Summer Semester 2023

Lecturer: Dr. Ioan Trifu

Time and Place: Mon. 10:00 – 12:00, SDAC Seminar Room

This course begins the week of the 24th, NOT the week of the 17th. 

Synopsis:

The past is neither dead nor neutral. Far from it. In recent years, it has become the site of numerous conflicts within society and between nation-states. This is notably the case in East Asia where the traumatic experiences of the 20^th century continue to linger in the public mind and issues regarding history never seem to go away. Yet, collective memories and heritage are also mobilized in a large variety of other ways, ranging from local memorials for disaster victims to the global promotion of cultural traditions and monuments. Who then decides what should be remembered or forgotten, what should be safeguarded and what may be discarded?

This course provides an overview of this politics of the past focusing on one specific country, Japan, at the nexus of most disputes in the region. The first part introduces the students to the major controversies concerning Japanese colonial and war history since the 1980s. The second part explores the memory politics of victimhood in Japan, from the legacies of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the commemoration of the 2011 triple disaster. The third part presents the evolution of Japanese cultural heritage policies, the increasing role played by UNESCO and how historical buildings and practices are not only being protected but also often reimagined for economic purposes nowadays.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Dominik Müller

Time and Place: Mon. 10:00 – 12:00, Kochstr. 4, Room: 05.013;

Synopsis:

How does socio-cultural anthropology approach – and sometimes critically intervene in – human rights discourses and practices? Which topics have shaped anthropological writings in the field over the past three decades, and which concerns may shape possible futures of human rights? Have we already entered a „post-human rights worlds“? And what distinguishes anthropological perspectives on human rights issues from other approaches?

This course introduces selected writings that have contributed to the anthropological study of human rights, ranging from more theoretically oriented foundational works to ethnographic studies conducted in various settings across the globe. We will engage in a close reading of writings by legal anthropologists including Kamari M. Clarke, Mark Goodale, Sally E. Merry and Ronald Niezen, as well as other critical (socio-)legal scholars such Lynette J. Chua, Upendra Baxi and David Kennedy.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Farish A. Noor

Time and Place: Tue. 16:00 – 18:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

Since the mid 19th century a host of different religio-political movements have emerged in many parts of the world. Many of these movements appeared in what was once the colonised parts of Asia and Africa, and at the start many of them manifested themselves as social movements, trading associations, educational reform movements, etc. that eventually evolved to become political parties and organizations.

During the 20th century political religion became a recognizable form of political activism and social mobilisation, and in many parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia these political parties played a visible role in the struggle against colonial rule and Western imperialism.

There remains, however, the question of how we should understand and study such movements: Are they to be understood primarily as religious movements that have a contingent relationship with politics and the political domain; or should they be seen as primarily political movements that are dressed in the vocabulary and epistemology of religion?

This course will focus mainly of the rise of religio-political movements in Southeast Asia, with a strong emphasis on the development in both Indonesia and Malaysia. Additionally it will also look at the rise of both political Islam, political Hinduism and political Buddhism in South Asia and Burma as points of comparison. The question it seeks to address is: Where is the ‘religion’ in religio-politics, and what would be the correct tools of analysis for us to understand and write about such movements?

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier

Time and Place: Wed. 14:00 – 16:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

What are the dynamics of present-day Chinese society in the 21st century, and where do they come from? What is “China” and what can “being Chinese” mean today? This course explores the internal complexities and dynamics of the Chinese social world. It will mainly focus on the ongoing transformations and challenges in the circumstances of the predominantly Han Chinese society in the People’s Republic of China, and examine the common historical and political trends which have contributed in shaping present-day trends. Calling into question the notion of a cultural discourse concerning Chinese national character, it will emphasize instead the political and economic choices which contributed to produce the current situation.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier

Time and Place: Thu. 14:00 – 16:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

Opposed views on humans’ capacities to make decisions have always existed. On one side, more liberal, human beings are seen as having their fate in their own hands. They can create, innovate, renew, make a change, it depends all on themselves. On the other, more deterministic, everything is already decided. Life is in the hands of the divine, or of a great underlying mechanism, humans have no real capacity of choice. Social sciences also deal with these age-old questions and have attempted to address them in two ways: on one side, examining how and to which extent people’s lives and ways of thinking are determined by the cultural or social milieu they originate from; on the other, studying how people the world over deal with predetermined conditions, try to find out what the future will be, and attempt to change it. Through theories of individual agency and concrete cases of decision-making, this course will trace back these two trends.

