Subjects

Social anthropology has always been closely related to political processes. It emerged during the European colonization of non-European societies and experienced its second birth (due to Claude Lévi-Strauss) in the times of decolonization. This course is devoted to its last overhaul which has been attempted in the context of growing awareness of global ecological crisis. This crisis opened anew not only the question of “the place of man in cosmos” but also the question of the very nature of “cosmos”, i.e., the world itself. The criticism of Western dualism that severed mind from body, culture from nature, spirit from matter sparked the search for a new ontology. Anthropology has seemed to be the appropriate guide in such a search since it studies primarily non-European peoples whose worldviews have not yet been superseded by Western dualism. The course offers readings from two main representatives of the ontological turn in contemporary anthropology - Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.

Last update: Barša Pavel, prof. Dr., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

The course offers readings from two main representatives of the ontological turn in contemporary anthropology - Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.

Last update: Barša Pavel, prof. Dr., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

At least one oral presentation of required readings, participation in class discussions and final written examination.

Last update: Barša Pavel, prof. Dr., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

See below.

Last update: Barša Pavel, prof. Dr., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

1) Introduction

2) Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture, The University of Chicago Press, 2013, Ch. 1, Configurations of Continuity, pp. 3 – 31.

3) Ibid., Ch. 2., The Wild and the Domesticated, pp. 33 – 56.

4) Ibid., Ch. 3., The Great Divide, pp. 57 – 90.

5) Ibid., Ch. 5., Relations with the Self and Relations with the others, pp. 112 – 128.

6) Ibid., Ch. 6., Animism Restored, pp. 130 – 143.

7) Ibid., Ch. 8., The Certainties of Naturalism, pp. 172 – 200.

8) Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cosmological Perspectivism in Amazonia and Elsewhere. Four Lectures given in the Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, February – March 1998, Ch. 1, Cosmologies: perspectivism, Ethnographic and Theoretical Context, pp. 53 – 66.

9) Ibid., Ch. 2, Culture: the universal animal, pp. 83 – 104.

10) Ibid., Ch. 3, Nature: the world as affect and perspective, pp. 105 – 130.

11) Ibid., Ch. 4, Supernature: under the gaze of the other, pp. 131 – 154.

12) E. Viveiros de Castro, Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 4, No. 3. (Sept., 1998, pp. 469 – 488.

13) Concluding Discussion

Last update: Barša Pavel, prof. Dr., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)