General information

• Study points: 4.00
• Language: English
• Category: Lectures
• Duration: 26.0 hours 
• Periodicity: Taught in the second semester
• POC: POC Antropologie

Taught by

Van Wolputte Steven

Content

This course on myth and symbolism deals with three main issues. These can also be considered as three angles of approach, or three levels of analysis.
1. The presentation of myths and symbols (the auto-aesthetic ‘poetics’ of symbols and metaphors, what are symbols and what do they mean, ...);
2. the workings of symbols and metaphors (embodiment, (inter-)subjectivity, mytho-poièsis, self , body-self and identity, colonial and postcolonial identities);
3. the power of symbols, myths and metaphors (hegemony and counterhegemony, domination and resistance; the colonisation of consciousness, ‘politics’, colonisation and the post-colony; self-empowerment).
The perspective adopted is one that focuses on multiple-meanings in praxis. It combines semantic anthropology with praxeology and places myths and symbols in the context of today’s changing social and political relationships. Here, especially feminist and postcolonial approaches have an important input. The general point of departure is a ‘social’ reading of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.
The course makes use of different sources. First of all, there are concrete case-studies drawn from northern Namibia’s past and present. Second, there is the wide array of anthropological and ethnographical literature on ritual, myth and symbolism. Third, the course also documents myths and symbols in the west, focusing both on the making of dominant representations (such as Orientalism, medical imagery, and so on) and on urban, often marginal subcultures, who at least at times offer a counterhegemonic discourse and praxis through the rituals and myths they perform and imagine.
Chapters deal, among others, with symbol and metaphor; power and authority; ideology and hegemony; colonising consciousness: modelling the colonial subject; Subject disobedience; anthropology and history; the colonial endeavour ‘at home’; the mfecane and its aftermath; the Xhosa cattle killings; animal disease and contraband; counterworx; postcolonial identities .

Evaluation description

Examination type:
    oral with written preparation
When?: interim evaluations plus final examination during examination period
Evaluation type:
    Open book
    Paper

Explanation

The exam is oral and open-book, and consists of two parts: a) a question from the lectures and b) a home assignment (the content of which will be announced during the lectures).
Students may also opt to write a paper.
Course materials are a) lecture notes and b) an auxiliary reader.