Sherine Hamdy: Roxanne, it was such a delight to read this book! ... So, I guess my first question is: who was your audience for this?

Roxanne Varzi: That’s a great question! My goals were to advocate for students with ADHD and dyslexia and teach some anthropology while breaking methodological boundaries in anthropology. I hope the book will serve as a good introduction to anthropology for undergraduates, will attract students to the major, even as early as senior year in high school, and help retain the students that come. I also wrote it for all those people who think anthropology is cool, but don’t know a lot about it and who happened to like a murder mystery. And I wrote it for people who like or need to learn through stories. I was appalled at the level of fake news and science denial, and everything that was going on politically during the pandemic and thought anthropology could be a great tool for everyone to use. Just this quarter my students said the most valuable thing they learned was how to read images.

Continue reading: https://campanthropology.org/2025/03/31/roxanne-varzi-on-her-anthropological-novel-death-in-a-nutshell/