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Political Anthropology as Method Jan 17th, 2023, 11-1pm, Safari 01, Donovan's Road.

16 Jan 2023

Department of Sociology & Criminology Seminar:

We are delighted to welcome our Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Prof Arpad Szakolczai to give our first seminar of 2023.

 

Political Anthropology as Method

Professor Arpad Szakolczai

Jan 17th, 2023, 11-1pm, Safari 01, Donovan's Road, UCC.

Political Anthropology as method offers an outlook on the world, a way of doing research, and a mode of bringing together various academic disciplines in order to promote understanding. It offers, first, an outlook which, in line with the word ‘anthropology’, starts not with ‘science’ and ‘objectivity’, but with us humans, who furthermore do not live in the ‘universe’, but here on Earth, and even further not just ‘on’ Earth, but immersed inside its Nature. It is therefore ‘political’ in the classical Aristotelian sense of man being a zoon politikon, or a ‘political animal’, and it is in this capacity that we need to understand our involvement in and with Nature, which is given to us and in which we all participate, starting from recognising both this givenness and its beauty, and being grateful for it – recognition and gratitude being the same words in some languages, also rooted etymologically in charis, or grace, with fundamental classical-theological implications. Second, Political Anthropology is also a way of doing research, which is personal, a ‘way’ or a ‘path’, thus a ‘method’ in the etymological sense of met’hodos, but incorporating an in-depth understanding of how such work was done by others, more as an after-the-fact reflection than an a-prioristic prescription. Third, Political Anthropology is not a new (sub-)discipline, rather an interdisciplinary field, bringing together historical-genealogical sociology, social and cultural anthropology, classical political philosophy, art history, comparative archaeology, classics, and comparative mythology, even elements of theology. Its focus is on comprehensive understanding, which is not possible to pursue within the limits of a single modern academic discipline.  

Department of Sociology & Criminology

Socheolaíocht & Coireolaíocht

Askive, Donovan's Road, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, T12 DT02

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