This is a page for materials relating to the University of Sydney anthropology honours seminar, The anthropology of mind and experience, offered in Semester 1, 2019 and Sem 1, 2021 by Ryan Schram.
Anthros, watch out for an introductory email from me very soon. To kick start our discussions this semester, I'd like you all to read this blog post by Marshall Sahlins, written in memory of Claude Lévi-Strauss at the time of his death:
Sahlins, Marshall. 2009. “On the Anthropology of Levi-Strauss.” AAA Blog. July 7. https://blog.americananthro.org/2009/07/07/on-the-anthropology-of-levi-strauss/.
In our first class meeting, I'd like to hear what each of you think about Sahlins's claim that anthropology is in the midst of an “antistructuralist” moment? Do you agree? Is this a good thing? Why? Write some notes on this and bring them to class to share on February 26.
You can also see the 2019 draft of the guide to the seminar here, including a bibliography of the assigned readings. For the 2021 guide to the class, se e the USYD unit outline and the class Canvas site.
Most of the class readings are available online through the USYD libraries' digital repositories, so you can get going on the semester's readings right away. Any material which is not available online now will be provided in a course reader available through the campus copy centre and Publish Partner. You may however consider buying a 1969 edition of Lévi-Strauss's, Elementary Structures of Kinship (Boston: Beacon Press). We will read the first six chapters in weeks 4–5.