HISTORICAL AND VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
Skills related to audiovisual text analysis will be provided within the Storytelling and TV drama course
Full study of:
- P. Meloni, Visual Culture and Anthropology, Carocci, Rome, 2023
- one text to be chosen from:
o C. Ginzburg, Miti emblemi spie. Morphology and History, Adelphi, Milan 2023
o R. Barthes, Miti d'oggi, Einaudi, Turin, 2016
o Low-intensity myths. Tales, media, everyday life, Einaudi, Turin, 2019
- M. Aime, Il primo libro di antropologia, Einaudi, Torino, (replaceable by paper)
The final learning assessment involves a written test compulsory for all (without the aid of notes or books), lasting 1 hour, graded in thirtieths, with 6 open questions on the texts in the bibliography.
Each of the open questions is designed to test knowledge of the course content and is assessed for a maximum of 5 points. The first 5 questions relate to the compulsory texts to the first two books in the bibliography, the last question relates to the third book.
The evaluation of the answers (for a maximum of 5 points) will take into account the ability to argue the required concepts (60%) and the ability to adequately justify statements and judgements (40%).
For students who have attended the lectures, and in particular the part on the analysis of audiovisual texts, there is the possibility of preparing a paper on the analysis of an audiovisual product (to be delivered in digital format, by e-mail, by the date of the exam roll for which the student registers, and consisting of approx. 5-10 pages of 3000 characters each); the methods for preparing the paper and the terms of its validity will be explained during the lectures.
The preparation of the paper replaces the preparation of the third book and thus one of the open questions of the written test.
The assessment of the paper (for a maximum of 5 points) will take into account the ability to analyse the audiovisual product (60%) and the ability to adequately justify statements and judgements (40%).
The student must have achieved a total mark of 18/30 to pass the learning assessment.
The course aims to offer an innovative and multidisciplinary perspective on the objectives and functions of the anthropological approach to the study of contemporary history, in particular through the use of audiovisual materials.
The expected learning outcomes are
- knowledge of the methodological bases of historical and visual anthropology
- knowledge of the syntactic, semantic-content and pragmatic specificities of the audiovisual text
- ability to identify and analyse the circumstantial character of an audiovisual text from an anthropological and socio-historical perspective
The course contents are organised in three parts. The first aims to identify the essential methodological characteristics of anthropology, both in its dimension of in-depth study of historical reality and in its specificity of use of visual, and especially audiovisual, tools and contents. The second will concern an in-depth study of one of anthropology's fundamental concepts, myth, not only from a classical perspective, but starting from theoretical reworkings developed from the second half of the 20th century to the present day, through an interdisciplinary view, which will include the historiographic, semiotic and socio-cultural perspectives. In the last part of the course, specific audiovisual texts will be analysed, putting the theoretical device to the test.
GENERAL PART (approx. 16 hours)
- The anthropological approach
- The objects
- The instruments
- The gazes
- The specificity of historical anthropology
- The visual turn: visual anthropology
- The ethnographic film
- The documentary
- Hybrid forms
MONOGRAPHIC PART (approx. 16 hours)
- The concept of myth
- Myth in the contemporary world
- Myth in pop culture
- The historiographic approach: Myths emblems spies, Carlo Ginzburg
- The semiotic approach: Myths of today, Roland Barthes
- The socio-cultural approach: Low-intensity myths, Peppino Ortoleva
ANALYTIC PART (approx. 16 hours)
The corpus of titles analysed will be communicated during the course, and the final list will be published on E-learning
The educational objectives of the course will be achieved through the lectures (for a total of 48)
The teacher receives the students by appointment via e-mail (an-drea.bellavita@uninsubria.it), at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences (Padiglione Rossi)