Anthropology
Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology
Module code: 001AN
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Essay, Coursework
On this module, you'll explore key debates that shape contemporary anthropology and develop your ability to critically engage with significant theoretical frameworks. You'll examine how these debates influence wider discussions in the social sciences, arts and humanities.
Topics include:
- migration, displacement, and mobility
- infrastructure, technology and cyborg sociality
- anthropology and morality
- multispecies sociality and the Anthropocene
- affect and emotional labour
- precarity, politics and the popular
- secularism, religions and intolerance
- perspectivism, ontology and the new orientalism
- anthropology beyond ethnography: fiction, narrative and depicting the social
- anthropology beyond logocentrism: physicality and performance.
Each topic is taught by experts in the field, allowing you to engage with current anthropological inquiries and develop your own perspectives.
Module learning outcomes
- To demonstrate knowledge of a variety of current theoretical debates within anthropology.
- To demonstrate knowledge of anthropological contributions to broader theoretical debates within the social sciences.
- To critically assess/evaluate how key debates in the social sciences are informing contemporary anthropological research and writing.
- To demonstrate how key debates in anthropology are shaped by, and are shaping, contemporary empirical inquiry.