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Semester 1

Social Anthropology 2: Key Concepts (SCAN08011)

Subject

Social Anthropology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

2

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed at least 1 introductory level Social Anthropology course at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses.

Course Summary

This course will provide a historical overview of anthropological thought and will be taught through an introduction to keywords that have helped to shape the development of social anthropology. The thematic approach is designed to be engaging and stimulating to students and to help to foster critical conceptual and theoretical thought. It will highlight the continued significance of key concepts and oppositions over time.

Course Description

The course will be organized around the exploration of a cluster of linked keywords. Each year the course team will concentrate on 3 or 4 clusters chosen from the following: primitive and modern; science and romance; structure, function and process; society and culture; mind and materiality; time and change; the human and the environment; persons and production. Lectures and tutorials will explore the place of each cluster of keywords in the history of anthropology, while providing examples of their continued importance in contemporary anthropology. While the focus is on big ideas and the ways anthropologists have engaged with fundamental philosophical and theoretical issues, this course is grounded in ethnographic studies and the ways in which these highly situated and detailed accounts of real people doing real things have informed and challenged our more theoretical thinking concerning human cultures and societies. Indicative key concepts: Society and Culture, Persons and Production, Humans and the Environment.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

view the timetable and further details for this course