3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Readings in Anthropology is a required course for first year graduate students. However, this course does not present a stable canon of anthropology, nor does it assume that anthropological knowledge is delimited by national boundaries. This course is designed for students to engage the crosscurrents in disciplines and thinking that underlie anthropological knowledge. It will introduce so-called canonical works in order to engage in close and critical reading of these texts. In this course, we will look closely at conceptions and descriptions of kinship in light of a history of anthropological knowledge marked by colonial power and authority. How are certain forms of relating made to disappear within the anthropological archive? How do we read such texts to elucidate the traces of lives in the recesses of the text? How has new kinship literatures repositioned the study of family and kinship relations. This course will take us through classic anthropological thought in social anthropology and biological anthropology, as well as historical studies of kinship.