ANT 4230 - Magic and Modernity (3)

When Offered: Spring
Modernity is often characterized by a constellation of features such as rationality, objectivity, linear time, bureaucracy, and progress. Anthropology arose as a discipline of modernity. Yet many of the worlds that anthropologists study are enchanted worlds where the dead speak, ghosts act, and magic works. This seminar analyzes what happens when modernity meets such enchanted modes of human existence and explores how anthropology might grapple with the problem of using rational methods to understand magical worlds.
NOTE: Students who have previously received credit for ANT 4231 may not enroll in or receive credit for ANT 4230.