Lecturer: Mingqing Yuan, MA (with Dr. Ferdiansyah Thajib)

Time and Place: Wed. 16:00 – 18:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

Decision-making is a process involving many factors and actions. This course is designed as a space for students to learn about decision-making through through hands-on experiences and learning-by-doing process. This project-focused course is done by inviting the students to organize a short film/documentary film festival at the end of the course. Asian documentaries and short films will be the focus of the film festival. Students will have the chance to critically reflect on the contemporary representations of Asia through the camera lens and have a better understanding of the socio-cultural, political and economic context of the area. The course will first review and discuss theoretical debates about the documentary-making and viewing process, ethics of filming and curating, and politics of film festivals. Students will then be introduced to documentaries and short films produced in, from or about South-East Asia and China and frameworks for analyzing and understanding them. The third part will focus on various practical activities. From the very beginning, students will be actively involved in the whole decision-making process of the film festival and will be encouraged to form different teams to carry out the film festival preparatory activities within and outside the classroom. The course hopes to enhance students’ practical skills, including communication, presentation, public speaking, and event management. During the film festival, students will also have chances to have interviews with filmmakers, directors, and host discussions on stage. Interested students are advised to register before 10.04.2023.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Farish A. Noor

Time and Place: Mon. 14:00 – 16:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis: *Note: This is the second part of the course ‘What is Southeast Asia’, though students who did not take the first part may still take the second part, without any difficulty.

Part 1 of the course looked at the genesis of the idea of Southeast Asia, as it focused on pre-modern and precolonial modes of understanding about the region, even before the word ‘Southeast Asia’ was introduced. It showed how there is nothing ‘natural’ or ‘essential’ about Southeast Asia or Southeast Asian-ness, and that the concept was (and remains) a nominal construct that was invented during the era of Western colonialism in Asia.

Part 2 of the course will look at contemporary postcolonial Southeast Asia today, and will touch on a number of important questions, including: 1. what is the enduring legacy of colonialism in the region? 2. To what extent is present-day Southeast Asia a continuation of earlier modes of global capitalism and capital-driven development? 3. What are the issues and challenges facing the states and societies of Southeast Asia today? 4. How and why has identity politics become so important in the region? 5. How will/can Southeast Asia endure in the decades to come, as the region and its societies are impacted upon by the forces of globalisation?

Lecturer: Dr. Ferdiansyah Thajib (with Mingqing Yuan, MA)

Time and Place: Wed. 12:00 – 14:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

Solidarity and polarization are two sides of the same coin. In pursuing a common goal, different forms of political actions have been mobilized in Asia to cultivate solidarity in a manner that accommodate diversity and  advocate social transformation. Others, in contrast, have opted exclusionary measures by promoting ethnic, racial, religious and/or cultural homogeneity, thus depending social divide. This course draws on anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and political science, as well as case studies from across the region, to investigate how different societies navigate the tension between solidarity and polarization, amid multiple and intersecting local, national, and global upheavals.

In the first part, we explore the different concepts framing civil society’s political mobilization, such as the relationships between resistance and social change, and populism and polarised political environment. The second part of the course addresses key topics that include civil society’s efforts for social transformation by way of street protests, pursuit of racial justice and equality, as well as the more discouraging events such as ethnic and religious conflicts afflicting different parts of the region. To interrogate the affective, discursive and material dimensions of these sociopolitical struggles, in the last part of the course, we delve into the case studies investigating the roles of social media and urban landscape in fostering solidarity and exacerbating polarization.

