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Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology (001AN)

15 credits, Level 5

Autumn teaching

On this module, you'll dive into key debates in contemporary anthropology, building on foundational concepts from your first-year module, ‘Key Concepts in Anthropology,’ and preparing you for advanced topics in your third year.

The module examines how broader social theoretical ideas are applied in current anthropological research, shaping debates across the social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Topics include:

• perspectivism, ontology, and the new Orientalism
• society beyond the human: multi-species sociality and the Anthropocene
• affect and emotional labour
• precarity, politics, and the popular
• secularism, religions, and intolerance
• producing and claiming subjectivity and identity
• anthropology beyond ethnography: fiction, narrative, and depicting the social
• anthropology beyond logocentrism: physicality and performance
• infrastructure, technology, and cyborg sociality
• the ‘good,’ the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’: anthropology and morality.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 20 hours of contact time and about 130 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.