Anthropology

This course looks closely at cultural representation in museums, what they display, to whom, and how. Students first gain an understanding of how museums are organized and the concerns each department faces in terms of cultural representation. Then, they embark on an exploration of the current critical issues facing museums as they represent cultures, both that of the communities in which they reside and other peoples. Nowhere are these issues more palpable than in the National Museum of Scotland, with its large, varied, and historical collection, tasked with representing Scotland's relationship to the global world for a local and global audience. Using the galleries of the National Museum as guide and case study, students examine how nine specific conversations in museology - capitalism, community, citizenship, technology, scientific norms, race, colonialism, ethnology, and memory - are constructed, negotiated, and challenged in the museum.

The course provides students with the sociological-empirical analysis of societal phenomena, such as integration, acceleration, polarization, fragmentation and social action, such as conflict, protest, critique, social mobilization, and claims-making. It also introduces the students to a range of methodological approaches to the study of society/social actors in interaction with politics, law, and the economy. The course enhances the student's capacity and skills to analyze society, social actors, and social problems by using sociological and interdisciplinary instruments.

The course is divided into 3 parts:

In the first part, the course provides an introduction to political sociology, its main sociological theories, concepts, and forms of analysis. Political sociology will be explored through main themes including power and authority, conflict in society, forms of mobilization, societal actors and civil society, and interaction with state (and international/transnational) institutions as well as economic actors.

In the second part, the course provides a specific (and critical) attention to forms of (innovative) data gathering, measurement, ranking, the usage of big data, and the potential downsides to the collection and uses of big data. The course critically discusses formatting, codification, quantification, measurement, rankings, forms of surveillance and control, performance indicators, and auditing.

In the third part, the course explores specific case-studies around four themes: Rule of law and democracy; Human rights, crime, surveillance, and justice; Market economy, the digital world.

This course examines the analytical object "violence" in its differentiated dimensions. What we think of as violence encompasses multiple phenomena that cannot only be understood as forces of destruction: violence must be grasped as also generative of life-worlds. The course inquires into the nature of violence, explores its epistemological and existential, sensual and structural, exceptional and ordinary dimensions, and forms.

This course examines popular musical culture with an emphasis on musicological, sociological, and anthropological aspects. Other topics include: comparative folklore; how and why popular music should be studied; the songbooks and folklore missions in Spain; methods and procedures in ethnomusicological research; anthropology of music-- music in culture; reformulation of folklore; processes of transit and cultural contact. Pre-requisites: Musicology students with prior musical knowledge

Climate change exemplifies the sort of planetary challenge facing humankind in the 21st century. In this course, students explore how that kind of challenge can be understood as a scientific, political, social, and moral problem, to better understand our place in the world under conditions of multiple and interlocking crises. The course introduces the Anthropocene, as both a proposed geological phenomenon and a critical tool to rethink the relationship between humans and the planet. Pursuing this question require students to question some established distinctions—between human/animal, nature/culture, biology/society, life/nonlife, and Globe/Earth. Through anthropological materials, historical and contemporary accounts of life in the aftermath of industrial transformation, colonization and anthropogenic change, the course considers the types of knowledge, forms of collaboration, political engagement, and social practice that might help us better apprehend the fragility of the planet and articulate a shared responsibility to its future.  

This course analyzes the cultural construction of reality through different symbolic manifestations. It discusses contributions of symbolic anthropology to the understanding of cultural manifestations and processes, as well as the relationship between their material and symbolic dimensions. This course reflects on symbols, rituals, representation, expressiveness, worldview, mythology, magic, and the imaginary to understand the cultural and social processes of human groups.

This is an introductory course to Anthropology. Anthropology is explored through four contingent entry points: "Words" focuses on intra- and cross-cultural meaning making; "Deeds" examines the individual's agency within social contexts; "Things" analyses interaction with objects and "Bones" introduces basic principles of archaeology. The course privileges hands-on immersion into anthropology and provides an overview of its complex history. As an introductory course, we use content that engages the diversity of students’ life worlds and is cognizant of our African location. We employ innovative teaching and delivery methods, including multilingual pedagogies and digital literacy, which allow more time for active engagement and the development of critical reading and writing skills in the Humanities. DP requirements: Attendance at tutorials and submission of all written work, plus class test. Assessment: Continuous assessment (essays, projects, class tests) counts 100%.

Anthropological studies on China emerged from various directions in the last century. This course is designed to gain a deeper understanding of China through various anthropological lenses, including studies on the Han nationality, which focuses on ancient poetry; village community and economic life; familism; clan; folk religion; private life, and also studies on ethnic minorities conducted by multiple anthropological methods. The works of these anthropologists also mirror the evolution of the anthropology discipline and its changing paradigms during the 20th century. Through reading and discussing these anthropological works with different focuses, students are expected to form a comprehensive understanding of both China and anthropology. 

This course explores the intersection between food cultures and food politics, with an eye towards arguments and debates that have animated French culinary culture, and diverse interdisciplinary approaches to the scholarly study of food. How is food a portal for studying the changing dynamics of cities, global systems, and national identity? In what ways has food been employed to construct notions of community and belonging, and, inversely, exclusion? Through discussions of interdisciplinary course readings, analytic and ethnographic writing assignments, and excursions around the city of Paris, the course considers how food structures identities, everyday practices, and political lives in contemporary France.