Anthropology and Writing

Some epistemological and social characteristics of illiterate societies. Structure of discourses in oral societies. Changes brought by literacy, press and secondary orality. Historically and culturally diverse forms of reading and writing. Text, writing and language as direct material determinants of meaning. Literacy and writing as forms of authority. Orality as expression of cultural authenticity. Role of literacy, writing and press in rise of contemporary social, cultural and political forms. Discourse as a producer and not reflection of meaning and its role in anthropology. Meanings with which some anthropological classics create authority based on literary tropes and interplay of experience of “there” and writing “here”. Rise of epistemological doubt in transparency and unconcern in anthropological writing; phenomenon of dialogic and postmodern anthropology. Interplay of anthropological, fiction and other texts. Risk of hermeneutic circle when non-anthropological texts are being used as anthropological sources. Ways with which methods of anthropological interpretation can illuminate interpretative dilemmas in other disciplines, and vice versa.
At practical classes students learn how to write and comprehend genre texts (report, dialogue, discussion, description, outline, essay, presentation).

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