Anthropology of Symbolic systems : Religion, Nature and Virtual Worlds

Teacher(s)

Servais Olivier;

Language

French

Main themes

Through lectures and reading exercise the course will encounter authors such as : Douglas, Hallowell, Turner, Gauchet, Lévi-strauss, De Certeau, Leenhardt, Van der Leeuw, Dumezil, Malinowski, Leach, Goody, Otto, Van Gennep, Descola, Viveiros de Castro, Bastide, Girard, Frazer. Following subject and concepts such as : Myth, mythology, ideology, ritual, the symbolic, the belief, the conversion, the religion, the religious, the sacred, the secularization, totemism, animism, naturalism, the magic, the sorcery, shamanism, phenomenological approaches, structuralism and symbolic functionalism.

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1.	Understand the main trends and great authors of symbolic systems anthropology.
2.	Develop a personal point of view about these trends.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Content

The course Methodology : 1. Lecture of introduction (first lesson) 2. Previous article readings 3. Collective analysis and feedback about reading exercise 4. Final lecture: conclusion and synthesis.

Teaching methods

Active pedagogy with strong student involvement. Each course uses a different didactic or pedagogical method.

Evaluation methods

Students are evaluated on the basis of their participation and a final collective and individual work.

Other information

Pre-requisite : A first course in anthropology. Evaluation : Students' work will be appraised according to the jury system (cf. Master in Anthropology) Materials course : Texts portfolio will be distributed.

Faculty or entity

PSAD