THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2011/2012
- ARCHIVE for reference only
THIS PAGE IS OUT OF DATE

University Homepage
DRPS Homepage
DRPS Search
DRPS Contact
DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Social and Political Science : Social Anthropology

Undergraduate Course: The Invention of History (SCAN10010)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Social and Political Science CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Course typeStandard AvailabilityAvailable to all students
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) Credits20
Home subject areaSocial Anthropology Other subject areaNone
Course website None Taught in Gaelic?No
Course descriptionThe past is 'everywhere a battlefield of rival attachments' - an arena fraught with contestation and dispute. Picking up this cue this course examines the politics of history, memory, and the past. It begins by examining time, and way in which notions of time and history have been central both to the development of social anthropology as a discipline and to wider, racialised discourses about others in colonial contexts. Engaging with a growing body of anthropological work, and research done in related disciplines, which has emphasised the social construction of the past, it looks at how the past it is understood, experienced, remembered and represented in different ethnographic contexts in the present. Memory, history, and 'oral traditions' will be examined as different but related means of understanding, representing and politicising the past, alongside other, less discursive means of relating to the past, such as through performance, rituals, objects and landscape. Engaging with more recent arguments that have emphasised the limits to the 'invention' of history, the course will consider how the study of 'the past' inevitably involves not only notions of time and temporality, but also of space, place and landscape. The politics of the past is in no way limited to how we understand or represent it; it is also finely related to questions of what to do with its materiality - in the form of archaeological remains, heritage sites, monuments and memorials. With reference to a variety of empirical examples and broader theoretical trends, lectures will explore the politics of the past through the following topics: Time and denial of co-evilness; nationalism and identity; memory and forgetting; commemoration and memorials; heritage and museums; landscape and place.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus?Yes
Course Delivery Information
Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 2, Available to all students (SV1) WebCT enabled:  Yes Quota:  None
Location Activity Description Weeks Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
CentralLectureWeekly lecture1-11 16:10 - 18:00
First Class Week 1, Tuesday, 16:10 - 18:00, Zone: Central. Room 11.01, David Hume Tower
No Exam Information
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
tba
Assessment Information
assessment 20% plus long essay of between 3000-3500 words 80%
Special Arrangements
None
Additional Information
Academic description Not entered
Syllabus Not entered
Transferable skills Not entered
Reading list Not entered
Study Abroad Not entered
Study Pattern Not entered
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Joost Fontein
Tel: 07753306778
Email: j.fontein@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Katie Teague
Tel: (0131 6)50 4001
Email: katie.teague@ed.ac.uk
Navigation
Help & Information
Home
Introduction
Glossary
Search DPTs and Courses
Regulations
Regulations
Degree Programmes
Introduction
Browse DPTs
Courses
Introduction
Humanities and Social Science
Science and Engineering
Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Other Information
Timetab
Prospectuses
Important Information
 
© Copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh - 16 January 2012 6:45 am