Prof Laura Bear

This course is compulsory on the BA in Social Anthropology and BSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law, Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Cape Town), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Fudan), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Melbourne) and Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Tokyo). This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

Places are limited and the course may only be suitable for external students in unusual cases. Any student who wishes to make an exceptional request to be considered should please contact the course teachers for advice on suitablity and availability of places.

Students should have a substantial background in Social Anthropology. 

The aim of this course is to train students to engage critically with classic and contemporary texts in the discipline, thereby deepening understandings of current trends and emerging debates. It will examine the theoretical implications of particular anthropological approaches by surveying their origins, their strengths and their critique. The course will take the form of lectures and classes conducted as an intensive reading group in which approximately three texts will be discussed and analysed in depth, along with supplementary reading material where appropriate. Students will be expected to develop their own critical responses to each text, as well as an appreciation of the context in which it was written and its contribution to relevant theoretical discussions and debates. Students taking this course will develop their capacity to meet the distinctive demands of reading and analysing longer (typically book-length) texts. This course offers a step towards graduate-level skills of independent work, and places emphasis on the active role of the students in identifying their own lines of analysis in relation to a set text.

4 hours of lectures and 20 hours of classes in the AT.

Lectures provide a general introduction to the text and relevant issues or debates, which may include background and contextual issues, comparative materials (published, visual, primary text etc as appropriate) and in some instances debates about what is at stake in the different ways in which we learn to think and write.

The contact hours listed above are the minimum expected.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 in AT.

• Gillian Feeley-Harnik. Selection of articles, including chapters in S.Mckinnon and F. Cannell eds. (2013) Vital Relations and in S. Franklin and S.Mckinnon eds. (2001) Relative Values.
• Deirdre de la Cruz. Mother figured: Marian apparitions and the making of a Filipino universal.
• Emily  Martin   Bipolar expeditions 

Coursework (100%, 3000 words) in the AT.

All students will produce a portfolio of position pieces (worth 100% of the total mark), to which they are expected to make a contribution after each of the three cycles. Portfolios will be assessed periodically during and after AT.

Students who submit fewer than two position pieces will receive a mark of zero for each missed assessment. The overall mark will be the average of the two position pieces with the highest grades, including any zeros for missed assessments.

Students who submit at least one position piece and fail the course and are not eligible to graduate will be expected to add to their portfolio at resit in order to achieve a pass.  Students who do not submit any position pieces (0 out of 3), will be awarded a Zero Absent for the whole course and cannot be awarded the degree until they submit sufficient work at resit to complete the course.

In addition to following the guidance that will be given in lectures and classes, students are welcome to come and discuss their summative coursework plans individually with the course teacher in office hours.