Anthropology: Critical Foundations

This course introduces students to key concepts and debates in the discipline of anthropology, ranging from ritual, totems, kinship, and personhood to the nature/culture distinction and postcolonial critique. The course takes a multi-modal approach, familiarising students with some of the discipline's classic texts, films and sites of ethnographic engagement. We’ll seek to understand these foundational works within their historical contexts, as well as critically reappraising their position in 21st century anthropology. ANTH1003 aims to help students develop their skills around reading challenging scholarly texts, writing anthropological essays, and undertaking independent research. The course emphasises active student engagement in all aspects of our classwork and makes extensive use of group work to encourage peer learning and fun social interaction within the weekly workshops.