Lecturer: Mingqing Yuan, MA

Time and Place: Wed. 10:00 – 12:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

China’s global presence has attracted much attention recently, especially its interactions with Africa. However, these engagements are never travel in only one direction. How does Africa feature in China’s own imagination and mapping of the world across time? Are Africans in China only a recent phenomenon? What are the daily experiences of Africans living in China, especially in Guangzhou, which has a “chocolate city” community? How do nationality, race, class, and gender play in these transnational encounters? This course will offer a historical review of Africans in China and examine the current debates about the Global South migration and the intersectionality of these experiences. Different genres of texts and research methodologies will be engaged. The course is divided into three parts according to different theoretical frameworks and political concerns. Students will be encouraged to bring their interested topics and cases to discuss various actors and factors in the decision-making process of Africa-China relationships.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Viola Thimm

Time and Place: Tue. 14:00 – 16:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

This seminar focuses on a well-founded discussion of religious women’s movements and queer approaches. On the basis of regional comparative examples from Morocco, Egypt, the USA, Germany and others, the theoretical approaches of Muslim and Islamic feminists will be conveyed. Theological, Quranic exegetical approaches play a role as well as secularly argued positions for gender justice. As early as the 1980s, the Moroccan Fatima Mernissi examined the hadiths, i.e. the tradition of the sayings and practices of the Prophet Mohammad, with regard to the work of women at the time of the Prophet. In the mid-2000s, the Pakistani academic Asma Barlas assumed that the Quran’s message was fundamentally anti-patriarchal. At the same time, the Islamic theologian Amina Wadud proclaimed a “gender jihad” in the USA. The transwoman Leyla Jagiella refers to the “third gender in Islam” in her current analyses and practices.

On the other hand, the focus will be on everyday struggles of Muslim activists who rebel against women’s and transgender oppression, as well as their approaches to (international) networking. Since around 2018, there has been a development of young Muslim women and trans* presenting themselves self-confidently online, acting against racism and misogyny. Through the digital social media networks, this has become a matter of course, in which the actors directly support each other (e.g. against so-called “shitstorms”) and thus strengthen each other. Through their presence and their actions, they challenge many stereotypes, prejudices, rejections and discriminations.

The following questions will accompany the seminar: What worldviews do the believing theorists and activists follow? What colonial pasts and current social orders are their beliefs and practices linked to? How do cultural, religious and gender-related ideas, ideologies and practices interlock on a broader level in this field? The aim of the seminar is to gain insights into the lives and beliefs of religious protagonists, to make the intersections between religion and gender analysable and discussable, and finally to learn to critically reflect on one’s own thought patterns.

Lecturer: Oleg Vasilchenko, MA

Time and Place: Thu. 12:00 – 14:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

“The Digital and the Human” is an interdisciplinary course that explores the impact of technology on the individual and society. Throughout the course, students will delve into topics like the impact of AI, human-robot interaction, digital activism, identity and personhood in the digital age, the digitalized practice of law, social media and its impact on political and science communication. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the curriculum incorporates perspectives from anthropology, sociology, political science, history, economics, and philosophy to provide a comprehensive understanding of the digital age. The heart of the course is the creation of a detailed fictional research project, which students will work on throughout the duration of the course and present in the final exam.

Lecturer: Henriette Hearn, MA

Time and Place: Mon. 14:00 – 16:00, Kochstraße 4, Room 01.059;

Synopsis:

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” (Dostoevsky, 1862).
In this seminar, students will do just as the quote above suggests. Together, we will try our best to understand the reality of current prison and punishment systems and work to understand what the inside of these institutions can tell us about the broader structure of society. In order to accomplish this goal, it will be imperative to hear voices from inside prison walls and for us to also step foot into one of these institutions. Therefore, the course will include a Zoom session with a prisoner who is currently incarcerated in a United States state prison and we will visit the Nürnberg prison. Before doing so, students will analyze approaches to studying prisons and punishment from a sociological and anthropological perspective. Students will then apply this knowledge, as well as their real-time interactions with the institutions, to analyze a work of their choice. This work can include books, research articles, movies, or the work of an advocacy group.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier

