Module Content

The Mediterranean has been a vibrant area of anthropological research since the 1960s. Ethnographers have contributed influential studies of honour and shame, hospitality, vendetta, and pilgrimage. This course will introduce these classic themes while also considering the emergence of a new anthropology of the Mediterranean. EU-imposed austerity, and mass migration have generated a novel set of predicaments that bind the Mediterranean area together as tightly as ever. Weekly topics will include: honour and shame, hospitality, migration, austerity, protest and solidarity, dreaming and religion, local ideas of time/history, heritage and tourism, and the sharing of sacred spaces.

 

Learning Outcomes

1. Students will acquire a systematic understanding of anthropology of the Mediterranean area. They will be able to deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within anthropology.

2. Furthermore, they will be able to differentiate thinkers and currents of thought, debate these critically, and synthesise analysis and data, extending to topics and approaches at the forefront of the field.

3. Students will develop conceptual understanding to a level that enables them:

To devise and sustain arguments, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of the anthropological and ethnographic study of the Mediterranean region.
	To describe and comment upon the particular methodologies and theories applied by researchers in the anthropology of the Mediterranean
4. Students will develop an appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge

5. Students will develop the ability to manage their own learning

6. Students will make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the anthropology of the Mediterranean).

These outcomes will be evaluated and/or assessed in tutorials and essays for the course.

Delivery Method

One 2-hr lecture,and one 1 hr tutorial per week.