Programme

The course will offer an introduction to cultural anthropology focusing on the different objects of anthropological knowledge from a historical perspective. The fundamental characteristics of anthropological reasoning will be introduced: relativism, the notion of culture, the notions of identity and ethnicity, the ethnographic method. A last part of the course will focus on the notion of gender, parenting and kinship, bringing out the multiplicity of practices and meanings through European and extra-European ethnography. In particular, the topics addressed will be: the cultural construction and social practices that make up gender, the notions of motherhood and paternity, the concepts of reproduction and relatedness.

Core Documentation

Testi d’esame:

Fabietti, Ugo, Elementi di Antropologia Culturale, Mondadori, 2015, (disponibile anche in versione digitale), le seguenti parti: prima (Genesi e natura dell’antropologia culturale), terza (Comunicazione e conoscenza), quinta (Il sé e l’altro), settima (Dimensione religiosa, esperienza rituale), nona (Risorse e potere).

Più un testo a scelta tra i seguenti:
Busoni M., Genere, sesso, cultura. Uno sguardo antropologico, Carocci, 2000.
Gribaldo, A., La Natura scomposta. Riproduzione assistita, genere, parentela. Luca Sossella editore, 2005.

For those attending, it is possible to replace the text of your choice with 4 essays or chapters (which the teacher will make available to the students during the course) of which one or two will be chosen and presented by the attending student and discussed collegially in class (see "bibliografia di riferimento).

Non attending students will add: Remotti F., Contro Natura. Laterza, 2008. Da p. 86 a p. 191 (capp. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

Type of delivery of the course

Students involvement is particularly welcome through critical remarks and comments, starting from specific case studies and the literature. In order to involve students frontal teaching and collegial discussions will alternate. Articles and essays to read and comment together will be shared during classes. Students' participation will be evaluated for the grade of the final exam. Classes will be held in the classroom with the possibility of following remotely on Teams. They will not be recorded.

Attendance

Participation is recommended

Type of evaluation

Oral evaluation. Students' participation will contribute to the mark of the final exam.