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. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. 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 Skills3. 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 Skills6. access and interpret difficult texts;
7. build and defend an argument based on close interpretation of texts; and

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.