Hugh Raffles is an anthropologist whose work explores relationships among people, animals, and things. His writing has appeared in academic and popular venues, including Granta

Granta

Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...

, Public Culture

Public Culture

Public Culture is a reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal of cultural studies, founded in 1988 by anthropologists Carol Breckenridge and Arjun Appadurai...

, Natural History

Natural History (magazine)

Natural History is an American natural history magazine. The stated mission of the magazine is to promote public understanding and appreciation of nature and science.- History :...

, Orion, American Ethnologist, the New York Times, and The Best American Essays

The Best American Essays

The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States. It was started in 1986 and is now part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin...

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Life

Raffles grew up in London, England, and moved to New York in the early 1990s. He lives in New York City and teaches at The New School

The New School

The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...

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Awards and criticism

Raffles was the recipient of the 2003 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award for In Amazonia: A Natural History.

In 2009, Raffles was awarded a Whiting Writers' Award

Whiting Writers' Award

The Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...

. In 2010, Insectopedia was the winner of the 2011 Orion Book Award and received a Special Award from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. The book was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of 2010.

Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Philip Hoare

Philip Hoare

Philip Hoare is an English non-fiction writer and journalist. His 2008 book Leviathan won the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize.-Bibliography:* Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant...

described Insectopedia as "impossible to categorize, wildly allusive and always stimulating."

Articles

• "Mother Nature's Melting Pot," The New York Times, Op-Ed, April 2, 2011.
• "Sweet Honey on the Block," The New York Times, Op-Ed, July 7, 2010.
• "A Conjoined Fate," Orion (2010).
• "Cricket Fighting," in Adam Gopnik ed., The Best American Essays (2008).
• "Jews, Lice, and History," Public Culture (2007).
• "Towards a Critical Natural History," Antipode (2005).
• "Jungle" in Patterned Ground: Ecologies of Nature and Culture, ed. Stephan Harrison, Steve Pile, and Nigel Thrift (2004).
• "Further Reflections on Amazonian Environmental History: Transformations of Rivers and Streams," (with Antoinette WinklerPrins), Latin American Research Review (2003).
• "Intimate Knowledge," International Social Science Journal (2002), reprinted in .

External links

• "The Language of the Bees: An Interview with Hugh Raffles," Cabinet, Issue 25, Spring 2007.
• Big Think interview with Hugh Raffles.
• New Yorker blog interview with Hugh Raffles
• "Are reactions to insects culturally based?" Universal Forum of Cultures 2010
• New School faculty page.