Beyond Nature and Culture - APOV50451

• Title: Beyond Nature and Culture
• Guaranteed by: Institute of Political Science (21-UPOL)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2023
• Semester: summer
• Points: 2
• E-Credits: 4
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:0/2, C [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unlimited (30)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: prof. Dr. Pavel Barša, M.A., Ph.D.
• Teacher(s): prof. Dr. Pavel Barša, M.A., Ph.D.

Annotation

Last update: prof. Dr. Pavel Barša, M.A., Ph.D. (11.02.2024)

Due to the scientific revolution of the 17th century and political and industrial revolutions of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries Europeans began to divide the world into two separate ontological layers: nature as the sphere of objects stripped of any agency and culture as the sphere of subjects able to reflect upon themselves and to act. The former is the realm of facts and quantity, the latter that of values and quality. Whereas in the one realm the manipulation of objects by subjects take place, in the other subjects interact with one another.
Until recently, the blurring of the boundaries between the two spheres by non-Europeans and pre-modern traditions had been taken as the sign of their backwardness and need for an enlightenment by the West as an avantgarde of humankind. This modernist prejudice against those non-dualistic traditions has been recently shattered by the growing awareness of interconnectedness of humans and non-humans (caused by the global ecological crisis and global warming). The course is devoted to the reading of the book by Philippe Descola of the same title which explores those other – monistic – “cosmologies” so that the function and meaning of Western “dualism” can be assessed and, possibly, modified.

Course completion requirements

Last update: prof. Dr. Pavel Barša, M.A., Ph.D. (11.02.2024)

Participation in class discussions, at least one oral presentation of readings and final written examination for those students who want to be graded.                                                                         

Syllabus

Last update: prof. Dr. Pavel Barša, M.A., Ph.D. (11.02.2024)

1)Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2013, Ch. 1, pp. 3 – 31.

2) Ibid., Ch. 2, pp. 32 – 56.

3) Ibid., Ch. 3, pp. 57 – 90.

4) Ibid., Ch. 4 - 5, pp. 91 – 128.

5) Ibid., Ch. 6, pp. 129 – 143.

6) Ibid., Ch. 7, pp. 144 – 171.

7) Ibid., Ch. 8, pp. 174 – 200.

8) Ibid., Ch. 9, pp. 201 – 231.

9) Ibid., Ch. 10, pp. 232 – 246.

10) Ibid., Ch. 11, pp. 247 – 280.

11) Ibid., Ch. 12, pp. 281 – 308.

12) Ibid., Ch. 13 - 14, pp. 309 – 364.

13) Ibid., Ch. 15 – Epilogue, pp. 365 – 406.