Courtney T. Wittekind
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ctwittekind.bsky.social
Courtney T. Wittekind
@ctwittekind.bsky.social
Anthropologist | Assistant Professor at Purdue | Postdoc at Yale CSEAS & Program in Agrarian Studies
Pinned
Proofs are off, and reviews are in!

City of Speculation: Unsettled Futures in Urban Myanmar will be out in mid-November. I can't wait for you to read it.

www.sup.org/books/anthro...
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
I am tired of having to pretend that the value of studying my discipline solely rests on the "marketable skills" we teach. Sometimes things are just worth knowing and doing because they make your life bigger and richer.
I don't want to make civic arguments about history. I don't want to make instrumentalist arguments about history. I want engineers to understand my discipline is rigorous too and if not I want to be able to make fun of them forever because no historian ever built a bridge that broke in the wind.
September 28, 2026 at 12:10 AM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
My daughter, a freshman in college, has texted me twice now to let me know she stopped by office hours to just chat with the professor
Jason Momoa Makes a Heart Shape with Hands
ALT: Jason Momoa Makes a Heart Shape with Hands
static.klipy.com
September 2, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
A beautiful thing in academia is the chance to meet and learn from smart people across disciplines, and let conversations simmer, allowing ideas to emerge and take shape.
This was a great piece to write with a great team.
Thanks to @ctwittekind.bsky.social and Elizabeth Resor for leading the charge!
August 24, 2026 at 9:08 AM
Very proud of this piece, and of our writing team
August 23, 2026 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
August 23, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
The State Department on Thursday designated U Min Zin, an American scholar arrested in China on spying charges in June, as having been wrongfully detained.
State Dept. Declares U.S. Citizen in China Wrongfully Detained
U Min Zin, a scholar who studied Myanmar, is one of two U.S. citizens the department has designated as wrongfully detained in China.
trib.al
August 20, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
I was just telling a reporter that most of the college presidents who have taken action have done so in the wake of moves from their faculty and other workers, not the reverse. Harvard is no different.
Let's not forget that Harvard's administration did not stand up until Harvard AAUP, @aaup.org, and @uaw.org acted first.
Harvard stood up to Trump where Columbia didn't and Yale is wavering and look, it worked: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/u...
August 13, 2026 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
Hello World! We have a new BlueSky account and a newly designed website. Please help us test our "soft launch" version at: redesign.teacirclemyanmar.com
June 17, 2026 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
The diaspora turns the lens on itself: the work is not the applause, it is folding the chairs. Cohesion: A poem by Ko Ko Aung.

ဒေသစွန့်ခွာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းတစ်ခု မိမိကိုယ်ကို ပြန်လှည့်ကြည့်လိုက်ခြင်း – အလုပ်ဆိုတာ လက်ခုပ်သံ မဟုတ်ဘူး၊ ပွဲပြီးတဲ့အခါ နောက်ဆုံးအထိ ကျန်နေပြီး ရှင်းလင်းသိ
စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်ခြင်း
Cohesion
The diaspora turns the lens on itself: the work is not the applause, it is folding the chairs. A poem by Ko Ko Aung.
redesign.teacirclemyanmar.com
June 18, 2026 at 12:40 PM
Proofs are off, and reviews are in!

City of Speculation: Unsettled Futures in Urban Myanmar will be out in mid-November. I can't wait for you to read it.

www.sup.org/books/anthro...
May 30, 2026 at 3:28 PM
My new article begins with a puzzle: Why would farmers support a controversial new city project so fervently as to hold a mass demonstration, demanding it be built “as fast as possible?”

Surreal to see this out, with gratitude to the editorial collective, reviewers, and many generous colleagues.
February 28, 2024 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
Queens College just forced chairs to fire 26 of my colleagues, two weeks before the semester starts. They've lost health insurance and income, we've lost 79 sections and over 1600 students have lost their classes. Please help us protest! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
January 15, 2024 at 10:37 PM
New article with Hilary Faxon on land sales, Facebook Live, and scamming in post-coup Myanmar: t.co/QKH3XTh1G0

What a pleasure it's been to contribute to this special issue on digital transformations in land, housing and property, edited by @FieldsDesiree @hilaryfaxon & Tom Wainwright
Livestreamed land: Scams and certainty in Myanmar’s digital land market - Hilary Oliva Faxon, Cour...
Scams are endemic to digital capitalism, whether they manifest as bitcoin bubbles or bullshit jobs. Drawing on two years of digital ethnography in Myanmar’s Fac...
t.co
November 13, 2023 at 10:12 PM
Off to #2023AAACASCAToronto —With a group of amazing anthropologists, we will talk about what it means to live in “uncertain times.”
November 13, 2023 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Courtney T. Wittekind
How do we Bluesky at conferences? Completely overwhelmed by the AAA/CASCA program, and normally i would rely on twitter to find the fun panels. What do we do here? create a conference specific feed? what has worked for folks already and what are my anthro folks thinking of trying?
November 13, 2023 at 8:54 PM
Now that my move from the other place is complete, it seems appropriate to start things off here with the best pic of my best bud.
September 25, 2023 at 4:34 AM