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| Semester | spring semester 2024 |
| Course frequency | Every spring sem. |
| Lecturers | George-Paul Meiu (gp.meiu@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This course examines anthropology’s relation to alterity and sociality in different historical contexts, in the colony and in the metropole, in the socialist East and the capitalist West, at the center and at the periphery. Anthropology has long been seen as a quintessentially “Western discourse” problematically aligned with the ideologies of power. Rather than approach the discipline as a unified whole, however, this course revisits key moments, figures, and events that demonstrate how important anthropological concepts emerged as expressions of—and reflections upon—complex historical conjunctures. Various attempts to conceptualize society, culture, race, hegemony, value, commodity fetishism, the state, ontology, and alterity have resonated with, but also beyond, their immediate contexts. Informed by a desire to de-center “the canon” (without losing sight, that is, of the effects of its normative centrality) or to decolonize the discipline, we pursue a set of theoretical and ethnographic detours through and around key anthropological moments and concepts, all along seeking to understand how idioms, objects, and events of theoretical and ethnographic attachment shape and are shaped by historical context. |
| Learning objectives | Students are encouraged to think anthropologically about anthropology, its concepts, practices, potentialities, and futures. This presupposes not only reading texts closely but also identifying how the assigned readings resonate with one another; what potentials they have for understanding the present and anticipating the future; and how such potentials are to be pursued. |
| Bibliography | Moberg, Mark. 2019. Engaging Anthropological Theory: A Social and Political History. New York: Routledge Pandian, Anand. 2019. A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times. Durham: Duke University Press. |
| Admission requirements | Keine Vorkenntnisse erforderlich. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 14.15-16.00 | Bernoullistrasse 30/32, kleiner Hörsaal 120 |
| Modules |
Modul: Erweiterung Methodenkenntnisse BA (Bachelor's degree subject: Study of Religion) Modul: Gesellschaft in Osteuropa (Bachelor's degree program: Eastern European Studies) Modul: Gesellschaft in Osteuropa (Bachelor's degree subject: Eastern European Cultures) Modul: Grundlagen der Ethnologie (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) Modul: Methoden der Nahoststudien und der Gesellschaftswissenschaften (Bachelor's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) Module: Basics: Social Anthropology (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) |
| Assessment format | record of achievement |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | one repetition, repetition counts |
| Scale | 1-6 0,5 |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |