In my introductory course, Anthropology 160, the Forms of Folklore, I try to show the students what the major and minor genres of folklore are, and how they can be analyzed.

I never got any training in how to write novels as an English major at Oberlin, but I got some great training for writing novels from anthropology and from Margaret Mead.

Biological anthropology tends to focus on skeletons because that's what is often left behind in the ground, but I am a whole-body anatomist, I'm a clinical anatomist and that's what I teach, I teach it all, not just the skeleton, the muscles and nerves, blood vessels.

I cannot wait until the day I can go back to school... I've already picked my program: anthropology at Columbia. I will not get in, but a girl can dream.


I was born in Middletown, Connecticut, while my dad was getting his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and anthropology at Wesleyan University.

Telling everyone I wanted to go into forensic anthropology was my form of rebellion.

I've been on this kick reading about the beginning of forensic science: autopsies, fingerprinting, psychological profiling. I've been reading a lot of books about forensic anthropology.

Can fiction teach us? Absolutely. Fiction has the power to illustrate place, era, and atmosphere in vivid detail. But it is not Anthropology for Dummies.

People keep asking how anthropology is different from sociology, and everybody gets nervous.