Anthropology Module Syllabi- Year 3
Anthropology and Gender Theory
AN53026B
Term(s) Taught:
Spring
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This module aims to explore the interrelationships of gender, sexuality and the body by bringing
together ideas from contemporary Western social/cultural theory (including psychoanalytic,
feminist and queer theories), detailed ethnographic and historical case studies, and some classic
anthropological theories and issues. In doing this, we will explore the ways in which the body,
gender and sexuality have been produced/imagined differently in different times and places.
Issues which will be raised include the status of the body; biological or cultural, the sex/gender
distinction, kinship and concepts of the person, in the light of gender theories, psychoanalytic
approaches to gender, sexuality and the body, race and colonialism, resistance and power politics.
Learning Outcomes:
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Engage with theoretical perspectives in anthropology on gender, sexuality and the body.
Describe the historical changes which have marked the analysis of these concepts and
apply this knowledge to new ethnographic material.
Express their own ideas orally, visually and in writing, to summarise the arguments of
others, and to distinguish between the two
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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Beauvoir, Simone de (1949) 1972 The Second Sex, London :Penguin
Bourdieu, Pierre 2001 Masculine Domination. Stanford University Press
Butler, Judith 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London:
Routledge.
*Pat Caplan ed 1996 The Cultural Construction of Sexuality, London :Routledge
*Collier, Jane and Sylvia Yanagisako 1990 Gender and Kinship: essays toward a unified
analysis Stanford: Stanford University Press
Connell, Robert 1987 Gender and Power: Society, the person and Sexual Politics.
Cambridge; Polity
Csordas, Thomas J. (ed) 1994. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of
Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Foucault, Michel 1990 The History of Sexuality. London: Penguin
Goddard, Victoria (ed) 2000 Gender, Agency and Change: anthropological perspectives.
London: Routledge
Haraway, Donna, 1990. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature, London:
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Free Association Books.
Herdt, Gilbert. 1994. (ed), Third Sex, Third Gender. Zone Books.
Lambek, Michael and Strathern, Andrew (Eds.). 1998. Bodies and Persons: Comparative
Perspectives from Africa and Melanesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Martin, Emily 1987. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston:
Beacon Press. 4
Moi, Toril 2005 Sex, gender and the body Oxford: Oxford University Press
Moore, Henrietta, 1994. A Passion for Difference. Cambridge: Polity
Ortner, Sherry and Harriet Whitehead (eds) 1993 Sexual Meanings: the cultural
construction of gender and sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rosaldo, Michelle and Louise Lamphere 1974. Woman Culture and Society, Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Stoler, Ann L., 1995. Race and the Education of Desire. Duke University Press.
Strathern, Marilyn 1988 The gender of the gift: problems with women and problems with
society in Melanesia, University of California Press
Sullivan, Nikki, 2003. A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, Edinburgh University Press.
Wacquant, Loic 2003 Body and Soul: notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Yanagisako, Sylvia and Carol Delaney 1995 Naturalizing Power: essays in feminist cultural
analysis. London: Routledge
Anthropology and the Environment
AN53021A
Term(s) Taught:
Autumn
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 2 hour seminar per week,
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This course examines three areas of anthropological enquiry into human-environment relations:
different societies’ experience of and thoughts about their biophysical surroundings (beliefs,
practices, dwelling); human shaping of landscapes (living in balance with nature, enhancing or
destroying it); and environmental politics, or political ecology (small and large scale resource
conflict, science and policy processes, environmental movements). Each topic is examined
through one or two key studies, drawn from different parts of the world (e.g. Amazonia, West
Africa, India, Indonesia) and relating to different resources (e.g. forests, soil, water, oil).
Throughout the course, we will also discuss the bearings of the anthropological ideas examined on
public discourses of environmentalism and on conservation policy. The course will be organised
around weekly classes comprising a 50-minute lecture, a 30-minute documentary film or guest
speaker, and a 50-minute seminar discussion
Learning Outcomes:
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engage, in an informed and scholarly manner, in key debates within contemporary
anthropology around a wide range of environmental issues
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critically read and interpret texts (including print, oral, film and multimedia) within their
historical, social and theoretical contexts and acknowledge practical awareness of their
strengths and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
2x take home paper
*If here for one term only: alternative assessment given
Recommended Reading:
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Dove, M., and C. Carpenter, eds. 2008. Environmental anthropology: a historical reader.
Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell.
Escobar, A. 1999. After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology. Current
Anthropology, Vol. 40 (1): 1-30.
Leach, M., and R. Mearns, eds. 1996. The Lie of the Land. Challenging Received Wisdom
on the African Environment. London: The International African Institute.
Peet, R., and M. Watts, eds. 2004. Liberation Ecologies. Environment, Development, Social
Movements. 2nd ed. London: Routledge
Anthropology and the Visual 2
AN53042A
Term(s) Taught:
Autumn
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
Although ‘visual anthropology’ is usually taken as synonymous with a certain kind of
ethnographic/ documentary filmmaking, this course will look at issues concerned with a broader
sense of the visual and its use within anthropology through a focus on several media –
photography, sound, and film –and an exploration of their productive possibilities for
anthropologists. In doing so the course takes up Eliot Weinberger’s criticism of contemporary
visual anthropology for adopting a narrow definition of its field and its available tools, when the
conjunction of ‘visual’ with ‘anthropology’ should actually open up a whole range of creative
possibilities for conducting and presenting research.(1)
The course will explore the role of photography, sound, and film in anthropology in terms of both
the history of their use within the discipline, and also the potentials they hold for new ways of
working as anthropologists. We will consider certain key questions about the use of visual and
aural material in an anthropological context and this will necessarily involve a consideration of
practical work produced in fields outside of anthropology, such as fiction and documentary film
more generally, photojournalism, and contemporary art, as well as the work of visual
anthropologists. The intention of the course is to give students a challenging and creative view of
the potentials for using audio-visual material within anthropology. It also provides a strong
theoretical background for those students going on to take the AN53040A Anthropology and the
Visual: Production Course in the Spring Term.
Learning Outcomes:
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engage, in an informed and scholarly manner, in key debates within contemporary
anthropology around a wide range of issues such as art and contemporary media
formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
critically read and interpret texts (including print, oral, film and multimedia) within their
historical, social and theoretical contexts and acknowledge practical awareness of their
strengths and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 1500 word report
1x presentation
Recommended Reading:
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Pink, S. Kurti, L & A. Afonso, eds. 2004. Working Images: visual research and
representation in ethnography. Routledge Press.
Sontag, S. 1977. On Photography. Penguin Press.
Barthes, R. 1982. Camera Lucida, trans. Richard Howard. Jonathan Cape.
Benjamin, Walter 1979. ‘A Short History of Photography’ in his One Way Street and other
Writings London: Verso (Also in Benjamin (1999) Selected Writings Vol 2 Cambridge,
Mass: The Belknapp Press
Edwards, Elizabeth (ed.) 1992 Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920. New Haven:
Yale University Press in association with The Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
Pinney, C and Peterson, N. eds. 2003 Photography’s Other Histories. Duke University
Press.
Edwards, E & J. Hart (eds.) 2004. Photographs, Objects, Histories, on the materiality of
images. Routledge Press.3
Gaines, J and M Renov, eds. 1999. Collecting Visible Evidence. University of Minnesota
Press.
Banks, M and H. Morphy (eds) 1997. Rethinking Visual Anthropology. Yale University
Press.
Edwards, E. 2001. Raw Histories, Photographs, Anthropology and Museums. Berg Press.
Chaplin, E. 1994. ‘The use of visual representation in anthropology and sociology’ Ch5 in
Sociology and Visual Representation. Routledge Press.
Schneider, A. & C. Wright 2006. ‘The Challenge of Practice’ in Contemporary Art and
Anthropology. Berg.
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Grimshaw A. & A. Ravetz. 2009 Observational Cinema: Anthropology, Film and the
Exploration of Social Life. Indiana University Press
