Introduction to the Anthropology of Art

optional courses

This course will familiarize students with different theoretical and methodological approaches to the Anthropology of Art. The course describes the relationship between art, aesthetics, and culture.

The course aims to give students a general view of the different approaches to the Anthropology of Art, a selection of ethnographic topics, definitional problems of aesthetic perception, and a review of significant authors. The objective is to give students the tools to reflect critically on the importance of art in culture. The course goes from the analysis of the wrongly called “primitive art” to the study of contemporary art objects like paintings, sculptures, photography, bodily art, music, fashion, and images in Western and non-Western settings.

Abbott, Pamela and Sapsford, Francesca. 2001 “Young Women and Their Wardrobes”, pp. 21-38, in Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim (eds.). Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationship with their Clothes. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Boas, Franz. 2006. “Primitive Art”, pp. 39-55, in Howard Morphy and Morgan Perkins (eds.) The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Farris Thompson, Robert. 2006. “Yoruba Artistic Criticism”, pp. 242-269, in Howard Morphy and Morgan Perkins (eds.) The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Firth Raymond. 2006. “Tikopia Art and Society”, pp. 91-108, in Howard Morphy and Morgan Perkins (eds.) The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Gell, Alfred. 2006. The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams. Oxford and New York: Berg.

González Varela, Sergio. 2023. “Body Biographies: A Study Of Apprenticeship And Embodied Experience Among Tattoo Artists In Mexico” LUD. Organ Polskiego Towarzystwa Ludoznawczego [online], Vol. 107, pp. 223–247.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. “Chapter XIII. Split Representation in the Art of Asia and America”, pp. 245-268.

Lie, John. 2015. K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Marcus, George. 1995. “The Power of Contemporary Work in an American Art Tradition to Illuminate Its Own Power Relations”, pp. 201-223, in George Marcus and Fred Myers (eds.). The Traffic in Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Munn, Nancy. 1973. Walbiri Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central Australian Society. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Sansi, Roger. 2015. Art, Anthropology and the Gift. London: Bloomsbury.

Schacter, Rafael. 2014. Ornament and Order: Graffiti, Street Art and the Parergon. Surrey: Ashgate.

Strathern, Marilyn. 2013. Learning to See in Melanesia. Lectures Given in the Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, 1993-2008. Chicago: HAU Books.

Waterston, Alisse. 2020. Dark Times: The Human Search for Meaning. Illustrated by Charlotte Corden. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

At the end of the course, students will identify the main approaches to the anthropology of art. They will also learn how to approach the study of images and art objects in general methodologically and analytically.

A final essay about one of the course topics worth 90%. Participation in class and exposition of a relevant theme: 10%. Attendance is mandatory.