Topics in Theory and Practice of Anthropology (Half-Term): The Anthropology of Art Today

How do artworks reflect on and affect our rapidly changing lifeworlds? While engaging traditional and contemporary debates in the anthropology of art, the seminar also draws on insurgent Indigenous arts to address the political affects and effects emerging from decolonial and anti-colonial artistic practices. As we read critical theory and analyze artworks, we will probe ideas of fetishism and animism against the backdrop of the Anthropocene and explore how ontological and new materialistic approaches capture (or not) the life and agency of images and artifacts.