MacDougall, D. 2006 The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton
University Press.
Anthropology of Art 1
AN53015A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Autumn
15
N/A
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 2 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
Arguably modern anthropology and modern art are close in terms of both their origins and their
critical reflection on the relationships between images, objects and persons, and many
contemporary artworks demonstrate an explicit concern with anthropological or ethnographic
issues. Although anthropology has a long history of dealing with the so-called ‘art’ of other
cultures, what does it have to contribute to an understanding of the kinds of artworks you might
find at Tate Modern today? This module will explore the ways in which anthropology has
approached the art of others and consider the way this sub-field has evolved. Through
ethnographic case studies we will consider a range of key anthropological approaches to art both
historically and thematically, and will explore some of the ways in which art and anthropology are
entangled, including suggestions for how anthropology can productively learn from contemporary
art.
Learning Outcomes:
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formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
express complex ideas clearly in both written and oral form
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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BOAS, F. 1955 Primitive art. New York : Dover Publications
COOTE J.&A.SHELTON 1992 “Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics. OUP. 1-11.
ENWEZOR O. (ed.) 2012 Intense Proximity: An Anthology of the Near and the Far.
Paris:Centre National des arts plastiques Tour Atlantique
GEERTZ, C. 2000 “Art as a cultural system”, in: Local knowledge: further essays in
interpretive anthropology. New York : Basic Books. Pp. 94-120.
GELL, A. 1998 Art and Agency. Clarendon press.
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INGOLD, T. 2013 Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art, and Architecture. New York:
Routledge
LÉVI-STRAUSS, C. 1988 The way of the masks. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
MARCUS, G. &MYERS, F. (ed.) 1995 The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and
Anthropology. U. of California Press, Berkeley.
MORPHY, H. & PERKINS, M 2006 The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. London, Blackwell
Publishing.
MYERS, F. 2002 Painting culture : the making of an aboriginal high art Durham: Duke U.P.
PINNEY, C, &THOMAS, N. (eds.)2001 Beyond aesthetics: art and the technologies of
enchantment Oxford : Berg
SCHNEIDER. A. & WRIGHT, C. 2005 Contemporary art and Anthropology. Oxford, Berg,.
SCHNEIDER A. & WRIGHT C. 2010 Between Art and Anthropology: Contemporary
Ethnographic Practice. Oxford: Berg.
SCHNEIDER A. & WRIGHT. C 2013 Anthropology and Art Practice. London: Bloomsbury.
SVASEK, MARUSKA 2007 Anthropology, Art and Cultural Production. London Pluto Press.
THOMAS, Nicholas 1999 Possessions: Indigenous art, colonial culture New York, Thames
and Hudson.
WESTERMANN, MARIET (ed.)2005 Anthropologies of Art London: Yale U.P.
Anthropology of Art 2
AN53030A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Spring
15
N/A
1x 3 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This module offers you the opportunity to conduct a short piece of research in the field broadly
defined as the Anthropology of Art. Picking up on theoretical issues introduced in the module
Anthropology of Art 1, you will be expected to select your own topic for research. The topic may
relate to areas such as:
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The social life of artistic objects and images (their production, consumption, circulation,
interpretation, agency, etc.)
The practice of an artist or art collective (especially those whose work relates to
anthropological preoccupations)
The ethnography of art institutions like galleries or museums (techniques of display,
audiences, exhibitions, etc.)
Cases of iconoclasm (in public monuments, for example)
Your research may make use of fieldwork methods (such as participant observation, interviews
and photographic documentation) and/or the analysis of documents including visual (pictures,
films, material artefacts) and written materials (museum archives, newspapers, essays, books,
internet sites). The appropriate methods for your research will be determined by the topic, the
time-frame, issues of access, etc. Once you have selected your topic, you should confirm its
suitability with your module tutor before embarking on fieldwork.
Learning Outcomes:
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build skills in designing and conducting a piece of anthropological research;
apply anthropological theory and methods to a given topic related to art;
critically consider the strengths and limitations of existing approaches to the study of art
practices and institutions;
question and develop theoretical and ethnographic approaches to art works and to
systems of representation and display;
present research findings orally in seminars and in written/visual form;
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
There is no reading list for this course since each project will generate its own
bibliography, but you are encouraged to refer to the reading list for the Anthropology of Art
1 course to provide starting points
Anthropology of Development
AN53023B
Term(s) Taught:
Autumn
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
The module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of international development
as a social, political and historical field, and of anthropology’s engagement with development and
processes of planned social change. The early parts of the module provide students with an
understanding of, the emergence of development as an idea, the architecture and infrastructure
of aid, and introduce key theoretical approaches in the study of inequality. We also examine the
tensions inherent in anthropology’s long and intimate relationship with development, through the
early production of expert knowledge about tradition and culture; through its critical engagement
with policy processes and planned interventions, and through the professional negotiation of the
fields of development anthropology and the anthropology of development. The module then goes
on to contextualise these theoretical and critical approaches to development through a series of
interlinked topics and ethnographic case studies. These take students beyond the theorisation of
development as linear progression, or as a monolithic force acting on the world, and instead
reveal a field fractured by contradictions, contestations and contingencies that is produced,
reproduced and interpreted across multiple locations and cultural contexts.
Learning Outcomes:
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Apply a critical anthropological perspective to accounts of development intervention
and social change.
Demonstrate an awareness of different approaches in the political economy of
development, and to understanding inequality.
Summarise debates over the relationship between development, modernisation and
social and cultural change
Apply theoretical insights to the evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses
of different forms of development policy and intervention
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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Cornwall, Andrea, and Deborah Eade, eds. 2010. Deconstructing Development Discourse:
Buzzwords and Fuzzwords. Oxford: Oxfam GB. (Available as a free download from the
Oxfam website)
Desai, Vandana, and Robert B. Potter, eds. 2014. The Companion to Development Studies.
3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Gardner, Katy, and David Lewis. 1996. Anthropology, Development and the Post-Modern
Challenge. London; Pluto Press.
Lewis, David, and David Mosse, eds. 2006. Development Brokers and Translators: The
Ethnography of Aid and Agencies. Bloomfield CT: Kumarian Press.
Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development: an Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice.
London; Pluto Press.
Mosse, David. 2013. ‘’The Anthropology of International Development’’ In Annual Review
of Anthropology 42, no. 1: 227–246
Anthropology of Rights
AN53039A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Spring
15
N/A
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This module encourages you to critically engage with the rights discourses that underpin
development agendas in the contemporary world. You will analyse the cross-cutting – and often
competing – claims made in the name of, for example, gender and child rights, indigenous rights,
intellectual property rights, animal and environmental rights, customary law and bioethics. The
module will draw from a wide range of specific case studies and will include guest lectures by
specialists in the relevant field.
The aim of the first half of the module is to introduce you to rights in terms of their philosophical
foundations, the history and shape of the UN system and anthropological contributions. We will
be exploring human rights and humanitarian law as both discourse and practice – with particular
focus on the issue of cultural relativism (historically the key stumbling block for anthropological
engagement with rights). The aim of the module is to give you a firm grounding in the
anthropology of rights and the role of cross-cultural understanding of rights-based issues.
The second half of the module takes a more legalistic approach, case studies oriented approach to
build upon Rights
Learning Outcomes:
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Identify key institutions in the UN and wider human rights system, the historical and
philosophical foundations and legal anthropological contributions to understandings of
human rights.
