Integrated course (IC)
Objectives
By the end of the course, participants will achieve:
- An understanding of the anthropological foundations of human behaviour with a specific focus on cultural difference and its historical forms.
- The ability to analyse patterns of cultural difference between human groups, using anthropological interpretative tools and the correct disciplinary language.
- An analytical perspective on human cultures, including their own, developing the skills for autonomous critical thinking.
Syllabus
‘The most human of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities’, is how Alfred Kroeber described anthropology. In just over one hundred and sixty years of history, cultural anthropology, which began as the science of primitive peoples, has also proved its centrality in the study of industrialised societies and global dynamics. Anthropology, more than any other discipline, has attempted to understand, interpret and explain the similarities and differences in thought and behaviour that can be observed between human groups by referring to the historical-evolutionary notion of culture and ethnographic field research.
During the first part, methods and interpretative tools typical of the discipline will be proposed in order to discover how human beings organise their lives and express their values within their historical and cultural contexts. Anthropologists have explored communities all over the world, from Amazonian tribes to European cities, from African villages to American metropolises, to study and understand cultural diversity. This discipline aims to produce universal theoretical models through the empirical and intensive analysis of concrete cases, allowing us to reflect on fundamental concepts such as culture and conceptions of nature, civilisation and evolution, authority and resistance, blood and identity, family and kinship, education and individuality, practical reason and magical and mythological knowledge. Through the analysis of ethnographic cases, the course provides the necessary tools to interpret the world with an anthropological perspective, revealing how people structure their lives, their values, their thoughts, and their personal creation of meaning in relation to socio-cultural contexts of reference. For the psychologist, understanding these dynamics is crucial: cultural diversity profoundly influences human behaviour, identity formation and interpersonal relationships. Anthropology, therefore, not only helps to explore different cultures and unfamiliar points of view, but also to understand its own context in a better and more critical way. This knowledge encourages us to value cultural diversity, always in tension with the awareness of the uniqueness of human experience, making the world more comprehensible and offering new perspectives on both our own behaviour and that of others. [2 CFU]
During the second part, the relationship between anthropology and psychology will be explored with particular attention to the relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis, symbolic efficacy and cognitivist theories [1 CFU].
The last part of the course will deal with the development of a fully anthropological perspective, complementary to the psychological and pedagogical ones, regarding the use of graphic techniques within groups of children from three to five years old , with the aim of offering an interpretation of the relationship between humankind and the use of images as a cognitive and communicative medium, and to highlight the analytical scope of an anthropological approach for understanding whatever human dynamic [2 CFU].
Exam
The assessment will take the form of a final summative oral test using the semi-structured interview mode, lasting approximately 20 minutes, at the end of which the mark will be awarded.
It will be possible to take an ‘exemption test’ that will allow the first part to be taken in written form (mixed multiple-choice test and other types), thus allowing only points 2 and 3 to be taken at the oral test.
The criteria for measuring and awarding the grade consider the ability to refer to and summarise the contents of the texts in the bibliography, demonstrating comprehension (knowledge and comprehension capacity), the ability to correctly apply in analyses the concepts and tools covered during the course also through the use of examples (comprehension capacity and applied knowledge), the ability to express original opinions and personal analyses (autonomy of judgement), the ability to establish connections between concepts and contents, the ability to have a critical overview (learning ability), the logical structure of the exposition and the use of appropriate scientific vocabulary (communication skills).
Different forms of assessment may be considered, including the development of a paper, a project or the use of in-progress tests.
Bibliography
The exam preparation requires the complete study of the following texts:
- Matthew Engelke, Pensare come un antropologo, Einaudi, Torino 2018.
- Una dispensa a cura del docente reperibile su Moodle.
- Simone Ghiaroni, Il disegno selvaggio. Un’antropologia del grafismo infantile, Meltemi, Milano 2019.
(The presentations used in class, made available on the platform, are intended as visual aids for the lessons and do not constitute sufficient material for exam preparation. Summaries of the texts available online are also not sufficient).
