The Problem of the Exotic: The aporia of universalism and relativism in anthropology

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
CEU Community Only
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Monument Building
Room: 
Popper
Monday, December 7, 2015 - 5:30pm
Add to Calendar
Date: 
Monday, December 7, 2015 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm

This is an old issue in anthropology that is currently being revisited. The argument defends the idea of the exotic in anthropology, treating it as an irreducible outside. The exotic is presented as being at the crux of the scientific questioning that is at the heart of anthropology and which in many respects distinguishes the discipline in the social sciences.
Bruce Kapferer is currently Director of an Advanced EU Project on Egalitarianism. He was

Foundation Professor of Anthropology at Adelaide University and also James Cook University, both in Australia.

He was also professor and Chair of Anthropology at University College London where he is currently Honorary Professor. He is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Bergen.

Bruce Kapferer's research areas include Aboriginal Australia, South India, Sri Lanka and southern Africa. He has published a number of monographs and edited volumes as well as numerous articles. Among the better known are Legends of people, Myths of State (Smithsonian series); A Celebration of Demons (Berg Publishers); The Feast of the Sorcerer (University of Chicago Press); 2001 and Counting: Kubrick, Nietzsche and Anthropology (Prickly Paradigm Press).

Attachment: