Light in Dark Times: The Human Search for Meaning

"Light in Dark Times contributes to our understanding of why the US is facing similar strategies of ‘conflating opinion with truth’ and the rise of ‘alternative facts’ that were used in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. It also offers a number of important remedies to counter them: be introspective, avoid the trivial, participate in envisioning an alternative world, and engage in activities without exaggerated self-importance."

Rachel Breunlin, University of New Orleans, Anthropology and Humanism

“Light in Dark Times is one of the few books, anthropological or otherwise, I would call transcendent. Rarely has a volume been timelier, more engaging, or more accessible.” Robert Myers, Alfred University, General Anthropology

"This is a unique, non-fiction graphic novel that focuses on what anthropology study can lend to society. The artwork is particularly illuminating."

2020 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity Award Committee

“If I were teaching graduate students in anthropology about the alluring, messy complexities within and about the discipline, this book would be a fine introduction. If I were teaching qualitative research methods and other means of narrating experience, the format and content would undoubtedly expand the student’s repertoires of representation.” Sue E. Estroff, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine Journal

“An astonishing work of art and anthropology: beautiful, moving, and profound.” Anand Pandian, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, author of A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times

“In the tradition of ground-breaking graphic narratives like Logicomix and Unflattening, Light in Dark Times informs, educates, and inspires all at once. Beautifully illustrated in a mixed media style, the book is an epic ‘walk-and-talk.’ It effectively uses the comics form to take the reader on a flowing journey through the key question of our time: how to understand and resist an overwhelming world. Spritely avatars of Waterston and Corden, often accompanied by notable thinkers like Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht, provide illumination and hope in the darkness. They make a powerful case for the field of anthropology as a tool in the struggle.” Josh Neufeld, University of Waterloo, author of the New York Times bestseller A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge and illustrator of The Influencing Machine

“How do we want to be human? Light in Dark Times takes readers on an expansive journey to find ways to answer that question for themselves. Alisse Waterston’s thoughtful investigation accompanied by Charlotte Corden’s lively illustrations, together weave a primer on how anthropology can serve as a critical tool to reveal great understanding – particularly necessary in this dark moment when truth is obscured on all sides.” Nick Sousanis, San Francisco State University, award-winning author of Unflattening

“Waterston and Corden create a beautiful, meaningful, and powerful experience in Light in Dark Times. Simultaneously a lament and a beacon of hope, this visually stunning and intellectually vibrant narrative invites the reader to immerse in ideas, imaginings, realities, and possibilities. Through flowing imagery and concise lyrical text, the book offers a fundamental anthropological and philosophical toolkit against despair. Weaving deep but accessible content with dreamlike illustrations and imaginings, Waterston and Corden have created a book for, and about, all of us.” Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University, author of The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional

"How do we want to be human? How can we create a more just, humane world for all? These questions shine forth from Light in Dark Times, a book gorgeous in both ideas and images from anthropologist Alisse Waterston and artist Charlotte Corden. Together with guiding spirit Hannah Arendt, they invite us to think in politically relevant ways. Drawing on anthropology’s unique way of knowing, Light in Dark Times illuminates the dark corners of human experience so that we may imagine and build a better world. A potent, hopeful, and inspiring call-to-action for these times." Carole McGranahan, Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, author of Writing Anthropology: Essays on Craft and Commitment

"With Light in Dark Times, Alisse Waterston reasserts her status as one of anthropology’s most brilliant writers, able to draw us into the lives of scholars and activists from different ways of life, with compelling and empathetic prose. Addressing some of the most vexing philosophical questions of our time, she and artist Charlotte Corden weave ethics, social science, and art together, all the while encouraging their audience to experience the world anew, through child-like eyes. Emotionally staggering in its ability to compel us to forge an alliance around fairness and human dignity, this is an essential book for anyone committed to imagining new ways of creating a more just society." Laurence Ralph, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University, author of The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence

"Light in Dark Times injects hopefulness and possibility into a world that seems to be hopelessly possessed by madness, evil, and suffering. It brings intellectual illumination and anthropological insight to bear in a world beset by anti-intellectualism, political obfuscation, and abject human suffering. And it ignites genuine possibility of transformation. It is marvelous, beautiful, inspiring." Tricia Redeker Hepner, Director, Social Justice & Human Rights, Arizona State University, author of Soldiers, Martyrs, Traitors, and Exiles