Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT2003: Current Debates in Anthropology

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

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:

Time I: The temporal turn
Time II: Anthropocene
Being I: The ontological turn
Being II: Things
Feeling I: The affective turn
Feeling II: Social suffering
Horizons I: Uncertainty and doubt
Horizons II: Creativity and imagination
Turning in circles, or moving ahead?
Anthropological trajectories

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	11	Weekly 1 hour lectures
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity	11	Weekly 1 hour seminars
Guided independent study	33	Reading of the set texts for weekly lectures and the tutorials
Guided independent study	33	Additional reading under the guidance of the lecturer
Guided independent study	25	Preparation and writing of the essay
Guided independent study	20	Recapitulation of reading done throughout the term; preparation of essay plans; portfolio revision, etc.
Guided independent study	6	Background research conducted by the student depending on need and interest
Guided independent study	11	Writing weekly response papers

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

ELE - http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

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:

Bear, Laura. 2016. Time as Technique. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 45

Cooper, E & D. Pratten. 2014. Introduction. In Cooper, E & D. Pratten (eds.) Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa (London: Palgrave).

Crapanzano, Vincent. 2004. “Imaginative Horizons” in Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Latour, Bruno. 2014. “Anthropology at the Time of the Anthropocene: A Personal View of What Is To Be Studied.” Distinguished lecture, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, December 6.

Laidlaw, J. 2002. For an anthropology of ethics and freedom. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8(2): 311-332.

Viveiros de Castro, E. 2004. Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies. Common Knowledge, 10(3), 463-484.

Navaro-Yashin, Yael. 2012. The Make-Believe Space: Affective Geography in a Postwar Polity. Durham & London: Duke University Press.