ANTH077 PO - The Unseen & The Unknown: Magic Mystery and Meaning in A Secular Age

When Offered: Irregularly
Instructor(s): O. Shah
Credit: 1

Anthropology has long explored the unknown and the unseen; all the magic, mystery and meaning that hides in plain sight. Indeed, debates about the logics of magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and possession are foundational to the discipline. Disavowing ‘the exotic’, this course seeks to bring those debates ‘home’. We will explore what it means to research, write about, or otherwise ‘take seriously’ the unknown and the unseen in our seemingly secular age. Topics include magic and witchcraft, death and the afterlife, the weird and the eerie, the ghostly and the phantasmic, trauma and the psyche, affect and emotion, astrology and divination, UFOs, conspiracy theory, and state secrecy. The course will draw from anthropology, but also film, psycho-analysis, media studies, and post-colonial studies.

Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 2