AP/ANTH 4110 6.00 Development of Theory in Social Anthropology

What is the use of theory in Social-Cultural Anthropology in the twenty-first century and how should we read theories imparted to us by ‘dead White men’ without fetishizing (we will unpack this in the course) them/their contributions?  

This course will introduce students to some foundational texts and theorists whose legacies, in myriad ways, continue to influence, and even haunt, Social-Cultural Anthropology. The purpose of this course thus is to explore early theorists and core concepts that shaped the discipline of Anthropology and to understand the possibilities of theory by acquiring a grounded and broad knowledge of different theoretical developments through the decades. 

We will start by reading and discussing four main theorists of Modernity and how Anthropology as a modernist discipline – born in modernity but also concerned with modernity’s Others – evolved through them and, in time, how these concepts and theorists were challenged, and so on. 

Next, we will trace whence these challenges emerged – their political and historical contexts – and end the fall term by reading some texts that even though were produced outside of Anthropology and outside of its conceptual assumptions, can help us critically read modernist Anthropology.  

In the winter term, we will study various shifts that have attempted to address crises in Anthropology, raised by decolonization of the colonies where most of the early anthropology was done and was nurtured theoretically and now must encounter calls for decolonization.

Course Director: S. Hussain - salhuss@yorku.ca