Time and Place: Tue. 18:00 – 20:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

What “love” means, and if this meaning is or not universal, are fiercely debated issues. How love and marriage should be attached together has been a major intellectual concern in the modernization process in Europe and elsewhere. Free-choice marriage based on romantic love is often considered as a sign of progress and modernity. Social, cultural and political controversies also often arise concerning mate-choice, who is entitled to choose, the rights of parents or of the community to interfere, or the age at which marriage can be pronounced. In this class, we will come back to the theoretical and practical questions that the discourses and practices of “love” entail. For this, we will alternately focus on theoretical texts and on ethnographic research carried out in multiple human societies.

Title: Counterspeech–what to do against racism

Time and Place: 16.06.2023, time TBA, place SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis: 

Racist, anti-human, and anti-democratic statements or slogans can be encountered everywhere: at the workplace, at the checkout in the supermarket, or even among friends. There are no general solutions for dealing with far-right slogans and conspiracy narratives. They leave us speechless at first. We often lack the experience as well as the appropriate means to stand up against them.

This is the point of departure of this workshop: Instead of focusing on statistics or standardized arguments, we take a look behind the scenes: What is racism and how does it work? What about discrimination, far-right ideology, and conspiracy beliefs? What makes hate speech so effective and how can we react to it – especially as a student or staff at a university that is supposed to be accessible to all? Why does standing up for democracy always equal to standing up against discrimination – and vice versa? And how can this civic courage be held up and lived in everyday life – be it at university, the workplace, at the supermarket checkout, or at the bar among friends and colleagues?

This workshop seeks to provide practice-oriented information about far-right ideology, racism, group-based discrimination, and conspiracy beliefs. On this basis, strategies will be devised on how to develop and consolidate a human rights-based attitude in daily life – and how to turn this practice into effective counter-speech against racism and other forms of group-based enmity.

(description provided by the Landeskoordinierungsstelle Bayern gegen Rechtsextremismus, LKS)

Title: Intercultural competence

Time and Place: 07.07. time TBA, place TBA

Synopsis: 

As part of the SDAC Lecture-Series Dr Linda Huber, who is a scholar at Stefan Zweig University for Education in Salzburg (Austria), will deliver a presentation on intercultural communicative competence on July 7, 2023. The concept of intercultural communication relates to the effectiveness of cognitive, affective, and behavioral abilities that shape our communication in cross-cultural contexts. Based on her research Dr Huber will share some theoretical insights about intercultural communication and show students several practices to foster their intercultural skills.

The workshop series is coordinated by Anna Schneider. 

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier / Guest Lecturers

Time and Place: Mon. 16:00-18:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

The SDAC Guest Lecture Series is an opportunity to learn about cutting edge research from distinguished scholars from around the world. Integrating a wide range of regional expertises, disciplinary perspectives, and positionalities, it aims to examine decision-making processes from research on a large variety of topics. From migrants’ decisions to leave their countries to the ethical challenges of corporations investing in developing countries, from automated decision-making engineering to the ethical difficulties of tragic medical choices, or from environmental governance to civic or activist engagement, among other possible topics, our guest lecturers will examine and analyze how humans around the world are dealing with and attempting to change predetermined conditions.

Lecturer: Dr. Ioan Trifu

Time and Place: Mon. 12:00 – 14:00, SDAC Seminar Room

This course begins the week of the 24th, NOT the week of the 17th. 

