Course detail
Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology
FaVU-UDKSAAcad. year: 2023/2024
The course is conceived as a cycle of consecutive lectures. Within each lesson, students will get acquainted with the work of prominent personalities, key texts and examples of anthropological research. Each lecture will thematize the relationship between art and anthropology within a diachronic scheme across time and place using examples of specific projects, works, and relevant texts. Part of the explanation will be devoted to clarifying the historical role of anthropological institutions in relation to the formation of collective identities and political practice. The course will also include a lecture by an invited guest from the field of anthropology. It will be important to reflect on students' topics through discussions, essays, or their own projects.
Language of instruction
Number of ECTS credits
Mode of study
Guarantor
Entry knowledge
Rules for evaluation and completion of the course
1. Active participation in lessons (2 unexcused absences allowed) or submission of a task based on alternative assignments in agreement with the speakers.
2. Submission of completed task.
3. Final exam.
Teaching takes place in KTDU FaVU VUT classrooms in lessons determined by the schedule. Minimum participation is 85%. The substitution of missed lessons is made in agreement with the teacher in the form of alternative assignments.
Aims
The course should help students to orientate themselves in the multi-layered environment of contemporary global art theory and practice pervaded by references to the sphere of anthropology. The course will enhance their ability of interdisciplinary thinking, reflection of academic texts, and broaden the horizon for inspiration in their own creative practice.
Study aids
Prerequisites and corequisites
Basic literature
Geertz, Clifford. Interpretace kultur. Praha: Slon, 2000. ISBN 80-85850-89-3 (CS)
Recommended reading
Budil, Ivo. T. Mýtus, jazyk a kulturní antropologie. 4. vydání. Praha: Triton, 2003, ISBN 80-7254-321-0 (CS)
Davies, Merryl Wyn a Piero: Kulturní antropologie. Praha: Portál, 2003. ISBN 9788071787785 (CS)
Benedictová, Ruth. Kulturní vzorce. 1. vydání, Praha: Argo, 1999. ISBN 80-7203-212-7 (CS)
Douglas, Mary. Čistota a nebezpečí. Analýza konceptu znečištění a tabu. Praha: Malvern, 2014. ISBN: 978-80-87580-91-2 (CS)
Lévi-Strauss, Claude: Myšlení přírodních národů. Praha: Dauphin, 2000, ISBN 80-901842-9-4 (CS)
Rapport, Nigel a Overing, Joanna. Social and cultural anthropology : the key concepts. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0415181569. (EN)
Ferraro, Gary. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective. 4. vydání Belmont: Wadsworth, 2015. ISBN 978-1285738505 (EN)
Rabinow, Paul. Anthropos today : reflections on modern equipment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0691115664. (EN)
Tim Ingold: Perception of environment, London: Routledge, 1. vydání, 2000, ISBN 041522831X (EN)
Ortner, Sherry B. Anthropology and social theory : culture, power, and the acting subject. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 0822338645. (EN)
Sarah Pink – László Kurti – Ana Isabel Alfonso (eds.). Working Images. Visual Research and representation in Ethnography, Routlege, 2004. ISBN 978-0415306546. (EN)
Tim Ingold, Gísli Pálsson (eds.), Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1107025639 (EN)
Classification of course in study plans
- Programme VUB Bachelor's
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, winter semester, elective - Programme DES_B Bachelor's 4 year of study, winter semester, elective
- Programme DES_M Master's 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
2 year of study, winter semester, elective - Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
Type of course unit
Lecture
Teacher / Lecturer
Syllabus
2. Position of the anthropology in society, science and arts - introduction to methodology (ethnography, participant observation, diversity of research forms, textuality and visual record).
3. The Others - the roots of the field within the history of European thought - from Tacit to recent tourism (race, orientalism, exoticism, white man's burden, indigenous agenda).
4. Foundation of the field: colonialism and global changes in the 19th century.
5. Spirit of Romanticism - vernacular, low and primitive in anthropology and art (Kant versus Herder).
6. Culture against nature - from exploring human roots to posthumanism (Darwin, Marx, Tim Ingold and moral animal).
7. Franz Boas and anthropology in USA (from cultural patterns to cultural ecology).
8. Sociological turn - anthropology between France and Britain (from Durkheim to Cambridge Analytica).
9. Language and Structural Anthropology – the century of Claude Lévi-Strauss and creation of new myths.
10. Anthropology of the mind - from Freud's taboo to 'Century of Self'.
11. Body and power - biology, gender, sexuality and identity - postcolonial and critical theory.
Credit week - final hour: The students submits a practical task according to the assignment formulated in the first third of the course. Each project will be discussed with the teacher.