Dr. Esperanto, or Anthropology as Alternative Worlds

In this 2015 presidential address, I use the story of so‐called artificial (invented, constructed) languages to discuss anthropology as an act of imagining alternative worlds. I argue that this activity becomes particularly salient at moments of crisis in liberal democratic capitalism and takes a variety of forms according to the position of social actors with respect to the political economic conditions they face. From Esperanto to Klingon and beyond, artificial languages illustrate some key dilemmas and responses, of which anthropology is a part. [ Presidential Address, language, anthropology, artificial languages ]