Critically evaluate the complexities posed by issues of cultural relativism in relation to a
universalised morality Examine the complex trade-off between memory, ‘social healing’
and pragmatics in democratic transitions.
Articulate how rights are actuated in specific cases.
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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Robertson, G (2006) Crimes Against Humanity:.The Struggle For Global Justice. London:
Penguin.
Cowan, J., Dembour, MB. & Wilson, R (2001) Culture and Rights: Anthropological
Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
Goodale, M (ed) (2008) Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Anthropology of Violence
AN53044A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Autumn
15
N/A
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
Violence takes many forms and occurs for many reasons. This term we will be looking at the ways
in which anthropologists have dealt with violence, how we explain it, the specific problems of
researching this topic, the involvement of anthropologists in military projects and other issues.
We will be looking at the practices of researching, writing and engaging with violence and the
problems these pose contemporary anthropologists. Some of the readings, lectures and other
sources we might look at in this course inevitably deal with issues, descriptions and images of
violence. Please be aware of this before taking the course and if it’s an issue discuss this with
Gavin sooner rather than later.
Learning Outcomes:
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Analyse the way in which violence intersects with other social problems.
Explain the historical, philosophical and political debates around violence and how
anthropologists draw upon and contribute to these debates
Articulate and debate emotive topics with sensitivity.
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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Scheper-Hughes, N. and P. Bourgois (eds.), 2004. Violence in War and Peace: an
anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Bourgois, P. 1995, In Search of Respect: selling crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Taylor, C. 1999, Sacrifice as Terror: the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Oxford: Berg.
History and Anthropology
AN53005B
Term(s) Taught:
Autumn
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 2 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
While historians and anthropologists share some common epistemological grounds, the
relationship between the two disciplines is one characterised by certain frictions, the aim of this
module being their elucidation. Modern social anthropology was formed in the early twentieth
century by a rejection of evolutionism and its replacement by synchronic site-specific studies, a
move that effectively eclipsed history’s theoretical significance to the discipline. Yet,
dissatisfaction with the ways in which synchronic functionalist ethnographic analyses ignored
history and social change brought about lasting debates about continuity and rupture; the relation
between pasts and presents, and the wider humanistic turn of both disciplines under the
theoretical influence of Marxism, feminism, and other critical social theories under debate since
the 1960s. This module is, in many ways, an examination of the possibilities of a historicised
anthropology and poses several intertwined empirical and theoretical questions about the place
of structure and agency, consciousness and historicity, and memory and silences within
ethnography. Through historical ethnographies and selected social historiography, we aim to
understand not only how to approach the past anthropologically, but also grasp ethnographically
the uses of history as a collectivist political project implicated in nationalism, racist ideology, and
categories like world heritage.
Learning Outcomes:
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Critically assess anthropology’s past and present relation to history
Introduce anthropology students to social history’s theoretical contribution to the
discipline of anthropology
Engage with the political and ideological usage of history in the contemporary world
Develop academic literacy skills and construct independent syntheses of theoretical issues
in history and anthropology
Build strategies for writing an anthropology/history linking dissertation
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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J & J Comaroff Ethnography and the historical imagination, 1992
J Fabian Time and the other : how anthropology makes its object 1993
D Salhins Islands of History, 1985
G Stocking Race, culture, and evolution : essays in the history of anthropology, 1982
N Thomas Colonialism's culture : anthropology, travel and government, 1994
E Wolf Europe and the people without history, 1982
Ideology and the Secular
AN53045A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Spring
15
N/A
1x 3 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This course challenges us to engage with the so-called 'resurgence of religion' in contemporary
politics and social life through questioning secularism as a political doctrine and 'the secular' following Talal Asad - as specific cultural forms of embodiment, the sensorial habitus, and
epistemic sensibilities. What does it mean to study the secular anthropologically? Is it plausible to
gain insights into the practices of everyday life that we often take for granted when ‘the secular is
the water we swim in’ (Hirschkind 2011: 634)? If so, how do we methodologically approach such a
study?
As a self-avowed critical discipline, anthropology’s present institutional identity and theoretical
dispersal is rooted historically in a presumptive project of interrogating the idea of a natural,
given, and commonsensical order of things. But from where does this stance of cultural critique
spring? Moored in institutions that largely derive their epistemic and political authority from
secular powers, what consequences might this have for anthropological studies of ideology and
religion? This course aims to teach a more reflexive approach to the anthropology of ethics,
morality, and the law as a way of understanding the subtleties of governance in the world today
and the disputing it engenders. Given the faltering hegemony of the secular nation-state in
attempts to govern the very possibilities left open to human life, critical anthropological analyses
of the state may appear having never been more salient than they are today, but by taking this
position anthropologists must not bypass and ignore secularism and the proliferation of ideologies
tied to modernist state formation as objects of future research. As a course examining the specific
transformations of everyday life through an ‘-ism’, our collected purpose will be to develop the
conceptual and methodological means to study the ethics, moralities, and laws that govern
secular subjectivities.
In recent years an extended conversation between anthropologists, social and political
philosophers, and theologians has reconfigured the axiomatic and binary opposition of 'religion'
from 'secularism'. Debates abound, resulting in questions about the possibility for a more
'multidimensional pluralism' or the rise of a new 'irrationalism'. In their own ways, religious
adherents and atheists are converging on very public debates about the content of belief and
practice. Into these contentious debates, the future of liberal democracy's claim to tolerance is
tested and its assumptions redrawn. Yet this course extends further that these contentious public
issues into how to theorize the recent conflation of philosophy into political theology, state
sovereignty, the controlling processes of the law, morality and ethics, multiculturalism, and
infrastructural power.
Your coursework will consist of a student-led conference to be organized over the course of the
term and held in the last two weeks (Weeks 10 and 11). This conference will be open to the public
and you will have many opportunities to publicize this and work on a piece of research that will
contribute to demystify the division between 'religion' and 'the secular' and offer alternative
possibilities for achieving a more pluralistic world.
Learning Outcomes:
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engage, in an informed and scholarly manner, in key debates within contemporary
anthropology around a wide range of issues relating to belief and religion
formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
critically read and interpret texts (including print, oral, film and multimedia) within their
historical, social and theoretical contexts and acknowledge practical awareness of their
strengths and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
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Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, and modernity. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Modern, John Lardas. 2014. Secularism in Antebellum America. Duke University Press.
Ozyurek, Ezra. 2006. Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in
Turkey. Duke University Press.
Burleigh, Michael. 2005. Earthly Powers: Religion and Politics in Europe from the
Enlightenment to the Great War. Harper Perennial.
Material Culture
AN53073A
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Spring
15
N/A
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
Beginning with Franz Boas, the study of material culture has formed an integral part of the
discipline of anthropology. The study of material culture encompasses everything from
consumption practices, art, architecture, cultural heritage, cultural landscapes, dress, memorials
and museums. This module will take a critical perspective to investigate how things and people
relate and are related to each other, the way in which objects can mediate social relationships and
the entanglements of objects and memory.
Learning Outcomes:




