Individually and collectively people make their lives meaningful through practices of symbolic representation. During the twentieth century anthropologists concerned with the study of culture came to focus on systems of symbols and meaning. Psychoanalysis and linguistics were important early influences on symbolic anthropology because they identified the capacity of the human mind to operate according to symbolic processes, but these theories also proved too universalist in their claims for anthropology's cross-cultural evidence. The 1980s saw a marked shift in anthropological approaches. This unit focuses on key theorists and ethnographic studies in the field of symbolic anthropology and... -- Course Website
Instructor: Dr Deborah Van Heekeren
Prerequisites: 39cp or admission to GDipArts<br/>
