Syllabus
OFFICE HOURS: By appointment – via email – only. Feel free to email me also if you have any questions and concerns. email: Fotta@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Session
Date
Topic 1 01.10.2019
Welcome and introduction 2 08.10.2019
***no lecture*** 3 15.10.2019
School 4 22.10.2019
Love 5 29.10.2019
Sex 6 05.11.2019
Father 7 12.11.2019
Mother *** a university climate occupation strike *** 8 19.11.2019
Children Mother 9 26.11.2019
Household Children 10 03.12.2019
Work Household 11 10.12.2019
Aging 12 17.12.2019
Death 13 07.01.2020
Final Session
Session 1: Welcome and introduction
As a social science, anthropology was allocated the ‘savage slot’ (Trouillot), to study people with whom Westerners could not have imagined any conversation as with equals (because they were ‘primitive’ or more generally ‘other’). But is anthropology still suited for the 21st century?
· Hage, G. (2012). Critical anthropological thought and the radical political imaginary today. Critique of anthropology, 32(3), 285-308.
· Wallerstein, I. (1996). Open the social sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the restructuring of the social sciences. Stanford University Press.
Session 2: *** NO LECTURE*** (Imatrikulace)
Session 3: On schooling as a rite of passage
You are at the university in order to learn something new and to get prepared for the labour market. But ‘preparation for the labour market’ is only a mode of talking about a process through which we are made into social persons and pass from one stage to another. From this point of view, schooling can be seen as belonging to what anthropology have called ‘rites of passage’. Key anthropological topics: rites of passage; initiation rites; ritual; social personhood.
Required reading:
Turner, V. 1967. “Betwixt and between: The liminal period in rites of passage.” In: The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual. Ithaca NY: Cornell University, 93-111.
Recommended readings:
Poole, Fitz John Porter. “The Ritual Forging of Identity: Aspects of Person and Self in Bimin-Kuskusmin Male Initiation.” Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua New Guinea (ed. Gilbert Herdt). Berkeley: University of California press, 99-154.
Van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage.
Session 4: Being In love
As many university students know, it is hard to study when one has a ‘broken heart’. But what does it mean? How universal is this feeling? Is romantic love a modern invention? Does ‘love’ mean the same thing for all people? By exploring these questions we look at understanding emotions as cultural categories and explore the role emotions play in the politics of social life. Key anthropological topics: self; emotions; affect; individual.
Required reading:
Lindholm, C. (2006). Romantic love and anthropology. Etnofoor, 5-21.
Further reading:
Rosaldo, M. Z. (1983). The shame of headhunters and the autonomy of self. Ethos, 11(3), 135-151.
Session 5: On sexual desires and practices
In this session we will look at human sexuality from the perspective of different cultures. How does modern anthropology analyse phenomena such as hijras of India or berdache of the North America? And what does the way these have been conceptualised (as homosexual practices, as third sex, as transgender) tell us about our own ontological categories pertaining to sex and sexuality? Key anthropological topic: sex and gender; ‘third gender’; heteronormativity; social construction.
Required reading
Rubin, G. 1992 Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. in Pleasure and danger. Carole Vance (ed). Harper Collins.
Further reading
Herdt, G. H. (1984). Semen transactions in Sambia culture. Ritualized homosexuality in Melanesia, 167-210.
Session 6: In the name of the father
Anthropology has always been interested in how a natural process of biological reproduction connects with social organisation. But why do some cultures misrecognise physical paternity? We look at how at the core of anthropological kinship studies, and thus anthropology itself, has stood a European (patriarchal, monotheistic and heteronormative) view of conception and how it has been challenged by ethnographic data from other cultures and today by new procreative technologies. Key anthropological concepts: kinship; paternity; nature/culture.
Required reading:
Delaney, C. (1986). The meaning of paternity and the virgin birth debate. Man, 494-513.
Further readings:
Inhorn, M. C. (2006). He won't be my son. Medical anthropology quarterly, 20(1), 94-120.
Leach, E. (1966). Virgin birth. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 39-49.
Franklin, S. (1998). Making miracles: Scientific progress and the facts of life. In: Reproducing reproduction: Kinship, power, and technological innovation, 102-117.
Session 7: What does your mother do?
One might think: ‘OK, fathers are not certain, but surely mothers are’. Indeed, given a variety of kinship and family models that have existed in human history, a mother-child dyad has been posited as the real nucleus of all family groups. But why should the fact of giving birth automatically translate into individualisation of the mother and the structural importance of a mother-child dyad? Is mother-child bond essentially the same, immutable and based on a natural affective link? Key anthropological term: gender; families; private vs. public spheres.
Required reading:
Drummond, L. (1978). The transatlantic nanny: notes on a comparative semiotics of the family in English‐speaking societies. American Ethnologist, 5(1), 30-43.
Recommended reading:
Barnes, R. (2016). She Was a Twin: Black Strategic Mothering, Race‐Work, and the Politics of Survival. Transforming Anthropology, 24(1), 49-60.
Rosaldo, M. Z. (1974). Woman, culture, and society: A theoretical overview. In: Woman, culture, and society.
Session 8: The world of children
Contemporary anthropology acknowledges that ch
Annotation
Anthropology provides one way to recognise and imagine alternative modes of dwelling in the world. As a comparative study of culture, society, and human difference, it has systematically uncovered different ways people construct their place in the world and act upon it. It has challenged us to consider the many ways in which our lives are shaped by social relations, cultural images, and historical forces. In its broadest, it explores Homo sapiens as a part of the natural world in its full potentiality and diversity – not only in its current incarnation.
Anthropology has consistently unsettled categories and understandings that we commonly take for granted. It is thus a form of cultural critique – it helps us realise that our own way of life is historically contingent. The course is aimed at making students become capable of appreciating methods of anthropology, developing their own understanding of the world and thus envisioning other intellectual and political possibilities.
The course is based on disusing ethnographic accounts related to a few selected topics. The themes are chosen to reflect a stereotypical life-cycle of a Central European student which should allow for easy recognisability and encourage discussions. At the same time, the topics are chosen so that students learn basic concepts and domains of social anthropology, such as social personhood, kinship or gender.