Course detail

Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology

FaVU-UDKSAAcad. year: 2021/2022

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

Czech

Number of ECTS credits

3

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

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.

Prerequisites

Previous experience with cultural and social anthropology is not necessary.

Co-requisites

Not applicable.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Theoretical lectures, textual analysis and the analysis of art works; discussions and practical examples.

Assesment methods and criteria linked to learning outcomes

The following conditions are set for granting the credit:
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.

Course curriculum

1. Introduction – an anthropological turn - reflection of the discipline in contemporary art theory and practice.
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.

Work placements

Not applicable.

Aims

The aim of the course is to provide students with a basic understanding of key concepts and theories of social and cultural anthropology. It will present it in the context of the wider evolution of European thought as an interdisciplinary field that has revolutionized the theory of social sciences and humanities and whose influence is continually increasing also in art. It will not be a traditional form of chronological presentation of the subject history, but a thematization of fundamental areas of anthropological thinking. The course will strengthen students' ability to work with academic texts and visual materials. Another goal is to clearly outline the methodology, its meaning and correlation with artistic research. Emphasis will be placed on understanding creative impulses stemming from critical anthropology, postcolonial thinking and applied forms of anthropology. The students are not meant to rigidly apply anthropological discourse, method and paradigm as binding postulates and to try to substitute the work of anthropologists. The course wants to point out the possibilities of interdisciplinary cooperation and creative inspiration on the borderline between science and art.

Specification of controlled education, way of implementation and compensation for absences

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.

Recommended optional programme components

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Geertz, Clifford. Interpretace kultur. Praha: Slon, 2000. ISBN 80-85850-89-3 (CS)
Soukup, Václav. Dějiny antropologie. Praha: Karolinum, 2004, ISBN 80-246-0337-3 (CS)

Recommended reading

Benedictová, Ruth. Kulturní vzorce. 1. vydání, Praha: Argo, 1999. ISBN 80-7203-212-7 (CS)
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)
Douglas, Mary. Čistota a nebezpečí. Analýza konceptu znečištění a tabu. Praha: Malvern, 2014. ISBN: 978-80-87580-91-2 (CS)
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Úvod do sociální a kulturní antropologie. 1. vydání. Praha: Portál, 2008, ISBN 978-80-7367-465-6 (CS)
Ferraro, Gary. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective. 4. vydání Belmont: Wadsworth, 2015. ISBN 978-1285738505 (EN)
Lévi-Strauss, Claude: Myšlení přírodních národů. Praha: Dauphin, 2000, ISBN 80-901842-9-4 (CS)
Ortner, Sherry B. Anthropology and social theory : culture, power, and the acting subject. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 0822338645. (EN)
Rabinow, Paul. Anthropos today : reflections on modern equipment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0691115664. (EN)
Rapport, Nigel a Overing, Joanna. Social and cultural anthropology : the key concepts. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0415181569. (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)
Tim Ingold: Perception of environment, London: Routledge, 1. vydání, 2000, ISBN 041522831X (EN)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme VUB Bachelor's

    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
    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-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-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-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-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

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Mgr. Miroslav Maixner, Ph.D.