| CODE | ANT1009 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Anthropology and the Contemporary World | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 2 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Anthropological Sciences | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit introduces some selected key topics that highlight anthropology’s engagement with the contemporary world, a world characterized by the following features (the list is not exhaustive): interactivity; simultaneity; globalization; post-enlightenment scientific legitimation; risk culture; religious fundamentalism; environmentalism; new reproductive technologies, etc. To understand who we are and the world we inhabit, we need to place things in a broad social-evolutionary perspective. We begin by looking at some distinctive features of societal evolution from Hunters and Gatherers (and their Paleolithic analogues), the domestication of Animals (Pastoralists) and Plants, i.e., Agriculturalists (and their Neolithic analogues), and thus agricultural Society. We look at Industrial Society and post-Industrial society (which means ‘us’). We will look at the changes in Social Organization that each different mode of livelihood entails: in economic life, political life, kinship and the family, and finally in religious life. Each type of society has distinct features. This study-unit will argue that post-industrial and late-capitalist society can be approached as ‘Hunting and Gathering Society Mark 2’: geographical and social mobility, small flexible ‘fuzzy’ domestic groups (from the ‘Nuclear Family’ to the ‘Unclear Family’), changes in religious organization and belief (from organized religion to more individual ‘a la carte’ beliefs), changes in economic organization (from money as precious metal to digital signs), etc. If the world we inhabit has changed, so has anthropology. The study-unit this year will tackle a fundamental issue: the way how humans are perceived and conceived (both literally and metaphorically). We start with perceptions of humans and human behavior. We then look at the relationship between science and society, because recent advances in science, especially medical science, can fundamentally challenge many cherished beliefs. We take a number of issues that link science, individualism, religious and cultural beliefs, and the challenges to our understanding of some of the most fundamental issues involving: (i) ” when did ‘I’ become a ‘me’ ?” and (ii) the nature of the “family”, For new reproductive technologies (NRT) have the potential of severely challenging our understanding not just of what we consider the “family” but of who our “parents” are: genitor/genetrix; pater or mater. We will approach such issues comparatively, in order to approach both other societies and our own, and thus disassemble and analyse our often-implicit complex assumptions about who and what we are. Finally, we shall be looking at how anthropology can help us understand violence and suffering in the contemporary world, including the issues of state repression, corruption, state-sponsored violence. We look at a specific issue, that of Missing Persons in Cyprus and trace the attempts by relatives of disappeared people to recover their lost loved ones, and we also look at the way how state authorities have made political capital out of the issue. Study-Unit Aims: - To expose students to the radical nature of contemporary society ranging from the economy, politics, religion, and kinship; - To apply anthropological insights to the nature of these changes. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Have a better understanding of the radical nature of contemporary society and cultures; - Be able to navigate the way how science has infiltrated our lives and created new social realities and new ontologies; - Appreciate how contemporary society has generated new subjectivities and new identities. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Read through, summarise, and present a reasoned evaluation of the academic literature on selected topics on the anthropology of the contemporary world; - Be able to discuss a complex argument on highly contentious social issues taking cultural variations into account. Main Text: - Jeremy MacClancy (editor) (2002): Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. University of Chicago Press. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Paul Sant Cassia |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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