Undergraduate Course: Ethnography of the Supernatural (SCAN10096)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores ethnographic writing that engages supernatural others like ghosts, spirits, or God and efforts to include them in anthropological analysis. This kind of ethnography pushes the bounds of anthropological theory beyond the secular, expanding the epistemological horizons of the discipline to include other ways of knowing and being. |
| Course description |
Anthropologists have long searched for a position from which they might find sense in the worldviews of others without rendering their own views of the world nonsensical. Harry West
Ethnographic writing rarely takes on the supernatural as such. While anthropologists often engage with people as they relate to more-than-human actors ghosts, spirits, gods, and so forth these beings rarely feature as players in their final analysis. There are two exceptions to this rule, however. First are scholarly attempts to include the supernatural as an element of social scientific analysis, as seen in recent efforts to develop an ethnography of God. Second are published accounts of supernatural experiences that anthropologists have during fieldwork that, in their telling, challenge their established secular ways of approaching the world.
In this course we will examine anthropological engagement with the more-than-human by drawing on examples from both of these ethnographic genres. Building on theoretical tools gleaned from phenomenology, posthumanism, the ontological turn, and interdisciplinary dialogues between anthropology and theology, this course pushes anthropological thought outside what philosopher Charles Taylor called the immanent frame to explore the supernatural as an ethnographic object. What does an anthropology of the supernatural look like? What do anthropologists personal accounts of supernatural experiences in the field teach us about the disciplines underlying assumptions? What potential and problems result from such ethnographic emphases? Is post-secularism decolonizing, for instance, or perhaps inescapably religious? Can anthropology move beyond the secular without undermining its core epistemological groundings?
Outline Content:
Sample topics: Theoretical Underpinnings, Haunting, Bewitching, Converting,
Exorcising, Reanimating
Student Learning Experience:
This course will combine traditional lecture and seminar formats with a series of parallel learning events located at various locations around the city. Students will choose three of four available events to attend. Examples of events include visiting a spiritualist service, taking a ghost tour, or attending a Pentecostal prayer meeting.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students should have had at least two pre-honours level courses in anthropology (e.g. SocAnth 1A, 1B; SocAnth 2A, 2B). |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 Anthropology courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe the benefits and limitations of secular theoretical approaches in anthropology.
- Demonstrate a familiarity with a range of theoretical approaches to the supernatural, including but not limited to posthumanism, post-secularism, and theologically engaged anthropology
- Build on experiences with parallel learning events to generate ethnographic material, through participant-observation, fieldnotes, and reflexive writing.
- Use ethnographic accounts of the supernatural from personal observations and course readings to develop anthropological arguments.
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Reading List
Furani, Khaled and Joel Robbins. 2021. Introduction: Anthropology within and without the secular condition. Religion 51(3): 501-517.
Mittermaier, Amira. 2021. Beyond the Human Horizon. Religion and Society 12(1): 21-38.
West, Harry. 2007. Ethnographic Sorcery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and Problem Solving: This course will develop student skills in collecting and working with data in order to develop original arguments and ideas.
Communication: Students will develop written communication skills through essay writing.
Critical Thinking: This course will help students challenge established paradigms by encouraging them to work with alternate modes of reasoning.
Local and Global Engagement: Students will explore different ways of living, being, and knowing, through direct and indirect and indirect experience. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Naomi Haynes
Tel: (0131 6)50 4052
Email: |
Course secretary | |
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