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Regular version of the site
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Department Head Adrian A. Selin
Academic Supervisor Evgeniy Anisimov
Book
Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989

Gökarıksel S., Gontarska O., Hilmar T. et al.

L.: Routledge, 2023.

Article
The Russian Civil War after 100 Years: Within and Beyond the Historiographical Front Lines

Alexander V. Reznik.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. P. 644-658.

Book chapter
The Stolbovo Treaty and Tracing the Border in Ingria in 1617–1618

Adrian Selin.

In bk.: Sweden, Russia, and the 1617 Peace of Stolbovo. Vol. 14. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2024. P. 99-118.

Working paper
The Image of the Past in Ciro Spontone’s ‘Historia Della Transilvania’

Khvalkov E., Levin F., Кузнецова А. Д.

Working Papers of Humanities. WP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2021

Anthropology of Belief and Knowledge

2023/2024
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
5
ECTS credits
Delivered by:
Department of History
Type:
Minor
When:
3, 4 module

Instructors

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Anthropology of belief and knowledge seek an understanding of an understanding: it aims at grasping what people across cultures admit to be true. How various systems of knowledge and belief distinguish the rational and the irrational? What is sense and senselessness? How are knowledge, belief, intuition and revelation distinguished in different social and cultural contexts? How are epistemologies related to aesthetics, ethics, moral order and everyday knowledge practices, and how are they embedded in forms of society that that articulate and constitute? We consider these questions by drawing on detailed ethnographies of science and religion. Cases that we explore range from studies of witchcraft and shamanism to laboratory and computer science, from conspiracy theories to knowledge about climate change and different religions.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • be able not only read key ethnographies, but also make an individual research, based on the unique ethnographic experience, applying the skills learnt through the course.
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • A student knows the history of the discipline and subfields
  • Able to solve professional problems based on synthesis and analysis
  • A student can critically evaluate and rethink the accumulated experience (one's own and another's), think about professional and social activities.
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • ethnographies of magic
  • ethnographies of science
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking final essay exam
  • non-blocking project essay
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2023/2024 4th module
    0.5 * final essay exam + 0.5 * project essay
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • E. E. Evans-Pritchard. (1960). The Organization of a Zande Kingdom. Cahiers d’études Africaines, (4), 5. https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1960.3678

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Bielo, J. S. (2016). A companion to the anthropology of religion. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 24(1), 103–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12247

Authors

  • LYUBAVINA SVETLANA VYACHESLAVOVNA
  • KASATKINA ALEKSANDRA KONSTANTINOVNA
  • Ssorin-Chaikov Nikolai VLADIMIROVICH