Bigfoot meets the yeren

In my review of Joshua Blu Buhs' new book Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend I wrote;

As with many legendary creatures, advocates Bigfoot's existence often claim that the creature has been known for hundreds or even thousands of years. How could so many cultures in so many parts of the world have stories about "wild men of the woods" if none actually existed? An entire volume could be devoted to this question alone (for starters, see the chapters on "yeren" in The People's Peking Man) ...

Given that both books (Bigfoot and The People's Peking Man) were published by the University of Chicago Press it was only natural for the publisher to bring both authors together for a conversation about "wild men" across cultures. The first installment of the dialog can be seen on The Chicago Blog, with two more parts coming today and tomorrow. Check it out!

More like this

In the middle of August 2008 Matt Whitton, Rick Dyer, and "professional Bigfoot hunter" Tom Biscardi claimed to have found what so many had sought after: the body of a real Bigfoot. FOX News picked up the story, DNA tests were performed, and a grand unveiling was planned, but, as ever, it all was…
[Last night New Brunswick was buried under several inches of snow, shutting down the university and giving me the day off. I have been using my free time to get some reading done and work on a few projects but I did not want to neglect this blog. Here are the first several pages of the chapter on…
I cannot write a full review of it yet as I am only about 70 pages in, but so far I am very impressed by Sigrid Schmalzer's new book The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in 20th Century Science. Most of what I have previously learned about "Peking Man" (Homo erectus specimens…
Ancestors are important. We like to know where we came from and what sort of legacy our forebears left, but it has only been recently that we have been able to trace the concept of "ancestor" through the depths of geological strata. I may not know the detailed history of my family during the last…