杏吧论坛

Prof Adam Kuper OLD 6.02 and Prof Deborah James OLD 6.06

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Social Anthropology and MSc in Social Anthropology (Learning and Cognition). This course is available on the MSc in Anthropology and Development, MSc in Anthropology and Development Management, MSc in China in Comparative Perspective and MSc in Law, Anthropology and Society. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

The main aim of this course is to examine the relationship between theory and ethnography in modern social and cultural anthropology; the course focuses mainly on the development of anthropology before circa 1970 (with an emphasis on the British School) during the MT, and after that date during the LT. The course starts with the influence on social anthropology of classic social theorists Durkheim, Marx, and Weber. It covers topics such as the origin of the concept of the social sciences as a distinct branch of knowledge,  and of key concepts within that paradigm (for instance,  'kinship'  or 'religion')  functionalism/structural functionalism; methodological individualism; conflict and the critiq