engage, in an informed and scholarly manner, in key debates within contemporary
anthropology around a wide range of issues relating to objects and cultural output.
formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:








Baudrillard, J (1994) Simulacra and Simulation The University of Michigan Press 194.9
Ba/BAU
Baudrillard, J (2005) The System of Objects Verso 306.46 BAU
Bennett, T (1995) The Birth of the Museum Routledge 069 BEN
Carsten, J & Hugh-Jones, S (1995) About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond Cambridge
University Press 307.336 ABO
Candlin, F & Guins, R (eds.) (2009) The Object Reader Routledge 306 OBJ
Coote, J & Shelton, A (eds) (1992) Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics Clarendon Press
709.011 ANT
Derrida, J (1998) Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression University of Chicago Press 153.12
DER
Douglas, M (2002) Purity and Danger Routledge 306.4 DOU
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





Gell, A (1998) Art and Agency: An anthropological theory Clarendon Press 701.03 GEL
Hirsch, E & O’Hanlon, M (1995) The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place
and Space Oxford University Press 304.2 ANT
Hodder, I (2012) Entangled: An archaeology of the relationship between humans and
things John Wiley & Sons 930.1 HOD
Hoskins, J (1998) Biographical Objects: How things tell the story of people’s lives
Routledge 301.2291 HOS
Latour, B (2007) Re-Assembling the Social: an Introduction to Actor-Network Theory
Oxford University Press 302.3 LAT
Latour, B & Porter, C (2013) An Enquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the
Moderns Harvard University Press 128 LAT
Lock, M & Farquhar, J (eds.) (2007) Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of
Material Life Duke University Press 306.461 BEY
Urban Anthropology
AN53013B
Term(s) Taught:
Credits:
Pre-Requisites:
Contact Hours:
Additional Information:
Autumn
15
N/A
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
Module Description:
This module considers the theoretical, methodological and empirical contribution of
anthropological analyses of cities, and assesses their significance within the broader field of urban
studies. An emphasis will be placed in urban ethnography and its relation to the theorisation of
cities. Despite anthropology’s historical reluctance to engage with the complex dynamics of cities,
there is now a plethora of anthropologists working with the social, political, economic and cultural
aspects of urban life. Throughout the course, we will approach the city as a socio-material entity,
regulated but also contested, and made up of networks of power, physical infrastructures, and a
myriad of small and almost invisible everyday actions. The module considers a series of subthemes in urban anthropology such as urban social movements, poverty and marginalisation, city
planning/design, suburbanisation and urban renewal.
Learning Outcomes:






