Module ANT2012 for 2018/9
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
ANT2012: The Human Condition: Classic Readings in Anthropology
This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.
Module Aims
This module aims:
- To help you develop a critical, nuanced, and self-confident understanding of key concepts, theories and schools within anthropology.
- To raise your awareness of the importance of cultural, socio-economic and political factors that have shaped, and continue to shape, the study of anthropology.
- To help you explore the interdisciplinary relationships between anthropology, sociology, and philosophy.
- To provide you with opportunities interrogate difficult texts for nuances and layers of meaning, styles and strategies of reasoning, as well as tensions and contradictions.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. demonstrate knowledge of the canon of anthropological literature and key historic developments in the history of the discipline; 2. understand major historical debates in the discipline; |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. critically present theoretical ideas in relation to existing body of anthropological literature; 4. demonstrate understanding of key concepts and theories in the discipline; 5. demonstrate awareness of contextual factors impacting on the study of cultural and physical diversity of humans, and ethical and political dilemmas resulting from this; |
| Personal and Key Skills | 6. access and interpret difficult texts; 7. build and defend an argument based on close interpretation of texts; and |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
1: Introduction
2: The Enlightenment Paradox: Kant on Race and Cosmopolitanism
3: Charles Darwin and the Evolution of Mankind
4: Friedrich Engels and the Origin of the Family
5: Franz Boas and the Critique of Race
6: Marcel Mauss on Exchange
7: Bronislaw Malinowski: Anthropology and Psychoanalysis
8: Claude Lévi-Strauss and Structuralism s
9: Mary Douglas and the Anthropology of Religion
10: Jack Goody and the Impact of Literacy
11: Summary
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminars |
| Guided Independent Study | 22 | Seminar preparation |
| Guided Independent Study | 44 | Module reading |
| Guided Independent Study | 62 | Essay writing |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/
Anthropology Online. Alexander Street Press. Access through Electronic Library.
JSTOR. Access through Electronic Library.
Internet Archive.
Bioheritage Online Library.
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Basic reading:
Harris, Marvin. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. Library hardcopies available.
Stocking, George W. Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology. Chicago Univ. Pr., 1982.
Stocking, George W. Victorian Anthropology. Macmillan USA, 1987.
Kuklick, Henrika. A New History of Anthropology. WileyBlackwell, 2007.
Kant, Immanuel. “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.” In Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals. Hackett Pub. Co., 1983, 29–40. Library hardcopy available. Also available online at www.marxists.org.
Prichard, James Cowles. The Natural History of Man: Comprising Inquiries into the Modifying Influence of Physical and Moral Agencies on the Different Tribes of the Human Family. 4th ed. H. Baillière, 1855. Library hardcopy available (special collections). Also available through Google books.
Broca, Paul. On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo. Published for the Anthropological Society, by Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1864. Available online through Google books.
Tylor, Edward Burnett. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom. Murray, 1871, ch. 1. Library hardcopy available. Also available through Google Books.
Boas, Franz. The Mind of Primitive Man. Macmillan Company, 1911. Library electronic copy available through Anthropology Online.
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. How Natives Think. Princeton University Press, 1985. Library hardcopy available. Also available online as Primitive Mentality through Internet Archive.
Durkheim, Émile, and Marcel Mauss. Primitive Classification. London: Cohen & West, 1963. Library hardcopies available.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Sex and Repression in Savage Society. International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Library hardcopies available. Also available through openlibrary.org.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Allen Lane, 1977. Library hardcopy available, electronic copy available through Anthropology Online.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger an Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, 2002. Library hardcopy available, electronic copy available through Dawson Era.
Goody, John Rankine. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge University Press, 1977. Library hardcopies available.
