Charles King

In Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, Georgetown University professor Charles King chronicles the lives of cultural anthropology founder Franz Boas and the female scientists he encouraged to explore civilizations around the globe, including Ruth Benedict, Ella Cara Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, and Margaret Mead. Charles and Megan talk cultural relativism, how anthropology differs from other disciplines, Hurston’s work in Jamaica and Haiti, and the struggle to debunk theorists who would divide the world into “us” and “them.” Then our editors offer their weekly reading recommendations, with books by Mo Willems, Stacey Lee, Howard Stern, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner.