Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology (001AN)
Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology
Module 001AN
Module details for 2025/26.
15 credits
FHEQ Level 5
Module Outline
Key Debates in Contemporary Anthropology - This module informs you about key debates that have
featured in contemporary anthropology. It provides a theoretical framework as well as ways with which
to formulate your views and opinions with regards to significant debates while preparing you for
Advanced Topics options. Your learning is informed by the debates that vex current anthropological
inquiry at Sussex, across the UK and beyond. While these debates draw on broader literature and
trends in society, the aim is to examine how they are mobilised within current anthropological inquiry,
and how this can shape wider debates in the social sciences, arts and humanities. The module will be
taught by different experts in the field, and topics could cover any of the following or more: migration,
displacement, and mobility infrastructure, technology and cyborg sociality the ‘good’, the ‘bad’ and
the ‘ugly’: Anthropology and morality. Society beyond the human: multispecies sociality and the
anthropocene affect and emotional labour work and leisure precarity, politics and the popular
secularism, religions and intolerance perspectivism, ontology and the new orientalism anthropology
beyond ‘ethnography’: fiction, narrative and depicting the social anthropology beyond ‘logocentrism’:
physicality and performance.
Module learning outcomes
To demonstrate knowledge of a variety of current theoretical debates within anthropology.
To demonstrate knowledge of anthropological contributions to broader theoretical debates within the social sciences.
To critically assess/evaluate how key debates in the social sciences are informing contemporary anthropological research and writing.
To demonstrate how key debates in anthropology are shaped by, and are shaping, contemporary empirical inquiry.
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | 20.00% | |
| Coursework components. Weighted as shown below. | ||
| Essay | T1 Week 7 | 100.00% |
| Essay (1500 words) | Semester 1 Assessment Week 1 Thu 16:00 | 80.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Semester | Workshop | 2 hours | 11111111111 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
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