Synopsis:

Public mistrust, political violence, short-termism, populism, rising inequalities… Throughout the world, democratic societies appear in turmoil and serious questions arise about their futures. In this age of uncertainty, political decisions are again seen as crucial to the fate of liberal democracy. This course explores how these decisions are been made and how they shape the policy process in democracy. By taking the example of Japan, it will provide students with the basic elements of democratic politics and introduce them to the models and theories employed by political science to explain public policy making. Going beyond the conventional image of the single, perfectly rational decision, we are going to look together at how situations of choice and decision exist at every stage of political processes. We will investigate the many ways institutional and ideational settings constrain political action and the growing diversity of actors involved, from political parties to media and civil society. Finally, we will dig deeper with several case-studies of how a democracy can face crises such as a nation-wide disaster, a pandemic, and the looming threats of climate change. This will help us rethink the relations between decision and notions of power, legitimacy, and responsibility and better understand, how, against the odds, democratic regimes can also display remarkable resilience in this turbulent time.

Lecturer: Dr. Ferdiansyah Thajib

Time and Place: Wed. 8:00 – 10:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

This course discusses foundational assumptions, core themes, and potentials of Psychological Anthropology as a discipline. In the first part (BASICS), we consider why Psychological Anthropology has thrived in US anthropology during the last decades but seems to have been relegated to the margins of other Social and Cultural Anthropologies across the globe. Is it due to a skeptical ‘anti-psychologizing’ disciplinary ethos in anthropology, the role of psychological anthropologists in nationalist, colonial, and war-related agendas of the (early) 20th century, or a lack of postcolonial or decolonial theory and practice?

The second part of the course (KEY TOPICS) takes the recent emergence of psychological anthropologies outside of US anthropology as an opportunity to reflect on current debates. We will elaborate on psychological anthropologies that are concerned with power asymmetries and the effects of universalizing “Western” psychologies. Contemporary psychological anthropology fosters insights into new forms of inequality, violence, and human subjectivity. Hence, the assumption that psychological and bio-psychiatric “insights” are to be imposed on human experience and behavior is itself open to question. This creates productive tensions between universalizing and relativizing understandings of what it means to be human that psychological anthropology can address ethnographically.

In the third part of the course (CASE STUDIES) highlights a significant line of work in psychological anthropology which has broadly rejected the universalizing tendencies of psychological discourse and prefers to illuminate historically, politically, and socio-culturally situated concepts of self, personhood, affect, sociality, health and well-being.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Viola Thimm

Time and Place: Tue. 12:00 – 14:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

“Decoloniality” is currently being opened up as a new field both inside and outside academia. Colonialism, coloniality, postcolonialism, decoloniality – what are the differentiations and what relevance does decoloniality has (not only) for the Western university landscape? The aim of “decoloniality,” which originated in Latin America, is a critical production of knowledge that strives for liberation from a Western hegemony of knowledge. In “decoloniality,” colonisation is not only understood economically and politically, but also culturally and epistemically: while Europe became the place of “modernity” from which the world was classified and described, coloniality marked the margins where this modern world demonstrated its power of definition. 

In this seminar, we will look at how representatives of decoloniality such as Walter Mignolo, Aníbal Quijano or María Lugones search for alternatives to powerful Western knowledge. Since colonialism, strategies of demarcation from the “other” and the related hierarchisation of knowledge systems, social and economic forms of organisation or ideas and practices of “race” and gender have had a lasting impact on the relationship between the “old” and the “new” world. Especially decolonial perspectives on feminist thinking show, for example, that the heteronormative distinction between men and women in Latin America only became effective through Spanish colonialism. The aim of the seminar is to get to know new forms of knowledge, to learn to question one’s own systems of thought and to understand the history of science under world political conditions.

