AANK16011U Anthropological Analyses

Volume 2016/2017
Education

Board of Studies, Department of Anthropology

Content

The objective is to prepare the students to design their own projects in the second semester by enhancing their knowledge of a broad set of problems and topical areas, which they will also later draw on when writing their thesis in the fourth semester . To this end the course presents an overview of anthropological topic areas and associated research problems together with relevant analytical methodologies and theoretical concepts for critically addressing these.

Each class is organized around one of 24 research problems each of which criss-cross two or more of topical areas. Thus each class session explores an anthropological problem by critically examining different analytical solutions to it. The aim is to consider the potentials of different analytical approaches to a problem, both classic and more recent. What kinds of insights could a particular analytical approach offer? What are its limitations? And how does it relate to solutions that have been attempted earlier?

Throughout the course, students are encouraged to develop ideas for the ethnographic project they will finalizing the second semester, inspired by different anthropological analyses of concrete research problems. They are explicitly asked to connect their reading of the texts with their tentative ideas about their own potential research projects.

Learning Outcome

By the end of the course the students will:

  • Be knowledgeable about a range of ethnographic issues within several topical areas 
  • Be able to identify and compare different analytical methodologies
  • Critically engage anthropological theories in terms of their potential to illuminate a given research problem, as well as their limitations
  • Demonstrate understanding of the consequences of conceptualizing ethnographic issues in different ways

 

Students must also fulfil the Department of Anthropology's form and language requirements (see the appropriate section in the curricula’s common part.

  • 800 pages of required literature in the form of journal articles or chapters from edited volumes (for each session, students read two or three agenda-setting or problem-defining anthropological analyses of concrete ethnographic problems – not review articles)

  • Three monographs totalling 700 pages (out of a pool of six monographs picked by the teachers; the ambition being that all topic areas are equally represented)

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 56
  • Total
  • 56
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment, exam period
Written assignment on optional subject
Individual or group papers
External assessment
The 7-point grading scale

The essay can be written individually or by groups of maximum four students.
Length: 22,500–27,500 keystrokes for an individual paper. 4,500–5,500 keystrokes per extra member for group papers.
Exam registration requirements

In order to be eligible to participate in the exam, the students must hand in 2 written assignments during the course. One of these assignments is a brief concept for their anthropological project to be further developed during 2. Semester. The second assignment is a revised draft in addition to suggestions for relevant contacts for the project.

Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Re-exam

1st re-exam: A new essay with a new problem formulation must be submitted. The new assignment must be submitted by the deadline for the re-exam.

 

2nd re-exam: A new assignment with a new problem formulation must be submitted. The new assignment is submitted during the next exam period.

 

For more information about the course see www.kurser.ku.dk.

Criteria for exam assesment

See Learning Outcome.