Offered Courses
A΄Semester
1. The Anthropology
of Religion, Rituals and Symbolic Systems (Compulsory)
2. Theory and History of Social Anthropology (Compulsory)
3. Family in European Historiography (Compulsory)
B΄Semester
4. Issues in Economic and Political Anthropology (Compulsory)
5. Historical Approaches of the National Phenomenon (Compulsory)
6. Social and Political History of the Ancient World (Compulsory)
C΄Semester
7. Ethnography of Greece and
Southern Europe (Compulsory for majors)
8. Issues in Historical Anthropology (Compulsory for majors)
9. Anthropology of Kinship and Social Gender (Elective)
10. Political and Social History of Modern Greece
11. Introduction to Medical Anthropology
12. Special Issues in Historiography (Elective)
Description of Courses
1.
The Anthropology of Religion, Rituals and Symbolic Systems
The
course refers to the ways in which religious beliefs, religious and
lay rituals and symbolic systems are approached, analyzed, and
interpreted. Anthropological theories and approaches of religion are
discussed in depth. Moreover, we also analyze systems of
classification and structure of human experience, the logic of
magical thought and practice, ritual practice and anthropological
approaches to symbolism. Issues such as cognitive anthropology as
well as the anthropology of face, emotions, and the body are also
examined.
2. Theory and History of
Social Anthropology
The aim of this course is
to present momentous trends in contemporary post-Malinowskian
anthropology through both a historical perspective�namely in
relation to the intellectual framework of the era and the
theoretical practices in relative fields�as well as from the
perspective of their implementation in processing and presenting
ethnographic data. Classical ethnographic monographs are analyzed as
examples of anthropological attestations, like evolutionism,
structural-functionalism,
structuralism,
exchange theory,
and cultural ecology. The contemporary trends of interpretive
anthropology, anthropological constructivism, and the recent
post-structural reforms and exchanges with history and literary
criticism are scrutinized in the light of competing points of view.
3. Issues in the History
of Family in European Historiography
This course aims at
introducing historical research relevant to the history of the
family and the debate with the corresponding surveys in the area of
social anthropology. During the course, the various historiographic
trends in the field of history of family in the European world are
presented. The focus is on studies around the forms of settlement
and domestic organization and the European model of marriage (15th-10th
century), the practices of transfer and family strategies,
intra-family relations, the emergence of the new conjugal culture.
Additionally, we also present the debate in the domain of historical
research with regard to the shift of attitudes and practices towards
children and the elderly.
4. Issues in Economic and
Political Anthropology
The course includes three
units. The first unit introduces the basic approaches of the concept
of �economy�, examines commercial exchange, gift, and bartering,
while it comments on examples of anthropological attestations
concerning material objects. The latter are analyzed as commercial
goods from a political-economical point of view or as vehicles of
symbolic meaning. It also examines various views on the ethics and
symbolism of money as well as analytical approaches of consumption.
The second unit covers fundamental issues in the anthropology of
tourism and introduces, from a critical point of view, older and
contemporary speculations regarding issues relevant to the
socio-economic transformation�as, for example, the source of social
change and the relationship between structure and action. The third
unit analyzes the relation between political anthropology and
political science and introduces examples of non-western societies
which established the battery of issues dealt with in political
anthropology. Finally, it examines the prime approaches to the
national and ethnic phenomenon and comments upon the relation
between the relevant terms and analytical categories. Special
attention is given to nationalism as a cultural process towards the
composition of identity.
5.
Historical Approaches of the National Phenomenon
The course
deals with the national phenomenon as a contemporary issue, product
and factor of modernity at the same time. The aim of the course is
to foreground the historicity and the complexity of the national
phenomenon on the grounds of the presentation and debate of the
relevant theoretical bibliography and the approach of particular
examples that are manifested in these levels. The course presents
three units grounded on comparative discussion of examples from
Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East, and India:
a) Language, History and Community; b) Social Gender, Class and
National Identity; c) Nation and Religion; d) Modernism and
Tradition; e) Nationalism, Revolution, and Reform in 19th
century Europe; f) Nation and Political Power.