Lecturer: Oleg Vasilchenko, MA (with Henriette Hearn, MA)

Time and Place: There will be a total of 5 sessions for this course:
21.04.23 – 10:00-12:00
28.04.23 – 10:00-12:00
12.05.23 – 10:00-14:00
02.06.23 – 10:00-14:00
30.06.23 – 10:00-14:00
SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

The course focuses on developing students’ skills in ethnographic research through practical assignments. Students will be expected to reflect upon their own lives and use these reflections in their writing. Through readings, discussions, and writing assignments, students will develop their own voice as ethnographic writers and learn to tell stories that capture the richness and complexity of cultural experience. During the semester students will be given three different assignments that explore popular topics in anthropology, such as cultural identity, gender and sexuality, and everyday power dynamics. The course will culminate in a final project, in which students will produce a substantial piece of ethnographic writing elaborating on one of the three short projects conducted during the semester.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Dominik Müller & Henriette Hearn, MA

Time and Place: Thu. 8:00 – 10:00, Kochstr. 4, Room: 05.013;

Synopsis:

This course introduces students of Sociology and the SDAC program to the field of legal anthropology, with some additional references to broader socio-legal studies („Law and Society“). Addressing the history of the anthropology of law alongside various contemporary themes and exemplary empirical case studies, the course aims to enable students to understand and participate in debates of the field by acquainting them with some of its key literature, concepts and methods. No prior knowledge of Law and/or Anthropology is required. The course is open to both B.A. (Sociology) and M.A. (SDAC) students.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Dominik Müller & Oleg Vasilchenko, MA

Time and Place: Mon. 12:00-14:00, Kochstr. 4, Room: 05.013;

Synopsis:

In the late 1960s, legal anthropologist Laura Nader called for anthropologists to begin “studying up.” Using the expression as an entry point, this course will focus on examples of ethnographic studies among powerful social groups, institutions and elites. With a close reading of a broad range of empirical settings in selected case studies, we will examine dominant characteristics, ethical aspects and methodological challenges that have been present in those studies. Planned examples from existing scholarship include research on state bureaucracies, international organizations, organized crime, elite education, courts and prisons, police and military settings, as well as the business world.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Marco Bünte

Time and Place: Mon. 10:00 – 12:00, Kochstr. 6a, Room: 00.006;

Synopsis:

The seminar looks into the nexus of civil society and the growing autocratisation in East and Southeast Asia. According to democratic theory civil societies can play an important role in preventing democratic decline. By looking into several case studies from the region, we will get a deeper understanding of the ability of East and Civil Societies to push back against growing personalization of power and the erosion of democratic standards.

*If you plan to take this course, please send an email to Prof. Dr. Bünte (marco.buente@fau.de)

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Dominik Müller

Time and Place: Thu. 16:00 – 18:00, Glückstr. 10, 2nd floor;

Synopsis:

This advanced seminar is open for advanced BA students, MA students, and Ph.D. candidates whose research focus is related to the Chair of Cultural and Social Anthropology, or who are interested in pursuing related research. During the sessions, we will discuss research projects which are being conducted within the group “LawTech Ethnographies.” Students who are interested in writing an (under-) graduate thesis or Ph.D. dissertation in the field of legal anthropology, and ideally related to impacts of legal technological and intersecting legal cultural changes, are encouraged to join this advanced seminar to discuss and present their ideas.

Lecturer: Maryam Abbasi

Time and Place: Wed. 18:00 – 20:00, SDAC Seminar Room

Synopsis:

Online esoteric practices are getting increasingly popular around the world. Anyone with an internet connection can participate in a wide range of practices, each with its own set of goals, while protecting their anonymity. Online practices are beginning to differ from traditional ones as they become more advertised, transferable, and popular among young people and women.

How can new-age practitioners interact with their followers via the internet? How do practitioners and their followers interact with material and commercial culture via social media? What role do social media platforms play in the formation of spiritual communities?

This course aims to provide students with a foundational understanding of Iranian esoteric practices as well as answer these questions and similar ones during the semester. Each week, in addition to addressing theories and literature, a technique or ritual relating to esoteric practices in Iran will be introduced. During the semester, relevant visual materials such as movies and photographs will be used.

Students who successfully complete this course will be eligible to:

• Have an in-depth understanding of the historical context and, present important debates on Iranian esoteric practices.
• Understand the role of social media in the new age of esotericism.
• Conduct independent research on one or more unique cases or subjects.