us* (discount at checkout, h/t @stanfordpress.bsky.social ). Get a copy, read it at the beach. www.sup.org/books/anthro...
sup.org
A compelling reflection about AI’s impact on curiosity. “Our technology is increasingly treating the territory between the query and the answer as dead space to be eliminated, when that territory is where most of the learning actually happens.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/o...
Opinion | We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask
nytimes.com
I am so impressed with the urban train system so far in Mexico City. Plus, axolotls.
“We can begin to restore not only the Reflecting Pool but, just maybe, our national relationship with a living world we depend on far more than it depends on us.” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Column | The all-natural way to fix the Reflecting Pool
Enlisting nature to help purify the Reflecting Pool could be more patriotic and successful than tossing in more chemicals.
washingtonpost.com
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. I'm really grateful to Valley Views SFV for this chance to meet up at Lake Balboa Park and talk about our immigrant heritage in southern California, as well as the crucial importance of such public spaces. youtu.be/TKwwp-jc9ZY?...
Anand Pandian, Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
YouTube video by VALLEY VIEWS SFV MEDIA
youtu.be
Folks in Los Angeles, please join us on Tuesday evening at the Nickel Mine cocktail bar in West LA for a drink and a chance to think in company. I'm excited to join this lineup! I'll be talking about this challenge: how to have an open mind... www.eventbrite.com/e/brains-unc...
Brains Uncorked by Coriolis at The Nickel Mine
Join us for the June installment of Brains Uncorked, a live event series where three scholars share 10-minute thought-provoking talks.
eventbrite.com
Wherever he drove us in the years that I grew up in Los Angeles, my dad had the car radio tuned to one station: KNX 1070 AM. What a treat to think aloud with the morning hosts for a few minutes this week, about life here in the United States. www.audacy.com/podcast/knx-...
Feels like a dream, receiving this cube yesterday in exchange for a book I wrote, in the company of so many wonderful folks. It is a puzzle, social solidarity in a difficult world. We owe it to Zócalo Public Square for cracking the code, leading with curiosity, trust, and imagination. Thank you.
A great list of new nonfiction. I was very glad to recommend the wonderful new book Gather, by fellow anthropologist Ashanté Reese, which invites readers to imagine and practice what she describes as “radical hospitality.” www.zocalopublicsquare.org/drink-up-zoc...
Drink Up Zócalo’s 2026 Summer Reading List | Readings | Zócalo Public Square
To cut through the thick heat—and heated discourse—of summer, Zócalo asked friends and contributors to recommend recent nonfiction to refresh our thirsty
zocalopublicsquare.org
I make a comic for @cornellbirds.bsky.social's Living Bird magazine called Birdword. It's about ornithological terminology. Here's my latest one.
www.ladowntownnews.com/features/bre...
Break on Through: Anthropologist highlights how to take down walls between us
Anand Pandian was born and raised in the United States, and like many people, he has been increasingly concerned about the direction things are going in the country, especially as
ladowntownnews.com
Johns Hopkins Scholar Anand Pandian Wins 2026 Zócalo Book Prize Full Story: indiawest.com/johns-hopkin... #AnandPandian #ZocaloBookPrize #JohnsHopkinsScholar #AcademicAchievement #BookAward2026
How to understand the many walls between us, and what it could mean to take them down? Please join us this Thursday, live in LA or online. With Lincoln Project co-founder Mike Madrid, it promises to be an exciting and inspiring evening. @mikemadrid.bsky.social www.eventbrite.com/e/the-zocalo...
THIS WEEK: Join us Thursday, June 25, to celebrate anthropologist @anandian.bsky.social, winner of the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize for "Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down" w/ @mikemadrid.bsky.social & The Jar: zps.la/bpwin26
Anand Pandian Wins the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize
‘Something Between Us’ Explores America’s Divides and How to Bridge Them
zps.la
Zócalo Public Square aims to connect people to ideas and each other. I'm grateful for this chance to pitch in. Please join us this Thursday, live in LA or via livestream online. It promises to be an exciting and inspiring time. @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social www.eventbrite.com/e/the-zocalo...
I’m thrilled to be hosting and moderating a screening of two inspiring solarpunk animated shorts, followed by conversations with the amazing Baltimore-based artists who created them. An online EDC event on Monday 6/22, join us! ecodesigncollective.org/event/solarp...
Solarpunk Visions for a Vital Future - Ecological Design Collective
Join EDC for a screening of two animated shorts followed by conversations with the artists who created them. This is an online event with two…
ecodesigncollective.org
“I stepped outside and looked up. The whole world shivered into a new reality. One I could grasp.” Such a good story of alternative energy futures: NOOR, by Nnedi Okorafor.
“The picture the report draws is not representative of the actual academic discourse, and asking a reader to believe the report’s assertions just because the authors say they are true is the definition of an ideological argument.” www.chronicle.com/article/are-...
Opinion | McCarythism Dressed Up as an Academic Report
We should not be distracted by the bogeyman of social-justice scholarship.
chronicle.com
On trillionaire day, an anthropological reminder: private property is a social convention, born of particular histories of inequality and dispossession. These social conventions can and will change, with time. The future of wealth and value on this earth remains unwritten.
“A habitable, equal and prosperous 21st century is materially possible…Technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way, but rather the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
A good life for the 99% isn’t a pipe dream: it can be done. Here’s how
Our plan is radical – but by transforming how we live on a finite planet, nearly everyone gains, says Thomas Piketty and researchers from the World Inequality Lab
theguardian.com
