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38004-01 - Research seminar: Current Research: Literature & Anthropology 4 CP

Semester fall semester 2014
Course frequency Irregular
Lecturers Philipp Schweighauser (ph.schweighauser@unibas.ch, Assessor)
Content This course invites MA students, PhD candidates, and post-docs to engage with current research concerning the intersections between literature, literary studies, and cultural anthropology. We will be particularly concerned with the question of what difference it makes whether cultural others are represented in ethnographic prose or literary language. At the same time, we will ask ourselves to what extent ethnographic work by three of the pre-eminent anthropologists of the first half of the twentieth century (Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Edward Sapir) is shaped by contemporaneous literary, cultural, and artistic discourses (e.g. modernism and primitivism). This is an especially pertinent question with these anthropologists since, together, they have published over 500 poems, some of which we will also consider in the course of the term. This course is related to the SNSF-funded research project "Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead" (see https://forschdb2.unibas.ch/inf2/rm_projects/object_view.php?r=2190016&type=1).
Learning objectives Participants learn to bring three modes of representation and fields of knowledge together: literature, literary studies, and cultural anthropology.
Bibliography The following two texts need to be read before the beginning of the term: 1) Ruth Benedict, "An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict". Ed. Margaret Mead. (Westport: Greenwood P, 1977); 2) Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, "Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis" (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1942). Note: "Balinese Character" is available here: http://monoskop.org/images/8/8d/Bateson_Gregory_Mead_Margaret_Balinese_Character_A_Photographic_Analysis.pdf.

Additional texts are made available on ISIS.
Weblink ISIS

 

Admission requirements This MA course is a research seminar for MA students, PhD candidates, and post-docs that also caters to students wishing to give the colloquium presentation required in the old MA "Research Skills..." module.
Course application Please register on ISIS.
Language of instruction English
Use of digital media Online, mandatory

 

Interval Weekday Time Room

No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.

Modules Modul "Research Lab" Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology)
Modul Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Master's degree subject: English)
Modul English & American Literature (Master's degree subject: English (Start of studies before 01.08.2013))
Modul Kulturtheorien, Kulturanalyse und Fachgeschichte (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology (Start of studies before 01.08.2013))
Modul Literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Forschung (Master's degree program: Literary Studies)
Modul Research in Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Master's degree subject: English)
Modul Research Skills in English Linguistics or Literature (Master's degree subject: English (Start of studies before 01.08.2013))
Modul Schrift 2 (Theorien, Methoden und Perspektiven der Analyse schriftlicher Kultur) (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology (Start of studies before 01.08.2013))
Modul Theorien der Kultur MA (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology)
Assessment format continuous assessment
Assessment details t.b.a.
Assessment registration/deregistration Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required
Repeat examination no repeat examination
Scale Pass / Fail
Repeated registration as often as necessary
Responsible faculty Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch
Offered by Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft

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