I have always tried to stay away from anthropology.
I faced it only once as an undergraduate, in a Lit. Theory course (remarkable only for its utter irrelevance to my theatre degree). The blood-and-feather-filled pages of an article about Balinese cock fights confirmed at once my hatred of ENGL 317 and general suspicions of the field of anthropology.
It probably didn't help that anthro courses (and professors) were so frequently the objects of harmless derision in our living room.
You understand, then, why my pulse quickened when the professor of my Anthropology of the Body in Islam course produced a photo album of her field work in Central Asia. In my sleep-deprived brain, lights flashed and voices screamed ("Lu village!!! Lu village!!!").
Then I remembered I like being shown pictures and calmed down. Wide green spaces, rough mountains, and the yurtas that were the subject of our discussion. The course is about the construction of Islamic communities through corporeality, gestures, practices of the body -- performance, in short.
Today in particular we talked about architectural patterns across Islam and the practices of the body that they imply/reflect. Central Asian -stans, North Africa, and Muslim communities in Europe. Nomadic groups, sedentary groups, and everything in between.
At the end of class, one of my Erasami leaned across the table. "What she just explained...this is my life. It's a good class, n'est-ce pas?"
This is IM's first time out of Cameroon. He hasn't taken his tuque off since he landed in Brussels. He tags n'est-ce pas on the end of every other sentence and says things like "Il n'est pas nécessaire d'aller chez le marabout pour savoir qu'on va arriver en retard ce matin!" To our potluck yesterday, he brought tree roots with peanut paste. It was the only food that survived the airport check -- probably because the customs agents didn't know it was food.
There are ten Erasmus Mundus students in the MA Performing Arts Studies programme. Nomads, sedentary folk, and everything in between.
We are from Cameroon, Quebec, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, India, China, South Korea and Serbia, with interests and goals as varied as our backgrounds.
The medina and the yurta village don't look anything alike, but they obey a shared logic. Maybe we are like that too, structured in our own way by our sensitivity to performance/aesthetics/corporeality?
I am not sure what gestures we have performed -- maybe our anthro prof is observing -- but our community has recognized itself.
3 comments:
Are you sticking with anthro as your elective then? What happens if Lu Village does come up? *Shivers* That's the first thing that pops into my head when I think of anthro too. Were you in Laurel's class a different year from Ipek, Jay, and me? Or did you just never attend class? :-p
Never took Laurel's class, just lived it vicariously. Probably one of the reasons (the other is econ) that I took poli sci instead of IDS :P
Yeah, this class I am keeping as my elective...I have another anthro course (anthropology of art) that's required. I am finding that it makes a big difference when the course is actually directed towards something you are interested in, and the prof are aware that most people in class are NOT going to be anthropologists :)
hahaha I JUST had to reread the Balinese Cockfight article.. bloody Geertz... it was for my anthropology and Iran course.
So yes.. i know what its liked to be sucked back into the world of Anthropology. All i can say is its somewhat better at the Grad level and when you KNOW youre doing anthro (not taking a lit course..which i too hated)
BUT at least I get to do a fun ethnography on Distillery right? I bet you'll have cool assignments too =)
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