Anthropology News Column
The Council for Museum Anthropology publishes a regular column in Anthropology News, the newsletter of the American Anthropological Association. In addition to publishing news of the CMA, section news offers a space to publish the newest, most innovative work in our field online.
**Download our editorial guidelines here**
Winter/Spring 2025 Theme: Signal/Noise
Seeking articles for the next 2025 Council for Museum Anthropology section news column of Anthropology News.
Anthropology News is now published exclusively online and organized thematically. The upcoming theme is Signal and Noise – how can you work with that theme to connect with and think about museum anthropology? You’re welcome to think broadly and creatively with the themes.
We invite submissions on the theme of Signal/Noise for CMA’s next column in Anthropology News. What museum/exhibit/heritage-related stories do you have about how communities, cultures, and individuals distinguish meaningful patterns from background noise, interpret disruptions, and find (dis)connection amid interference? What counts as signal versus noise in museum-based work, and who gets to decide? How are fuzzy boundaries clarified or precarious structures disrupted in collections and exhibitions? What happens when communication is both necessary and fraught, or what makes messages shared or misconstrued?
Send a short descriptive pitch for your proposed piece to CMA Secretary, Lillia McEnaney at mcenaneylillia@gmail.com by March 1 for the Signal and Noise theme. Authors will go through an editorial process with McEnaney before Anthropology News’ formal deadline, approximately 2 month after the initial submission. We encourage submissions from both students and faculty.
Note that final essays should: be below the 1,600-word limit; not have in-text citations or notes, but rather includes hyperlinks to any work mentioned in the text; and only use images or other media that are either owned by the author, have Creative Commons licenses and are properly attributed, or have explicit permission from the copyright holder.
Anthropology News publishes pieces that are legible to a broad audience within and beyond the discipline. Pieces can be either stories or photo essays:
- Stories—short-form exploration of an interesting topic with detail and depth, up to 1600 words
- Photo essays—six to eight high-quality, visually compelling images + up to 750 words of introductory text
Write something and engage with AN readers across the field!