Course for international guest/part time students

Faculty

Faculty of Social Sciences

Organization

TÁTK Department of Cultural Anthropology

Code

EKAN119.1

Title

Anthropology of Australia and Oceania

Usual semester

Spring

Published semester

2025/26/2

ECTS

3

Language

en

Learning outcomes

Student Learning Outcomes By the end of the class, students should be able to critically analyse narratives of representation of aboriginal life in Australia. Overview We open the semester with the early history of human existence in the Pacific, and the “Oceanisation” perspectives on human distribution. We begin by examining the history of anthropological concerns with populations, critically exploring the origins of the distinction between the Anthropology of Australia and the Anthropology of Native Australia. We will then examine the relationship between anthropological research in Australia and broader disciplinary concerns with difference, authenticity, reflexivity, and the possibilities of “native ethnography.”

Course content

Introduction In the nineteenth century, Australian Aborigines were used by European scholars as an exemplar of early human forms, and have consequently featured as the crucial case study for generations of social theorists and anthropologists. Arguments about Aborigines examines controversial subjects such as family life, religion and ritual, and land rights through the prism of Aboriginal studies. The course will provide a valuable introduction to Aboriginal ethnography, and is a shrewd and stimulating history of the central questions in Aboriginal studies.

Assessment method

Requirements: Attendance is obligatory. The student needs to inform the lecturer in the first week of the semester, if is unable to do so. Otherwise after every 3 absences the possible highest final grade decreases by one. Examination: Written exams - Students need to achieve 69% to pass the course Midterm exam on the 18th of April (30% of final grade) Final written exam during the exam period (70% of final grade)

Bibliography

Core Literature: Maddock, Kenneth 1972 .The Australian Aborigines - A Portrait of their Society. Pelican Press Hiatt, L. R. 1996. Arguments about Aborigines - Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology. Cambridge University Press Abulafia, David 2019 The Boundless Sea - A Human History of the Oceans. Allen Lane

Programmes of the course