Anthropology of Body and Movement

The course is based on an epistemological contradiction: the body on the one hand of fundamental anthropological criterion, on the other hand we devide humans into network of disciplines: biological (physical), medical anthropology, anthropology of theatre and sports, cognitive (psychological) anthropology, anthropology of everyday life, political anthropology, etc. Course follows this parcialisation and touches reproduction, subsistence, kinship, race, property rights, art, etc. presented in concrete actions of individuals and groups/communities. Skin as the extreme edge of human intimacy and sociability and medium of/for identification. We touch the concepts of health, purity and the cult of youth and add aspects of outfit and image, clothing, plastic surgery, tattoos, etc. Special attention is devoted to sports. Lectures also focus on theatre and dance, performance in general. Movement is also bodily medium of relationships between individuals and communities, whereby we arise issues of style and genre, stratification, dramaturgy, spectacle etc. Cartesian dualism of body and soul is compared with non-European philosophies. Topics and problems are verified with cases from Slovenia and the World: personal research, scientific literature, travel books, audio-visual media.