Jessica Carew Kraft

Jessica Carew Kraft is an American writer, journalist, and anthropologist known for her work exploring the intersection of modern life and ancestral human practices.^[1] She is the author of Why We Need To Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st Century Problems, a first-person account of learning ancestral skills^[2] and the anti-civilization rewilding movement.^[3]

Her reporting on health, culture, and education has appeared in The New York Times^[4], The Atlantic, Forbes, KQED, Christian Science Monitor, ARTNews, YOGA Magazine, and NBC News Online. ^[5]

Kraft was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in the American Midwest. Kraft is the great-grand-niece of H. S. Kraft, a blacklisted screenwriter and playwright.

She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College, a master's degree in cultural anthropology from Yale University, and a master's from The University of London’s Consortium program.^[6]

Kraft has written for publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic,^[7] Forbes, Christian Science Monitor, NBC News online, KQED, and other publications. She is a regular contributor to Proto.Life.^[8]

Her 2014 article on a racial controversy in American college debate competitions^[9] has been widely cited.^[10][11][12] She has written about unjust genetic testing policy in the Medi-Cal system^[13], Tunisia’s post-revolutionary arts scene, and emerging mindful tech designers at Stanford.^[14] She frequently writes about ecological issues and sustainability. Kraft also published graphic memoir essays about motherhood in Motherwell Magazine, Hip Mama, and Mutha Magazine.^[15]

Kraft is the author of Why We Need To Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st Century Problems.^[16] The book was called "A great read for naturalists, those interest in rewilding, survivalists, and anyone searching for a different way of life" by Booklist,^[17] and a "spiritual field guide" by Alta Magazine.^[18] It was chosen as an August 2023 selection on Next Big Idea and excerpted in Big Think.^[19] The author has been profiled in several publications that depict her use of ancestral skills in urban contexts.^{[20][21][20] [4]}