ANTH402-21S1 (C) Semester One 2021

Issues and Debates in Contemporary Anthropology

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 22 February 2021
End Date: Sunday, 27 June 2021
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 7 March 2021
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 14 May 2021

Description

This course addresses selected, current issues and debates of a theoretical, methodological and interpretative nature. This course is compulsory for students wanting to enrol in the Anthropology Honours programme.

The theory course will address theorizing as itself a form of social praxis. Dominant strands of contemporary anthropology see theory as reflexive and (self-)critical, as interactive and evolving, and as implicated in constructivist–deconstructivist moves. This entails putting the interpretive and agentive faculties of social actors centre-stage. The course will in particularly address the central paradox of modern theoretical reflection, which on the one hand sees theory directly implicated in (and not outside of) its subject matter, while on the other hand it puts emphasis on the constitutive break with social praxis, and the effects of this break on the mode of theorizing. The course will look into constitutive premises of anthropological discourse and will in an exemplary manner question central conceptual tools of the discipline, which are too easily taken for granted. The course will also address representational biases inscribed into approaches informing the discipline, and will point out limitations of what we can legitimately attempt to understand.

Learning Outcomes

  • After taking this course, students are expected:

  • To have a good understanding of the important issues and theories in contemporary cultural anthropology
  • To have developed expertise in the work of at least one contemporary theorist or topical area (ideally related to their own research)
  • To have mastered skills in academic reading, writing and discussion, which are essential to their future academic careers.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

Course Coordinator

Zhifang Song

Textbooks / Resources

A collection of journal articles and book chapters selected by the lecturer.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,905.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All ANTH402 Occurrences

  • ANTH402-21S1 (C) Semester One 2021