6. Social and Political History of
the Ancient World
Course outline:
A) The historiography of the economy of ancient Greece since the
19th century. The conflict between liberal and Marxist researchers
of ancient economy. Home economics and relevant models of analysis.
Monetarism as the starting point of an early capitalistic system.
Theoretical approaches into the foundation of the institution of
slavery within the framework of home economics.
B) The stratification of ancient Greek society. Conceptual models
for the analysis of social grouping. The Marxist and Weberian
proposal. The neo-Weberian proposals. The reconstruction of Marxist
analysis by G.E.M. de Ste Croix and its acceptance by the academic
community; Sociological schools and the conflict on the analysis of
pre-industrial societies.
C) The presence of social discrimination in existing sources.
Superior and inferior strata during the Homeric, archaic, classical
and Hellenistic era. The distinctions founded on criteria of blood,
wealth, status, and moral supremacy. The specification and
self-conscience of social identity: the particularity of ancient
societies (clash between poor vs. rich and free citizens vs.
slaves). Comparison of the ancient Greek paradigm to the equivalent
Roman one.
D) Slavery from its birth to its culmination in Roman times. Forms
of slavery and its correlation to other manifestations of dependent
workmanship. The view of political philosophers against slavery and
the moral dimension of the issue. The collapse of the institution of
slavery.
7. Ethnography of Greece and
Southern Europe
The course introduces ethnographic studies that concern contemporary
Greek society as well as societies of Southern Europe pivoting on
inter-cultural comparisons within this ethnographic area. The
introductory unit refers to the history of ethnographic research in
this particular geographical and cultural part of the world with
regard to the methodological trends and specializations in subject
matters and areas. It touches upon issues related to the Greek
mountainous community as a privileged subject of research, the
�Mediterranean� as a cultural fabrication and it develops the
speculation of contemporary anthropology around �indigenous� or
local anthropology. It proceeds to present the subject matters
focused upon in anthropological research in Greece and the wider
area of Southern Europe: the forms and cultural content of kinship
and the domestic group with local societies as a point of reference;
gender ideologies in Greek society; symbols and cultural versions of
femininity and masculinity; forms of practice of men and women; the
cultural dimensions of political life and the set-up of modern Greek
cultural and national identity.
8. Historical Anthropology
The program of the course is announced at the beginning of each
academic year.
9. Anthropology of Kinship
and Social Gender
In spite of the fact that the study of kinship has constituted a
privileged field of ethnographic research and theoretical analysis,
the study of social gender began to preoccupy anthropologists
relatively recently, in particular from the 1970s on. The
distinction between social and biological gender and the
investigation of the social and cultural framework within which the
roles of kinship networks and social gender arise has led to the
analysis of social gender as a product of these networks and
simultaneously as their contributor. The course aims at examining
the fundamental anthropological attestations of kinship from the
19th century on, the relationship by kinship, social gender and
sexuality, and it will critically explore the �naturalness� with
which kinship and gender are usually dealt with.
10. Introduction to Medical
Anthropology
The course constitutes an introduction to medical anthropology on a
postgraduate level and focuses on cultural manifestations of
physical and mental pain, therapy, chronic diseases, and malaise.
11. Political and Social
History of Modern Greece
The aim of the course is the presentation and analytical discussion
of contemporary historiography on Modern Greek history and the
emergence of new topics and approaches with regard to the subject
matter in hand. The discussion on the social structure of Modern
Greek society, the issue of patronage and class conflicts, the
problem of the state and state initiative in the constitution of
modern Greed society, the function of politics and the Greed
nationalism, etc. are indicatively mentioned.
12. Special Issues in
Historiography
The subject matter of the course changes every academic year and it
is announced at the beginning of every academic year.
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