Analyse a range of contemporary urban issues with ethnographic and anthropological
sensibility
Give academic presentations and provide feedback to those of fellow students
Understand how different ‘schools of thought’ in urban anthropology have produced
different research questions and approaches to urban life (i.e. the relationship between
theory and fieldwork in urban research)
Situate the cross-cultural anthropological literature on cities within the wider field of both
urban studies and anthropology
Assess the specific contribution of urban anthropology to the understanding and
theorisation of cities and urban life
Recognise some of the ways in which urban ethnography may contribute to policy
debates and public discussion

Relate to contemporary debates about socio-technical processes and nonhuman agency,
specifically in relation to the study of urban infrastructures
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:




Gmelch, George, and Walter P. Zenner, eds. 1996 Urban Life: Readings in Urban
Anthropology. Third Edition. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press.
Hannerz, Ulf. 1980. Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Low, Setha M., ed. 1999. Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader.
Rutgers University Press.
Nonini, Donald M., ed. 2014. A Companion to Urban Anthropology. West Sussex:
WileyBlackwell.
Anthropology and the Visual: Production Module
AN53040A
Term(s) Taught:
Spring
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 3 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information: Only available to students also taking AN53042A Anthropology and the
Visual 2
Module Description:
This is a practically-based module in which you will explore the techniques of videomaking/photography/sound recording. It will give you an understanding of some of the
implications and practical concerns of communicating anthropological themes and issues through
visual and aural media. This is a production-based module and does not follow the usual
lecture/seminar format, but is centred around the development of your own individual practical
visual or sound project and seeing that through to completion. The module requires you to
engage in a PROCESS of practical production, and develop and refine a project through all the
various stages and forms necessary for its successful completion. Students typically produce
several versions of the practical work as they refine their project over the module of the term.
Learning Outcomes:



