Anthropology

In this course, anthropology is approached from a philosophical point of view and with philosophical methods. The course consists of three units. The following main topics are addressed: key concepts for the epistemology of anthropology, philosophical accounts of human nature from antiquity to modern age, and evolutionism and anthropology.

This course focuses on the development of ‘modern’ London (c.1800 to the present day) to explore a set of wider intellectual issues about the nature of cities and urban ways of life. It takes an interdisciplinary perspective drawing upon a range of and scholarship –including social and cultural history, art history, geography, and sociology –central to the broad field of urban studies. Three sets of interrelated themes provide a theoretical focus: modernity and the city; landscapes of power and inequality; and culture, identity and urban space. The three main sections of the course deal with key periods of in the history of modern London. The first part of the course, London: Capital of Modernity, examines the ways in which London became a ‘modern’ city in the 19th Century. The second part of the course, The Challenge of Modernity: London in the Twentieth Century, considers London in the turbulent decades of the early 20th Century and the efforts to repair bomb damaged London and the comprehensive reconstruction of some parts of the city after World War Two, The third part of the course, Global London: Transforming Society and Space,  studies in depth some of the major features of the city in the later 20th and early 21st Centuries, focusing on London’s global city characteristics and considers intellectual debates about contemporary society and culture in an urban context.

The course approaches legacy of the settler colonialism in Germany and the U.S., and it critically explores the forms it takes such as hobbyism, Indianthusiasm, Indigenous identity theft, cultural appropriation, and environmental racism. It also provides space for Indigenous voices regarding the issues, thus bringing the decolonizing approach into practice. Participants are expected to create their own research projects approaching the central research question from more specific dimensions (historical, cultural studies, and decolonial perspectives).

Access to modern energy is seen as fundamental to reducing poverty, and improving education, livelihoods and health across the global south. Yet in the context of climate change and the UN's sustainable development goals the question of what kind of energy is appropriate for whom has become more important than ever. Meanwhile, the quest for new reserves of fossil fuels and attempts to increase the use of alternative energy is transforming relationships between the global south and the global north.
This course approaches the study of energy, fuel and electricity in Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the Pacific as the study of social, cultural and political change. We will explore both the role of energy in post-colonial projects of nationalist modernization and the place of energy in contemporary projects of socio-economic development. Students explore the social and cultural politics of oil, coal, hydroelectricity, wind, and solar. And they shift focus between big infrastructure projects, like dams and coal plants, designed to generate electricity for people living on the grid to small, decentralized infrastructures projects designed for those living off the grid.

Modern nation-states rely on borders to govern mobility as “migration.” In the context of globalization, migration governance and the public debates and societal contestations around it have become increasingly salient. This interdisciplinary course addresses different phenomena of migration and borders, paying attention to the historical contexts and the complex and contested nature of migration governance. Drawing on social, legal, cultural, historical, and political perspectives, and engaging grassroots movements and audio-visual works, the course focuses on European and German policies, institutions, practices, and debates over migration and borders. Also the Berlin level is discussed, particularly by guests and in relation to local contestations. The course takes distance from the nation-state and borders as normative frames, introducing critiques of methodological nationalism and critical perspectives emerging from (everyday) practices of migration and antiracist movements. Borders are explored as complex, contested practices / relations at the intersection of race, law, gender, control of labor, international relations, and other factors, creating (global) social hierarchies and unequal access to mobility and other rights / resources.