Please note: The course description for Regional Dialogues is subject to change since 2023-2024 marks its inaugural year, and the specifics of the course will be further refined soon.
Admission Requirements
The following categories of students may register for this course:
- Students enrolled for the Leiden University bachelor’s programme Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
Course Description
This course is offered for the first time this year and marks a significant step toward a new area studies approach at CADS. While our programme has gradually moved away from a focus on specific regions, this course seeks to break with ‘methodological regionalism’, convening instead a series of dialogues informed by approaches such as Oceanic Studies, the Black Atlantic, Borderlands, migration studies, globalization studies as well as the broader call for decolonization of the anthropological curriculum. This approach combines plenary sessions, in which we revisit major debates on the status of regions in cultural anthropology and comparative–historical sociology, with sessions focused on particular articulations of this debate around Africa, Asia and Europe, understood as historically contingent and negotiated objects of analysis. The aim is to develop a more dynamic approach that does justice to today’s multipolar reality and to allow it to take root in our curriculum and scholarly community, while maintaining a mode of social and cultural inquiry that is grounded in place and time and that also has an eye for complex global challenges.
Course Objectives
Successful completion of this course will mean that students will be able to:
historicize and problematize anthropology’s longstanding assumption that space, place and culture overlap
demonstrate familiarity with ways to study different parts of the world in a way that takes criticisms of anthropological traditions seriously and is attuned to (im)mobility and multipolarity
distinguish and recognize contrasting perspectives on Africa, Asia and Europe as contingent and entangled objects of analysis
anticipate and articulate dynamics associated with living in a highly mobile and interconnected world in which the means of mobility and connection are unevenly distributed
Schedule
Timetables can be found on the website.
Mode of Instruction
This is a 10 ECTS course, which means 280 hours of study (1 ECTS is equivalent to 28 study hours or sbus). These 280 study hours are composed of the following components:
Lectures: 14 x 2 hours = 28 hours x 1,5 = 42 sbu
Literature: 960 pages = 160 sbu
Group presentations = 8 sbu
Portfolio assignments = 45 sbu
Final essay (approx. 1,500 words) = 25 sbu
Assessment Method
In-class group presentation
Portfolio assignments
Final essay
Registration in My Studymap
Registration for the lectures and the exam in My Studymap is mandatory for all students. Registration closes 5 days before the start of the course. Carefully read all information about the procedures and deadlines for registering for courses and exams.
Confirming your exams
Students need not register for the examination via My Studymap, because this course does not include a single final examination.
Brightspace
Brightspace is the digital learning environment of Leiden University. Brightspace gives access to course announcements and electronic study material. Assignments will also be submitted in Brightspace. Announcements about and changes to courses are given via Brightspace. Students are advised to check Brightspace daily to keep informed about rooms, schedules, deadlines and all details regarding assignments. Lecturers assume that all students read information posted on Brightspace.
- How to login
The homepage for Brightspace is: Brightspace
Please log in with your ULCN-account and personal password. On the left you will see an overview of My Courses.
For access to courses in Brightspace students must be registered for those courses in My Studymap.
Course Literature
To be announced.
Articles from electronic journals and monographs available through Leiden University’s digital library.