Anthropology Matters

The following is the text of the presidential address, slightly revised and with references added, presented on November 23, 2013, at the 113th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago, Illinois. I begin by contextualizing the development of anthropological theory in some of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, with particular reference to Chicago. After exploring contemporary challenges to the academy and to the discipline of anthropology, I close with a discussion of relevant research projects, new publics, and the future of anthropology. The original address, which included a PowerPoint presentation illustrating some of the ideas, is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb8yLzXPH5M .