Anthropology of the Ancient World

The course aims to offer students a general overview of the discipline that places it in the wake of historical anthropology, to understand the contribution that the temporal and historical dimension of cultural and social processes offers to the construction of the identity of the ancients, but also of contemporary identity. Particular attention will be paid to the identification and definition of the emic categories, i.e. the hermeneutic categories applied by the cultures under investigation, in contrast with the ethical categories: the paradigms of the culture of the researcher. The anthropology of the ancient world intends to offer the student the critical tools necessary to face the social and cultural phenomena of classical antiquity, on the basis of a careful and competent reading of the sources.
For its very genesis, the Anthropology of the classical world was born as a discipline synergistic with the teaching of Religions of the classical world and that of Classical Mythology.

Knowledge: the student will be guided to the reconstruction of the different approaches available to the cultural anthropologist of ancient societies: genesis of the different possibilities of analysis, presentation of emblematic cases. She will also be able to reflect in an organic way on the complexity of the anthropological fabric that underlies one of the most significant community and individual experiences within traditional cultures.
Skills: the student will be able to interpret different phenomena with a look at both the overall reading of the examples proposed and the texts, while at the same time enhancing their personal wealth of knowledge. She will also be able to decode the similarities and differences between the different ways and occasions of presenting the problem.