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74373-01 - Forschungsseminar: The Fetish: Pleasure, Power, Profit (3 KP)
| Semester | Frühjahrsemester 2025 |
| Angebotsmuster | unregelmässig |
| Dozierende | George-Paul Meiu (gp.meiu@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
| Inhalt | “Fetish” and “fetishism” have offered anthropologists, psychoanalysts, historians, and other scholars an important conceptual language to tackle the dynamics of capitalism, governance, coloniality, and modernity. From Karl Marx’s “commodity fetishism” and Sigmund Freud’s “sexual fetishism” to various anthropological studies of fetishism as religious practice, the idea of the fetish has been central to social theory. The fetish has referred alternatively to how our ideas of objects erase the histories of their production; how our disavowed or discarded sources of desire generate new erotic pleasure; or how things animated by spirits shape our social action in unexpected ways. More recently, postcolonial critiques have emphasized how the concrete objects and fantasies previously dismissed as “fetishes” (i.e., false consciousness)—masks, icons, representations—can represent important starting points for imagining and understanding the world at large. Emphasizing the interconnectivity of different global regions, cultures, or social classes and the tensions and ambiguities that such interconnectivity inevitably generates, the fetish may help us better understand various social phenomena. These include, for example, the branding, advertising, and consumption of commodities; the rising charismatic figures animating new forms of populism and ethno-nationalism; civil society’s political mobilizations through the removal or destruction of icons (i.e., iconoclasm); myriad forms of self-making, sexuality, and erotic expression; as well as processes of racialization, ethnicization, and cultural differentiation. Through a close reading of key texts and theorists, this seminar asks: What can the concept “fetish” offer us by way of better understanding the world in which we live? And how can reimagine fetishism from contemporary social, political, and economic conundrums? |
| Literatur | Readings include, among other things, selections from the following books: Matory, Lorand. 2018. The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make. Durham: Duke University Press. McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge. McGovern, Mike. 2013. Unmasking the State: Making Guinea Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morris, Rosalind C. Daniel H. Leonard. 2017. The Returns of Fetishism: Charles de Brosses and the Afterlives of an Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pietz, William. 2022. The Problem of the Fetish. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Tonda, Joseph. 2020. Modern Sovereign: The Body of Power in Central Africa (Congo and Gabon). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. |
| Teilnahmevoraussetzungen | The number of participants is limited to 25 students. The places are assigned according to date of enrollment and subject of study. Priority will be given to the subjects listed under "modules". |
| Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
| Einsatz digitaler Medien | kein spezifischer Einsatz |
| Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Montag | 16.15-18.00 | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
Einzeltermine
| Datum | Zeit | Raum |
|---|---|---|
| Montag 24.02.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 03.03.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 10.03.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Fasnachstferien |
| Montag 17.03.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 24.03.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 31.03.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 07.04.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 14.04.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 21.04.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ostern |
| Montag 28.04.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 05.05.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 12.05.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 19.05.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Montag 26.05.2025 | 16.15-18.00 Uhr | Ethnologie, grosser Seminarraum |
| Module |
Modul: Fields: Media and Imagination (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul: Kulturtechnische Dimensionen (Master Studiengang: Kulturtechniken) Modul: Research Skills in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Master Studienfach: Anthropology) |
| Prüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
| Hinweise zur Prüfung | Attendance and Participation (20%) Weekly Discussion Questions (20%) In-class Presentation on the Readings (30%) Book Review (written assignment) (30%) |
| An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
| Skala | Pass / Fail |
| Belegen bei Nichtbestehen | beliebig wiederholbar |
| Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Fachbereich Ethnologie |