Undergraduate Course: Introduction to Social Anthropology (LLLJ07020)
Course Outline
| School | Centre for Open Learning |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course provides an introduction to Social Anthropology by exploring what it means to be human through studying cross-cultural diversity. Students will learn how to think anthropologically and to see the world that surrounds them from a different perspective.
This is a for-credit course offered by the Centre for Open Learning (COL); only students registered with COL should be enrolled. |
| Course description |
This course will provide an introduction to Social Anthropology by examining some of the discipline's core debates. Engaging with anthropological classics and contemporary works, students will learn how to think anthropologically and to see the world that surrounds them from a different perspective. The course briefly investigates what social anthropologists do, and how the discipline has historically emerged and changed throughout its existence. Students will then explore what it means to be human through a comparative study of key themes such as personhood, gender, kinship, food, exchange, ritual, belief, and citizenship. Tutorial discussions and interactive practical tasks will enable students to gain a strong sense of cross-cultural variety and to critically reflect on their own society or culture.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate awareness of key anthropological concepts and concerns.
- Employ critical, analytical and reflective skills in understanding the values of one's own culture and those of peoples with different value systems.
- Demonstrate awareness of how an anthropological approach can be beneficial to an informed and critical understanding of the contemporary world.
- Critically assess ethnographic evidence.
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Reading List
Essential:
Eriksen, T. H., 2015. Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. 4th ed. London: Pluto Press.
Recommended:
MacClancy, J., ed., 2002. Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Additional selected readings:
Carsten, J. 2004. After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mauss, M. 1990 [1950].The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Routledge.
Meigs, Anna S. 1976. Male Pregnancy and the Reduction of Sexual Opposition in New Guinea Highlands Society. Ethnology, 15 (4): 393-407.
Pande, Amrita. 2015. Blood, Sweat and Dummy Tummies: Kin Labour and Transnational Surrogacy in India. Anthropologica 57 (1): 53-62.
Van Gennep, A. 1960 [1909].The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge & K. Paul. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
By the end of the course students should have strengthened their skills in: critical analysis; comparative study; participation in group discussion and practical tasks. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Maximillian Jaede
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr John Ethcuit
Tel: (0131 6)50 3409
Email: |
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