Anthropology

Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology

Module code: 001AN
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Essay, Coursework

This module grounds you in Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology, building on Key Concepts in Anthropology that provides a basic theoretical framework, and preparing you for Advanced Topics options. Your learning is informed by the debates that vex current anthropological inquiry at Sussex, across the UK and beyond. While these debates draw on broader social theoretical literatures, the aim is to examine how they are mobilised within current empirical anthropological inquiry, and how this can shape wider debates in the social sciences, arts and humanities. Topics will vary but may include:

perspectivism, ontology and the new orientalism
society beyond the human: multispecies 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.

Module learning outcomes

To demonstrate knowledge of a variety of current theoretical debates within anthropology.
To demonstrate knowledge of anthropological contributions to broader theoretical debates within the social sciences.
To critically assess/evaluate how key debates in the social sciences are informing contemporary anthropological research and writing.
To demonstrate how key debates in anthropology are shaped by, and are shaping, contemporary empirical inquiry.