Unit name | Kin, Friends, Lovers and Others |
---|---|
Unit code | ARCH10019 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | C/4 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Amy Penfield |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Anthropology and Archaeology |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will introduce students to some key ideas and debates around human kinship and relationality; in other words, how humans relate to one another and how relationships are formed, maintained, severed and conceptualised. In this way, the unit will explore what constitutes kin, friends, lovers and others. The study of relationality forms the foundation of both archaeology and anthropology, but also offers fascinating insights into what it means to be human in a range of historical and global contexts. Drawing on both classic and contemporary material from the study of kinship and beyond, the unit will traverse themes of personhood, marriage, reproduction and parenting, friends and enemies, sexuality, transnational families, adoption, and relations with non-humans. Students will learn the wider significance of the topics to the interpretation and analysis of human societies more broadly. Lectures will be delivered by staff from the across the four fields of the department - archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics and social anthropology – to offer a diverse range of approaches to the study of kinship and relationality.
Unit aims:
At the end of this unit, a successful student will be able to:
Weekly lectures, and fortnightly seminars, supported by self-directed activities
Formative:
One 1000w-word essay mid-way through unit (20%), assesses ILO 1-3. Summative:
One 2000-word essay at end of unit (80%), assesses ILO 1, 4-6.
Carsten J. 2004. After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards et al. 1993. Technologies of Procreation: kinship in the age of assisted conception. Manchester University Press.
Holy, L. 1996. Anthropological perspectives on kinship, London: Pluto Press.
Hrdy, S. B. 2011. Mothers and others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Martin, R. 2013. How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction. New York: Basic Books.
Stone, L. 2018. Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. New York & London: Routledge.
Weston, K. 1997. Families we choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press.