Gifts of Empire

2024/2025

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of History

Course type:

Elective course

When:

1 year, 2 module

Instructor

Ssorin-Chaikov, Nikolai

Course Syllabus

Abstract

What is gift? What does it mean to give a gift and receive one? What social relations are created by gift giving? Do gifts play a similar role in all societies? Is ‘pure’ or ‘free’ gift possible? These are the questions of the classical gift theory which appeared in anthropology in the early twentieth century as a way to understand traditional or stateless societies. These are the questions that scholars ask today too, but in a new research context. What is the place of gift in societies that are dominated by market exchange? How did gift giving work in assembling tributary and trade empires? How does modernity take gift form — in ‘civilising mission’, ‘development’, ‘modernisation’, aid and humanitarianism? What is imperial on these modalities of governance? What are gifts of this empire? This course focuses on some of the key work in this field of anthropology and history.