Caitlin Zaloom

Caitlin Zaloom is a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.

Stories by This Author

Demonstrators opposed to the planned closure of the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library hold signs during a protest at the University of California, Berkeley, on April 22, 2023. The number of anthropology students at the university has dropped by a third in the last 15 years, according to Charles Hirschkind, the chair of the anthropology department.

The Review | Opinion

The Fight Over a Berkeley Library Is a Fight for the Future of Higher Ed

By Caitlin Zaloom May 4, 2023

Two visions of the university are clashing. It’s clear which side is winning.

‘Meritocracy Was Coined as a Description of a Dystopia’ 1

The Review

Is Meritocracy an Idea Worth Saving?

May 7, 2020

Anastasia Berg, Ross Douthat, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and Caitlin Zaloom discuss a contested concept.

The Review

Is Meritocracy Hurting Higher Education?

By 10 Scholars and Administrators September 13, 2019

Social mobility has stalled, and the public is losing trust. Time for universities to rethink their role in American life?

The Review

What Capital Markets Can Learn From Clifford Geertz

By Caitlin Zaloom March 23, 2007

Cultural anthropologists often turn an eye to their own kinship structure, and on the master chart of intellectual relations, Clifford Geertz is my grandfather. His name, enclosed within the points of a black-line triangle, hovers above that of Paul Rabinow, my dissertation adviser and Geertz’s…