Evolution, Cognition, and Culture Brown Bag Journal Club

What is it? Each week a student or faculty will choose a short, recently published paper, such as a research report from Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, Evolution and Human Behavior, Evolutionary Anthropology, Cognition, etc. The chooser will lead discussion and attendees are encouraged to bring their comments, questions, and lunch of course. The ‘paper of the week’ will be posted on this web site.

When? Every Thursday, 11:15-12:15, during the 2008 Fall semester. The first meeting will be August 28 (first week of the semester).

Where? Anthropology Graduate Student Lounge.

Who? Any students or faculty who are interested.

Why?  It is an excellent opportunity to keep up with the current literature, explore new areas of research, and discuss recent studies with other students and faculty.

Questions? Contact Richard Sosis at richard.sosis@uconn.edu

Meeting Dates/Papers:

August 28: Corey L. Fincher & Randy Thornhill (2008), Assortative Sociality, Limited Dispersal, Infectious Disease and the Genesis of the Global Pattern of Religion Diversity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 1-8.

September 4: Andrew Shtulman & Laura Schulz (2008), The Relation Between Essentialist Beliefs and Evolutionary Reasoning. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal 32: 1049-1062

September 11: Rick O'Gorman, David Sloan Wilson, & Ralph R. Miller (2008), An Evolved Cognitive Bias for Social Norms. Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 71-78

September 18: Joyce Benenson, Timothy Antonellis, Benjamin J. Cotton, Kathleen Noddin, & Kristin A. Campell (2008), Sex Differences in Children's Formation of Exclusionary Alliances Under Scarce Resource Conditions. Animal Behaviour 76: 497-505.

September 25: No Meeting.

October 2: Bruce D. Smith (2007), Niche Construction and the Behavioral Context of Plant and Animal Domestication. Evolutionary Anthropology 16: 188-199.

October 9: Savino di Lernia (2006), Building monuments, creating identity: Cattle cult as a social response to rapid environmental changes in the Holocene Sahara. Quaternary International. 151: 50-62.

October 16: Victoria Reyes-Garcia,Jose Luis Molinac,James Broesch, Laura Calvete, Tomas Huancaf, Judith Saus, Susan Tanner, William R. Leonard, Thomas W. McDade, TAPS Bolivian Study Team1 (2008), "Do the aged and knowledgeable men enjoy more prestige? A test of predictions from the prestige-bias model of cultural transmission." Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 275-281.

October 23: Christopher G. Wilson (2008), "Male Genital Mutilation: An Adaptation to Sexual Conflict." Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 149-164.

October 30: Kermyt G. Anderson (2006), "How Well Does Paternity Confidence Match Actual Paternity? Evidence from Worldwide Nonpaternity Rates." Current Anthropology 47(3): 513-520.

November 6: David Cesarini, Christopher T. Dawes, James H. Fowler, Magnus Johannesson, Paul Lichtenstein, & Bjorn Wallace (2008), "Heritablity of Cooperative Behavior in the Trust Game." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1005(10): 3721-3726,

November 13: No Meeting.

November 20: Ara Norenzayan & Azim F. Shariff (2008), "The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality." Science 322: 58-62.

November 27: Thanksgiving

December 4: Christopher Von Rueden, Michael Gurven, & Hillard Kaplan (2008), "The multiple dimensions of male social status in an Amazonian Society." Evolution and Human Behavior 29: 402-415.

Click here for a list of readings from Spring 2008.