Engage with the process of practical production to develop and refine a visual/aural
project through all the various stages and forms necessary for its successful completion.
Express their own ideas orally, visually and in writing, to summarise the arguments of
others, and to distinguish between the two
communication and presentation skills (using oral, visual and written materials and
information technology)
Assessment:
1x 5-10 minute film/ photographic project/ sound project
1x 2500 word report
Recommended Reading:

Marion, Jonathan S. author. Visual research: a concise introduction to thinking visually /
Jonathan S. Marion and Jerome W. Crowder.2013. 300.721 MAR
Anthropology of Human-Animal Relations
AN53037B
Term(s) Taught:
Spring
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 3 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
What does it mean to be human? Animals are excellent resources with which to think about
human identity since they are similar (animate, sensitive) but also different from us. The
interesting thing for anthropologists is the lack of agreement about the nature of these similarities
and differences. Dogs, for example, are simultaneously both ‘man’s best friend’ in the heroic
animal novels popular in post depression USA, and genital licking polluters to some Muslims.
Animals are also capital. The production of animals is the largest industry in the world. Their
production and consumption reflects important aspects of socio-political organisation. It has
changed rapidly since the domestication of animals, and has recently entered an unprecedented
phase of extreme exploitation epitomised by the factory farms of Euroamerica. At the same time,
wild animals have been commodified in zoos and rare species are preserved in parks that exclude
human inhabitants. How are we to understand these apparently contradictory impulses? Why are
cows food and pandas poster children for the Worldwide Fund for Nature?
This course will provide a background to current debates about animals that will enable you to
contribute to arguments about classification, animal rights, biotechnology, and the desirable limits
of human intervention in processes once thought of as residing in 'nature'. You will learn to make
connections between anthropology, geography, political philosophy, ethics, literary theory and
science. At all times you will be encouraged to relate different ways of thinking about animals to
ethnographic examples.
The Learning Process
The course is organised around two broad themes: classification and representation, and the
political economy of animal life. The first five lectures interrogate the human-animal boundary as
it has been conceived in Judaeo-Christian Euroamerica and elsewhere. The second group of five
lectures looks at ways of exploiting animals: as food, as pets and as entertainment.
Themes are introduced in a one-hour lecture. Readings accompany each lecture and will be
referred to during lectures and explored in greater depth in seminars. Important readings for each
lecture are provided on the VLE Every student will be encouraged to contribute to seminar
discussion, and expected to read in preparation for seminars. Each week one or two volunteers
will start off the discussion by setting out an issue they feel is relevant to the topic based upon a
close reading of at least one text.
Learning Outcomes:



Formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
Explain how humans understand and relate to non-human beings and life-forms
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:
N/A
Psychological Perspectives in Anthropology
AN53003A
Term(s) Taught:
Spring
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1 x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
The link between anthropology and psychology has always been tantalizing. On the one hand, any
boundary between the two disciplines seems fuzzy and arbitrary. On the other hand, at latest
since Durkheim’s notion of ‘homo duplex’, the two perspectives have seemed irreconcilable. This
course aims at exploring some of the connections between anthropology and psychology.
Anthropology, by placing social constructionism as a key and entrenched conceptual footing, has
tended to draw on psychology only in certain regards. Equally, though there have been works in
cross-cultural psychology, the discipline as a whole, given its predominantly experimental bias,
has frequently distanced itself from anthropology. The course is both historical and thematic, and
discusses in relation to a number of key themes how psychological dimensions have been brought
into anthropological discussions of society and culture.
Learning Outcomes:

engage, in an informed and scholarly manner, in key debates within contemporary
anthropology around a issues relating to Psychological approaches



formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x take home paper
Recommended Reading:




C Casey and R Edgerton (eds) 2007 A Companion to Psychological Anthropology:
Modernity and Psychocultural Change Malden, Blackwell
Le Vine R 2010 Psychological Anthropology: a Reader in Self and culture Malden, Miley
Blackwell
Bloch, M 2012 Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Morris, B 2014 Anthropology and The Human Subject Trafford Publishing
Anthropology of Health, Medicine and Social Power
AN53008A
Term(s) Taught:
Autumn
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 2 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
The module comprises ten sessions with one week in the middle for ‘reading/writing’ known as
Monitoring or Reading Week, which is Week 6 of term. The lecture component for this module,
depending on topic and preferences, will most likely be spread across 2-3 hours interspersed by
small group work. Where time permits, we will also include film screenings and/or Guest Lectures.
Therefore, students will be expected to attend a teaching block of 2 - 4 hours.
Each week, you will be set some required reading. Please make sure you read this BEFORE you
attend the session that week. It is essential that you do the required reading to be able to
participate actively in discussions, exercises and to follow the lectures fully. Further readings for
each week can be found on the module VLE pages. Please ensure that you regularly check the VLE
pages for supplementary material posted by the module lecturer and/or fellow students week by
week.
Each student is expected to actively contribute to discussions and to have read at least three
readings for each seminar (including two from the core reading section). The reading list/VLE lists
(and beyond) are intended to give you a wide selection including ethnographic monographs –
which usually cover more than one lecture topic – and journals, so that you do not just rely on
lecture notes. Please be aware that the more you read, the more you will benefit from the
module.
Learning Outcomes:




