Anthropology of Senses
Course code
HIA7216.HT
old course code
Course title in Estonian
Meelte antropoloogia
Course title in English
Anthropology of Senses
ECTS credits
6.0
Assessment form
Examination
lecturer of 2023/2024 Spring semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
lecturer of 2024/2025 Autumn semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
Course aims
This course will examine ‘the perceptual’ as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon, which is continually undergoing transformations throughout history. The course will consider how perception is experienced, shapes relations between persons, and structures the way we encounter and perceive the world.
Brief description of the course
We will study the sensorium (understood as the entire perceptual apparatus) as a continuously shifting social and historical construct that is variable both within and across cultural groups and not simply a matter of cognitive and neurological mechanisms. The course will also review the assumptions that propose that the senses are limited to the Aristotelian categories of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. Instead the course materials will examine perception as a corporeal experience.
Learning outcomes in the course
Upon completing the course the student:
- has developed an understanding of how anthropologists have approached perception;
- is able to relate these approaches to other fields of research;
- has developed basic skills in critical analysis of transdisciplinary texts.
- has developed an understanding of how anthropologists have approached perception;
- is able to relate these approaches to other fields of research;
- has developed basic skills in critical analysis of transdisciplinary texts.
Teacher
Carlo Cubero Irizarry
Additional information
The course will be organized around specific themes that will be addressed throughout various sessions. The format of the sessions will be akin to a Seminar or Reading Group. A student, or group of students, will commit themselves to doing an oral presentation on the assigned readings for the session. This presentation will be followed by a group discussion of the themes brought up during the oral report.
More books for suggested additional literature:
Fotiou, Evgenia. 2012. Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals. Anthropology of Consciousness, 23:1, pgs. 6- 27.
Straight, Bilinda. 2009. “Sensing Divinity, Death, and Resurrection: Theorizing Experience through Miracles”. Howes, David. The Sixth Sense Reader. Berg Publishers. London.
More books for suggested additional literature:
Fotiou, Evgenia. 2012. Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals. Anthropology of Consciousness, 23:1, pgs. 6- 27.
Straight, Bilinda. 2009. “Sensing Divinity, Death, and Resurrection: Theorizing Experience through Miracles”. Howes, David. The Sixth Sense Reader. Berg Publishers. London.
Study programmes containing that course