Sylabus
C
COURSE SCHEDULE
Session
Date
Topic 1 7.10.2019
Welcome and introduction 2 14.10.2019
What is violence 3 21.10.2019
Violence, non-violence and human nature 4 28.10.2019
***No session this week*** 5 4.11.2019
Cosmology of Violence 6 11.11.2019
Conquest and Colonialism 7 18.11.2019
War and Genocide 8 25.11.2019
Gendered and Symbolic Violence 9 2.12.2019
Structural Violence 10 9.12.2019
Normalisation of Violence 11 16.12.2019
Trauma and Remembering 12 23.12.2019
****No session this week*** 13 6.1.2019
In-class course test & Violence and Anthropological Practice
COURSE OUTLINE
Session 1: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Introductions, house rules, course overview, expectations and assignments
Session 2: WHAT IS VIOLENCE?
Required Reading SESSION 2
Riches, David (1986). “The phenomenon of violence”, in: Riches, David, ed. The anthropology of violence. Oxford: Blackwell; pp. 1-27.
Further Reading
Krohn-Hansen, Christian (1997). "The anthropology and ethnography of political violence." Journal of Peace Research: 233-240.
Scheper-Hughes, N. & P. Bourgois (2004). “Introduction: Making Sense of Violence”, in Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. London: Blackwell Publishing
Session 3: VIOLENCE, NON-VIOLENCE AND HUMAN NATURE
Required Reading SESSION 3
Campbell, A. (1989) “Peace”, in S. Howell and R.Willis (eds.) Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge; pp. 213-224.
Further Reading
Chagnon. N. (1988) Life Histories, Blood Revenge and Warfare in a Tribal Population. Science 239: 985-92.
Daly, M. and M. Wilson (1982) Homicide and Kinship. American Anthropologist 84(2):
Pgs. 372-378.
De Waal, F. (1992) Aggression as a Well-integrated Part of Primate Social Relationships: a critique of the Seville statement on violence. In J. Silverberg and P. Gray (eds.) Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fry, D. 2006. The human potential for peace: an anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. Oxford University Press
Harrison, S. 1993. Introduction to The mask of war: Violence, ritual and the self in Melanesia. Manchester University Press.
Howell, S. and R. Willis. 1985. Introduction to Societies at Peace. Anthropological Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, pp 1-28.
Lizot, J. 1994. On warfare: an answer to Napolean Chagnon. American Ethnologist 21 (845-62).
Robarchek, Clayton A., and Robert Knox Dentan. "Blood drunkenness and the bloodthirsty Semai: Unmaking another anthropological myth." American Anthropologist 89.2 (1987): 356-365.
Sponsel, L. (2009) "Reflections on the Possibilities of a Nonkilling Society and a Nonkilling Anthropology", in Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling; pp. 35-70.
Silverberg, J., & Gray, J. P. (1992). Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wrangham, R. 1997. Are humans inherently violent? In Taking Sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in anthropology, edited by K. Endicott and R. Welsch.
Session 4: NO SESSION THIS WEEK
Session 5: COSMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE
Required Reading SESSION 4
Taylor, C. (2002). "The cultural face of terror in the Rwandan genocide of 1994", in Hinton, A. L. (ed). Annihilating difference: The anthropology of genocide. Berkeley, Cal: University of California Press; pp. 137-178.
Suggested Reading
Conklin, B. (2001). “Women’s Blood, Warrior’s Blood, and the Conquest of Vitality in Amazonia”, in T. Gregor and D. Tuzin (eds), Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press; pp. 141-174.
Fotta, M. (2016). ‘They say he is a man now’: a tale of fathers and sons. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 25(2), 199-214.
Harrison, S. (1989). “The symbolic construction of aggression and war in a Sepik River society”, Man 24 (4): 583-599.
Harrison, S. (1993). The mask of war: violence, ritual and the self in Melanesia. Manchester University Press.
Strathern, A. & P. J. Stewart (2006). “Introducion: Terror, the Imagination, and Cosmology”, in Strathern, A., P.J. Stewart & N.L. Whitehead (eds) Terror and Violence. Ann Arbor: Pluto Press.
Taylor, A. C. (1993). “Remembering to Forget: identity, mourning and memory among the Jivaro”, Man 28 (4): 653-678.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. (1992) The Anti-Narcissus. In From the Enemy’s Point of
View: Humanity and divinity in an Amazonian society. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Whitehead, N. L. (2004). "On the poetics of violence", in Whitehead, N. L. (ed.) Violence. Santa Fe: SAR; pp. 55-77.
Session 6: CONQUEST, COLONIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH
Required Reading Session 5
Taussig, M. (1984). "Culture of terror—Space of death. Roger Casement's Putumayo report and the explanation of torture." Comparative Studies in Society and History 26(3): 467-497.
Suggested Rea
Anotace
This course examines a variety of anthropological approaches to the study of violence in a diverse array of socio-cultural and political contexts. It looks critically at the theoretical, methodological and ethical questions raised in studies of violence through ethnographic case studies from around the world.
Starting with the discussion of biological basis of aggression, the seminar turns to exploring topics such as structural violence, symbolic violence, gendered violence, war and resistance, cosmology and meaning of violence as well as trauma and reconciliation.