| Semester | spring semester 2020 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Till Förster (till.foerster@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Anthropology and Africa share a strange representation on the net. Research and scholarly debates are very unevenly mirrored. Some keywords are very well covered on sites as Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia Britannica while others are virtually non-existent or only sketchy fragments can be found. Sometimes, knowledge from publica-tions in other media, in particular books and scholarly articles, but also films and visual media have not found their way to into publicly accessible websites and fora. The tran-sition from printed to online media has led to a partial forgetting of knowledge in older media such as books and printed journals. This course follows this transition and tries to revise it where possible. It has four aims: • First, it compares the state of research on selected key terms to how these themes are covered on easily accessible websites, in particular Wikipedia and other, similar online encyclopaedia run and supported by professional publish-ing houses. • Second, the course aims at identifying entries that need an update or that should be created if the entry does not exist yet. The selection of the terms depends al-so on the regional as well as thematic interests of the participants. • Third, the course invites students to work in small groups on the entries that they found most interesting. Each entry should be updated or written anew ac-cording to the knowledge that is available on the topic, in particular in conven-tional publications. • Fourth, the entries will be read and checked by the entire group and subse-quently be published on Wikipedia. The entries should be submitted by May 31, and their publication should be completed by June 31, 2020. A list of possible topics will be presented and discussed in the first class on February 24, 2020. Students are also invited to think about entries and themes that are not on the list. If students will want to work as a small team (two to four members), they should think about a division of labour. For instance, larger bodies of publications should be split up in amounts of reading material that can be read by different mem-bers of the team. Reading material for the course consists of information accessible on the net and pub-lications on the same topic. Publications will partly be made accessible on the course’s workspace on Adam, the online resources system of the University of Basel. All stu-dents are expected to start with the excerpts accessible on Adam, but are also expected to search themselves for further websites and publications in the field. They should make extensive use of the library as well. |
| Admission requirements | The number of participants is limited to 30 people. The places are assigned according to date of enrollment and subject of study. Priority will be given to the subjects listed under "modules". |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Areas: Afrika (Master's degree program: European History in Global Perspective) Modul: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Media and Imagination (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Profil: Geschichte Afrikas (Master's degree program: European History (Start of studies before 01.08.2018)) Modul: Sachthemen der Ethnologie (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | All students or groups of students who want to write an entry should do so before May 31, the end of the spring term, if they need the credits this semester. The length may vary according to the subject but should not exceed the usual length of similar entries All papers should be submitted as word- or pdf-files via e-mail to till.foerster@unibas.ch. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |