MA Social Anthropology
Duration: One calendar year (full-time) Two or three years (part-time, daytime only) We recommend that part-time students have between two and a half and three days free in the week to pursue their course of study. The expectation in the UK is of continuous study across the year, with break periods used to read and to prepare coursework.
Overview
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Minimum Entry Requirements: Minimum upper second class honours degree (or equivalent)
Start of programme: September intake only
Who is this programme for?: The programme is designed on a modular basis offering different pathways to suit, broadly, three categories of students: Students with a degree in social anthropology wishing to pursue more specialist topics and/or more regional and language-based study Students with little or no previous knowledge of social anthropology wishing to acquire a broad knowledge of the discipline Students with little or no previous knowledge of social anthropology wishing to take the degree as a conversion course before proceeding to a research degree in anthropology
The Department of Anthropology and Sociology teaches the discipline of Social Anthropology with special reference to the societies and cultures of Asia and Africa, both past and present. The emphasis given to particular regions and approaches varies with current trends in the discipline and contemporary global developments.Students come to the course from all over the world, following BA study, work and travel experience or after long careers in other fields.
Many of our students have not previously trained as anthropologists. This combination of diverse experience and skills makes for an intellectually exciting atmosphere for both teachers and students.
The MA degree programme in Social Anthropology is designed on a modular basis offering different pathways to suit, broadly, three categories of student:
- Students with a degree in social anthropology wishing to pursue more specialist topics and/or more regional and language-based study;
- Students with little or no previous knowledge of social anthropology wishing to acquire a broad knowledge of the discipline;
- Students with little or no previous knowledge of social anthropology wishing to take the degree as a conversion course before proceeding to a research degree in anthropology, who are required to pass all the examinations with appropriately high marks.
Structure
Compulsory Elements
- Comparative Studies of Society and Culture (1 unit)
- Theoretical Approaches to Social Anthropology (1 unit)
(Unless students have previous anthropological training) - A written dissertation of 10,000 words (1 unit)
- Research Methods in Anthropology (Term 1 only) to be audited by all students
Optional Courses
Students pick their remaining courses to the combined value of 1 unit from the following list:
Full Unit Anthropology Courses
- The Culture and Society of a Selected Ethnographic Region:
Half Unit Anthropology Courses
- African and Asian Cultures in Britain
- African and Asian Diasporas in the Modern World
- Anthropology of Tourism
- Anthropology of Urban Space, Place and Architecture
- Approaches to the Other in Horror and Science Fiction Films
- Comparative Media Theory
- Ethnographic Research Methods
- Issues in the Anthropology of Film
- EITHER Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives A
OR Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives A AND Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives B - Issues in the Anthropology of Gender
- Therapy and Culture
- Chinese Cinema and Media (not running 2009-10)
- New Media and Society (not running 2009-10)
- Perspectives on Development
- EITHER Issues in the Anthropology of Food A
OR Issues in the Anthropology of Food B
Language Courses
- An Asian or African Language: Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Georgian, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Nepali, Pali, Persian, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Somali, Swahili, Tamil, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Yoruba or Zulu.
See the Faculty of Languages & Cultures for more details.
Centre for Media & Film Studies
South East Asia
- Post Crisis Thai Cinema (1997-2007) (not running 2009-10)
- Post(colonialism) and Otherness in South East Asia on Screen (not running 2009-10)
- Genders and Sexualities in South East Asian Film (0.5 unit)
Department of History
- Culture and Practice of Warfare in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa
- Society, Culture and Drugs in China, 1700-1990 (1 unit) (not running 2009-10)
Department of the Study of Religions
- Buddhist Rituals (not running 2009-10)
- Buddhist Scriptures: Mahayana & Vajrayana (not running 2009-10)
- Central Concepts and Tenets of Indian Buddhism (not running 2009-10)
- Death and Religion (1 unit)
- Esoteric Buddhism in India and Tibet
- Features of Buddhist Monasticism (not running 2009-10)
- Gender and Christianity (1 unit) (not running 2009-10)
- Historical Developments of Indian Buddhism (not running 2009-10)
- History and Doctrines of Indian Buddhism (1 unit)
- Indian Mahayana Buddhism (1 unit)
- Selected Texts from Mahayana Sutra Literature (not running 2009-10)
- The Buddhist Conquest of Central Asia
- Tibetan Buddhist Texts from Central Asia (not running 2009-10)
Department of Music
- All taught Masters courses in the Department of Music are open to anthropology students EXCEPT FOR the core courses of:
- Ethnomusicology in Practice
- Performance Theory
- Composition
- Performance
