Università Roma Tre

The course is intended as an introduction to anthropology as cultural critique, specifically aimed at forming a figure of anthropologist regarded as “intellectual” capable of analysing, interpreting and comparing different cultural cases and systems.
The objectives of the course are:
– to develop in the student an awareness of “otherness”;
– to critically examines ideas about cultural differences and images of “otherness”;
– to develop in the student a capacity to recognize preconceptions and assumptions of their own social and cultural environments;
The students will be introduced to the major concepts, theories and methods employed by anthropologists to understand social and cultural aspects of human experience, with a particular attention to specifical mechanisms of human relationships and social systems.
They will be also familiarised with fieldwork practice and ethnographic research, so as to form a skilled and qualified personnel, sensitive to the complexities of nowadays.
On completing the course, the students should be able to apply the concepts and perspectives learned in the course of the lessons to new, original research fields and broader contexts, making interdisciplinary connections.
Acquiring the knowledge of the fundamentals of ethno-anthropology, at the end of the course the students should be able to deal independently with anthropological topics and issues.
Besides knowledge and understanding of key terms, concepts and methods in ethnology and anthropology, at the end of the course students will be expected to demonstrate the capacity to express, present and explain with the necessary clarity their knowledge.
The systematic self-reflection peculiar to the anthropological approach, its critical self-conscious thinking not only about the “objects” of its research but also about the tools used to describe and interpret them, is expected to favour the develop in the student of important learning skills such as creative and critical thinking, which will be decisive throughout their formative years and beyond.
The course aims at providing the students with the fundamentals of anthropology, updated and adjusted to the urgencies of modernity and current affairs.

1. A textbook for the general part:
Ugo Fabietti, Elementi di antropologia culturale, Milano, Mondadori, 2015.

2. The monographic part includes:
Tim Ingold, Antropologia. Ripensare il mondo, Milano, Meltemi, 2020.
Stefano de Matteis, Le false libertà. Verso la post globalizzazione, Milano, Meltemi 2017.