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An old photo of a section of the Berlin wall that is weathered and cracked, with what looks like an apartment building behind it. The word "Walls" is written across the top of the photo.

Troy Wason/ Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

David Bowie sang about it (Heroes), Wim Wenders’s angels watched a city divided by it (Wings of Desire), Peter Schneider’s characters cross it (The Wall Jumper).

To mark the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this November, Anthropology News is turning an anthropological eye to walls of all kinds in all places: walls physical and rhetorical, archaeological and political, long-buried and recently imagined. What does anthropology tell us about these structures that are sometimes concrete, and other times intangible and metaphorical? We invite you to consider walls, barriers, and fences past and present—to think off the wall for our November/December “Walls” issue.

We are open to creative proposals that approach walls from an engaging and fresh perspective, in the form of feature articles or visual essays.

Please send a 250-word pitch that outlines the story or argument of your piece, and a 50-word author bio to [email protected] by May 31, 2019. If proposing a photo or illustrated essay, include one or two images.

First drafts will be due by July 31 and will go through a developmental edit with the AN editor. Full articles are 1,600–2,000 words. Photo essays comprise 6–8 high resolution images and a 600-word introductory essay. Final articles will publish in the November/December print magazine and on the AN website.