The current course will be an introduction to some of the founding texts in the social and cultural anthropology dedicated to kinship and the family. It will provide knowledge of the basic concepts, schools, methods and issues in studying kinship and the family, and will reveal the contribution of leading social anthropologists in the field of kinship studies. The readings will include key texts by classics in social anthropology (E. Evans-Pritchard, A. Radcliffe-Brown, R. Firth, M. Fortes, C. Levi-Strauss, E. Leach, J. Goody, etc.), as well as of contemporary researchers (P. Bourdieu, R. Parkin, L. Holy, M. Godelier, M. Strathern).
Some of the topics addressed by the course will be: kinship systems and kinship terminology; family and inheritance; kinship and marriage; kinship and social organization; kinship and gender; history of the family in Europe; comparative studies of kinship and the family; kinship and the family in the (post-)modern world. Each seminar of the course will consist of a presentation and a discussion focused on the readings for the week. Throughout the semester the students will be expected to work on a topic related to the course problematic.