Summarise and engage with a range of foundational and contemporary concepts in
medical anthropology.
Critically analyse core theoretical approaches through ethnographic engagement and
comparison
Develop theoretically sophisticated and ethnographically contextualised argument
Describe different interpretations of sickness, health, disease and curing in different
cultures and of the complex interrelationship between social, biological and
environmental influences in the health of human communities
Assessment:
1x take home paper
*If here for one term only: alternative assessment given
Recommended Reading:

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




Davey, Basiro, Alastair Gray & Clive Seale (eds) 2001. Health and disease: a reader.
Buckingham Open University Press. (Goldsmiths library; two copies; 362.1 HEA)3
Good, Byron 1994. Medicine, rationality, and experience: an anthropological perspective.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Goldsmiths library; four copies; 306.461 GOO)
Good, Byron et al. 2010. A reader in medical anthropology: theoretical trajectories,
emergent realities. Blackwell. (Goldsmiths library; 4 copies; 306.461 REA).
Janzen, John M. 2002. The social fabric of health: an introduction to medical
anthropology. Boston McGraw Hill. (Goldsmiths library; one copy; 306.461 JAN)
Lindenbaum, Shirley & Margaret Lock (eds) 1993. Knowledge, power, and practice: the
anthropology of medicine and everyday life. Berkeley University of California Press.
(Goldsmiths library; five copies; 306.461 KNO)
Lock, Margaret & Nguyen Vinh-Kim 2010. An anthropology of biomedicine: an
introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (Goldsmiths library; 3 copies; 306.461 LOC)
Strathern, Andrew & Pamela J. Stewart 1999. Curing and healing: medical anthropology in
global perspective. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. (Goldsmiths library; two copies,
306.461 STR)
Gender Theory in Practice
AN53024B
Term(s) Taught:
TBC
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
During the term you should acquire an overview of the relationship between anthropology,
feminist theories and theoretical and applied issues within the field of development and politics.
The emphasis will be on critical engagement and debate, and on a comparative approach to
gender and gender systems of power in developed and developing countries. We will draw on the
theories and debates covered in other courses to examine the implications of gender differences
within specific economic and political systems.
The reading list is available via the link below.
The oral Team Presentation and your final written report will enable you to explore some of these
issues and processes in the context of specific areas, demonstrating the specific historical and
ethnographic outcomes of these processes.
The first part of the module consists of seven lectures and seminars in which the central concepts
and debates will be presented and discussed. This will provide a broad framework for the second
part of the module, which will be based on team presentations. Team presentations will be
loosely arranged around a selection of broad topic areas, which will be defined by the module
convener in consultation with the students. On the weeks when the teams present you will be
allocated either to the first session at 14.00 (running 14.00-15.20) or to the second session at
15.40 (running from 15.40-17.00). In each of the sessions, one team will present a topic and
materials as a basis for discussion by the seminar group. Teams will be set up early enough to
ensure there is sufficient time for adequate consultation, to choose the specific focus, and for
discussion and organisation.
The team presentation will consist of individual oral contributions organised around a single
theme and will include a brief (approx. one page) summary of the main points covered by the
Team Report. The use of visual aids such as power point, OHPs, graphs, charts, short films and
images, etc. is strongly encouraged, though you must plan carefully to ensure that your use of
media can be accomplished in the time allocated to the team.
Learning Outcomes:



Critically analyse connections between theory in practice with particular reference to
gender.
Construct an analytical framework for gender with regard to a range of current issues and
debates, and apply this framework to specific cultural/historical contexts in a region (or
regions) of your choice
Engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:





Arendt, Hannah 1958. The human condition
Benería, Lourdes. 2003. Gender, Development and Globalization. Economies as if all
People Mattered.
Brown, Susan L. 2003. The Politics of Individualism. Montréal: Black Rose
Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Butler, Judith 2006. Precarious life: the power of mourning and violence

