Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

According to the learning objective of the Master in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, aimed at providing a basic preparation in the anthropological discipline and its main thematic fields, the course Theories and Fields of Anthropology offers, in the first part, a general overview of more relevant issues of Anthropology, Ethnology and Ethnography by illustrating its theoretical foundations, its main authors, and its historical development (the fetish's notion, the belief issue, the Oedipus issue, the debate on "modernity of witchcraft", the anthropology of climate change,and so on). The second part will explore ethnographic cases and specific issues (ethnography; colonial  situation and its legacy; anthropology of migration and politics of citizenship;  Postcolonial Studies; "Ontological Turn"; etc.). The aim is to develop the students' critical awareness and autonomy of judgment by the comparative and historical analysis of different research fields and issues.

The lectures will enable students to acquire advanced knowledge about the main concepts and debates within Anthropology and Ethnology, as well as the authors who contributed to their development. It intends to increase the students' ability to learn about this specific research field and its specific conceptual, by explicitly encouraging students' autonomy and their critical abilities in analyzing ethnographic cases presented in class and implementing meaningful comparison with history and subaltern/cultural/postcolonial studies. Lectures will be supplemented by seminars where students  are encouraged to present the results of short bouts of individual or group research, primarily bibliographic but when possible also empirical:

Lectures. The course's duration is 54 hours. It is divided in two parts. The first part is a historic and theoretical presentation of the discipline; the second thematic and ethnographic part will alternate lectures with seminar lessons, involving students in the presentation of short reports based on selected articles. 

Exam will be only oral . he answers will be evaluated according to the following criteria: a) Appropriateness in the use of Medico-Anthropological lexicon; b) Clearness of language, speech consistency and sector-based vocabulary; c) Critical-analytical capacity and ability to give examples. Questions will address both notions acquired while attending the course, and the texts each student selects upon previous agreement with the teacher.

Erasmus students can speak in English, Spanish or French during the examen and prepare their examen on books in one of these languages on the basis of previous agreements with the teacher.

Optional activities  will give to students the opportunity of specific tutorship when requested and the opportunity to discuss in group with other students and teacher some particular issues treated during the course

The course will provide students with an overview of the main issues, concepts (belief, rite, myth, filiation, alliance, sacrifice, person, gift, power and so on), and authors (Griaule, Leiris, Malinowski, Bateson, Evans-Pritchard, Balandier, Lévi-Strauss, Clastres, Turner, De Martino and Gramsci's  legacy in Italian anthropology, Geertz, Clifford, Rosaldo, Comaroff and Comaroff, Scheper-Hughes,  Crapanzano, Viveiros de Castro, Descola, and so on). Interdisciplinary themes and authors who contributed to develop the dialogue between anthropology and other disciplines  (Malinowski, bateson, Fanon, Devereux, Ortigues, Obeyesekere, Deleuze and Guattari, ecc.) will receive particular emphasis.

The colonial genealogy of anthropological knowledge, its controversial transformations, its main schools (hermeneutic anthropology, structuralism, dialogic anthropology, and so on) will receive particular emphasis. Ethnographic examples taken from different field experiences will contribute to enlighten the different theoretical and historical trajectories of anthropology.

Beyond the strong emphasis on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives,  postcolonial debate and the migration issues (refuges, asylum, citizenship and so on) will receive particular attention, given their important role in current anthropological debate. Finally, the course will emphasize the need of exploring the new threats raising from global warming and climatic change

Reading Materials:

1. N. Gibso, R. Beneduce, Frantz Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics, London, Rowman & Littlefield

2. G. Bateson, Naven, Stanford, Stanford university press.

3. E. De Martino, La fin du monde, Paris, EHESS.

4. C. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurelle, Paris, Plon

5. J. e J. Comaroff, Modernity and its malcontents: : Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

6. P. Geschiere, Witchcraft, intimacy, and trust: Africa in comparison, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

7. J.-F. Bayart, S. Ellis, B. Hibou, The criminalization of the State in Africa, New York, James Currey

8. G. Calame-Griaule, Ethnologie et langage, La parole chez les Dogon, Institu d'Ethnologie

9. P. Riesmann, Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography, Paris, Mouton & Co.

10. V. Turner, The forest of symbols. Aspects of Ndembu ritual, New York, Cornell University Press.

11. F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press.

12. F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, New York, Pluto Press.

13. A. Mbembe, On the postcolony, Berkeley, University of California Press.

14. J. Galinier, La moitié du monde. Le corps et le cosmos dans le rituel des Indiens Otomí, paris, PUF.

15. S. Mahmood, Politics of Piety. The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Princeton University Press.

16. A. L. Stoler, Race and the education of Desire. Foucault's History of sexuality ant the colonial order of things, Durham, Duke University Press.

17. F. Fanon. A Dying Colonialism, New York, Grove Press.

18. E. Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal metaphisics. For a Post-structural Anthropology, Minneapolis, University Of Minnesota Press

19. P. Descola, Les lances du crépuscule. Relations Jívaros, Haute-Amazonie. Paris, Plon.

20. P. Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago, Chicago University Press.


Moreover: 3 articles among those made available and discussed by the teacher (see teacher's site).

Texts for students not attending the course: four books among the above suggested books (the first of them is mandatory) and three articles


International and Erasmus students may prepare their examen on the suggested texts or their English, French or Spanish translation

Students are strongly encouraged to discuss materials and issues during the classes. Some documentary films will be used in order to promote debates and analysis about the issues taken in consideration during the course.

Students are kindly invited to registrate themselves on line, before coming the day of the exam. They have to present the programme they have studied, when called following the order on enrolment. If the number of students will be high enough to make impossible to end in just one day all the evaluations, the Professor will inform when the exam will take place and where (usually in the following days). If necessary, only for health or work reasons, students may inform the Professor of the urgency, by email one ore two days before the exam.T