This paper will trace anthropological ways of addressing questions about historicity, temporality, and memory. We will explore distinctively anthropological methods in the study of the past. Is ‘history’ the right rubric for ethnographic queries into people’s engagements with their past? Such a framing question in the paper will go hand-in-hand with an in-depth survey of the anthropology of time. What kind of a repertoire have anthropologists produced in their study of people’s distinctive and diverse temporalities, and how can anthropological concepts of time be put into critical engagement with those taken for granted by academic historians? The paper will include distinctive ethnographies from across the world that imaginatively expose the place of ‘memory’ in people’s engagements with their past. Anthropological ways of approaching ‘archives’ will be a component of the course, as well, including emergent archival theory which expands more conventional approaches to ‘the archive.’
Further information including a list of lecture courses and background reading can be found in the Paper Guide in the Paper Resources section to the right of this page.