Anthropology

Anthropology of the Body

Module code: L6065SID
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Lecture
Assessment modes: Not yet finalised

This module explores the body from an anthropological perspective, and considers how different societies and cultures conceptualise and experience the human body. In recent years, anthropologists and other academics have become increasingly interested in the body, including authors such as Foucault and Bourdieu. Some draw upon Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological approach with its emphasis on the senses, while others attempted to resolve the tensions between experience and agency. The module asks how the body represents a challenge for anthropological research, and explores recent ethnographic contributions to this field. We consider the body as a site on which social and cultural processes are inscribed, where power relations converge and are articulated, and as a site where agency is performed. Materials are drawn from both non-Western and Western societies.