Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT1005: Introduction to Social Anthropology: Exploring Cultural Diversity

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

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:

-       Kinship and the construction of relatedness

-       Gendered difference

-       Of witches and fallen gods: thinking in different modes

-       Senses of place, qualities of time: questioning ontologies

-    Race and colonialism in the ethnographic encounter

Typical questions for formative assignments and tutorial presentations are:

1.       Why study kinship? How would social anthropologists answer this question?

2.       Why did Captain Cook have to die? And why have anthropologists argued about it?

3.       People across the world perceive different qualities of time. Without clocks, would we be living unstructured lives?

4.       What does it mean to say that the belief in witchcraft is rational?

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
271230

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning & Teaching22Eleven 2-hour lectures, involving group discussion and film screenings
Scheduled Learning & Teaching5Five 1-hour tutorials
Guided independent study33Weekly reading for lectures and tutorials
Guided independent study18Preparing tutorial presentation individually or in pairs
Guided independent study27Peer workshopping of reading responses via ELE
Guided independent study20Essay writing (reading, library-based research)
Guided independent study25Preparing reading responses portfolio for submission

Online Resources

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

ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/