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

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Cornwall, Andrea 2007. Feminisms in development
Ferber, Marianne and Julie Nelson 2003 Beyond Economic Man, Ten Years Later
Fraser, Nancy. 1989. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary
Social Theory.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2006. The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): a Feminist Critique of
Political Economy.
Jackson, C. & R Pearson. 1998. Feminist Visions of Development, Routledge4
Marchand, M & J. Parpart. 1995. Feminism, Post Modernism and Development
Parpart, J. et. Al. 2000. Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development. Int’l
Development Research Centre Ottawa.
Pateman, Carole 1988. The sexual contract.
Porter, M. & E Judd. 1999. Feminists Doing Development Zed Press.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1990. The Gender of the Gift. Problems with Women and Problems
with Society in Melanesia
Visanathan, N. (ed.) 1997. The Women, Gender and Development Reader Zed Press.
Weiner, Annette. 1992. Inalienable Possessions. The Paradox of Keeping–while–giving.
Wright, S and N. Nelson 1995. Power and participatory: theory and practice
Yanagisako, Sylvia J. and Carol Delaney. 1995. Naturalizing Power: Essays in Feminist
Cultural Analysis.
Zelizer, V. 2005. The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University
Press.
Indian and Peasant Politics in Amazonia
Term(s) Taught:
TBC
Credits:
15
Pre-Requisites:
N/A
Contact Hours:
1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour seminar per week
4 hours independent study per week
Additional Information:
Module Description:
This course is organized around a number of anthropological themes focused on Brazilian
Amazonia, but with substantial reference to work in other disciplines. A convenient cover term for
the way the material is approached would be ethnohistorical – a not unproblematic expression
(see for example discussion by Salomon and Schwartz (1999: Pt I, 918)) – but one that at least
roughly marks out the general tendency.
Historically, anthropological work in Brazilian Amazonia has concentrated on indigenous peoples,
but over the last quarter century in particular the brief has been extended to include other kinds
of Amazonian societies. The early 20th century work of researchers such as Curt Nimuendaju has
been followed by many detailed studies based on long-term field research documenting what
remains of those few peoples still somewhat beyond the reach of encroaching national societies.
These monographs display major tendencies within EuroAmerican anthropology, but are not (with
some significant exceptions) exemplary of particularly rigid theoretical positions. Roughly
speaking, cultural materialist (e.g. Stewardian) and structuralist (e.g. Lévi-Straussian) orientations
have prevailed. Over the past fifteen years or so, the increasing presence of NGOs and parastatal
organizations as well as agencies of the Brazilian state, natural science researchers and
commodity explorers has altered the terms of reference according to which anthropological
research is conducted. Attempts to 'integrate' the region through projects such as the
Transamazon Highway (c. 1970) and its many ancillary initiatives radically altered (again) not only
Amazonian societies, but also the social landscape within which social science (and other)
research was conducted.
An Amazonia until then largely insulated from terrestrial incursions was rapidly opened up and
became the victim of an open assault little mitigated by regulation. A number of self-serving (in
state and EuroAmerican terms) constructions of Amazonia as a natural domain were employed to
relegate sociological and historical accounts of Amazonian social formations, and recent decades
have seen a reinvention of Amazonia broadly defined as a 'new frontier' (most recently dominated
by soya production).
The dynamics of Indian and peasant politics in Amazonia are complex and the fact that so much
material is available in English perhaps obscures the intensity of specifically Brazilian
commentaries on the issues. While at an international level ethnographic work in Amazonia has
long been associated with indigenous rights work, for example, in Brazil the ‘Indian problem’
assumes different political dimensions and articulations. One consequence of this dual-platform
status of indigenous peoples in Brazil (as ethnographic subjects as well as political actors) is a
confusion between indigenism and the indigenous (for commentary, see Ramos (1998)). Indians
are, in effect, claimed by different interest groups for reasons that may have little to do with
Indians's own objectives or scholarly inquiry. Second, despite Brazil's long effective claim on
'Amazonia-the-frontier', Amazonia (which accounts for most of Brazil's territory) is still maintained
as a remote, yet to be incorporated region. Whatever the empirical merits of this depiction,
ideologically Amazonia is a region in which non-regulation maps neatly onto deregulation:
indigenous 'anarchy' finds itself a bedmate with neoliberalism.
Third, there are many Amazonians who are not 'indigenous'. Their capacity to organize and
represent themselves was seriously undermined by the compounding features of state neglect
(pre-coup), state repression (post-coup) and state diffidence (post-abertura). There are factors
located at some remove which still impinge directly on Indian and peasant politics in Amazonia.
One of these is the rising global value of brute resources (wood, minerals, fish, shrimp). Although
hardly an untouched resource (the region was colonized in the 16th century), parts of Amazonia
seem pristine by comparison with many other tropical/colonial areas. Focused external
investment (since 1970; I leave the rubber industry aside for the moment) was introduced during
the rule of the generals and as a result leaves open the question whether Amazonian
development is a state directed enterprise or something driven from afar. Indian and peasant
politics, as a consequence, is a domain that is regional, national and international.
Learning Outcomes:




produce critical explications and analyses of the anthropological and ethnographic
methodologies used, materials generated and theories developed with respect to indepth study of a particular region;
formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions, use major
theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology and critically asses their strengths
and limitations
Express their own ideas orally and in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and
to distinguish between the two
engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-work
skills
Assessment:
1x 3000 word report
Recommended Reading:







ethnographic studies of particular societies (see J. Jackson, Annual Review of
Anthropology 1975; E. Viveiros de Castro, Annual Review of Anthropology 1996; M.
Carneiro da Cunha, História dos Indios no Brasil (1992) for overviews);
the ecological literature initiated by the 'opening' of Amazonia (see for example A.
Anderson (ed), Alternatives to Deforestation (1990); S. Hecht and A. Cockburn, The Fate of
the Forest (1989);
the human ecology literature (see for example E. Moran, Through Amazonian Eyes: the
Human Ecology of Amazonian Populations (1993);
the Amazonian peasant literature (see for example S. Nugent, Amazonian Caboclo Society:
an Essay on Invisibility and Peasant Economy (1993); for review of four recent ‘peasant
Amazonia’ monographs see M. Schmink ‘No Longer Invisible, But Still Enigmatic’ in
Reviews in Anthropology Vol. 32/3:223237 (2003);
programmatic, synthetic accounts (anthropology, history, archaeology) (see for example
A. Roosevelt (ed), Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present (1994; for
commentary, E. Viveiros de Castro, op cit.; also see Heckenberger 2005);
historical ecology, W. Balée (ed.), Advances in Historical Ecology (1998);
broadly historical, F. Salomon and S. Schwartz (eds) The Cambridge History of the Native
Peoples of the Americas, Vol III, South America Pts. I & II (1999); J. Hemming’s Die If