This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module critically surveys anthropological approaches to creativity and creative expression—selected from research on creativity itself, and on the anthropology of art and literature (both oral and written)—and lays the foundations for students to undertake their own innovations in anthropological form. The notion of 'creativity' is often tied to a Western humanist model of subjectivity. In this module, we rethink creativity from a ‘post-humanist’ standpoint informed by new anthropological research, and interdisciplinary work on novelty, affect, desire, materiality, and material agency. We explore three fields of creative practice as they relate to contemporary anthropology. 1) We review classic approaches to the anthropology of art, in both non-Western and Western contexts. We assess recent breakthroughs which challenge the borders between artistic and ethnographic discourse, exploring how the ethnographic encounter can be rethought via dialogue with contemporary artists. 2) We review the anthropology of literature, and assess both pioneering forms of literary expression in the work of anthropologists, and the output of anthropological practitioners of literary fiction and poetry. 3) We examine how anthropology itself can be conceptualised as the creative expression of an encounter with others, lived experience, and the unknown, and explore the implications for anthropological modes of representation (including public anthropology). Students have the option to develop a creative project during the module that builds on this training, and can submit both academic and practice-led creative anthropological research as their assessment.
Total contact hours: 20
Private study hours: 130
Total study hours: 150
Available as an elective module
Short Essay (2000 words) (40%)
Final Project (1500 words plus text or 2500 words) (60%)
Reassessment methods
Like for Like
Berlant, L. and K. Stewart. 2019. The Hundreds. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bruder, J. 2021. Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century. London: Swift Press.
De Angelis, R. (ed) 2002. Between Anthropology and Literature. London: Routledge.
Hallam, E. and T. Ingold. (eds) 2008. Creativity and Cultural Improvision. Oxford: Berg.
Morphy, H. and M. Perkins. 2005. The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Narayan, K. 2012. Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pandian, Anand. 2019. A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schneider, A and C. Wright. 2013. Anthropology and Art Practice. London: Bloomsbury.
Schwab, G. 2012. Imaginary Ethnographies: Literature, Culture, and Subjectivity. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shah, A. 2019. Nightmarch: Among India's Revolutionary Guerillas. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Svasek, M. 2007. Anthropology, Art and Cultural Production. London: Pluto Press.
Tarlo, E. 2017. Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair. London: Oneworld.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
8.1 Critically engage with current problems and key trends in anthropological literature on creativity and creative expression (e.g. humanist and post-humanist approaches to creativity and material culture; anthropology and art; the ethnographic turn in art practice; the relationship between anthropological and literary representation; the affective turn in social theory; the impact of new technologies on creative practice).
8.2 Understand the historical development of the anthropological literature on creativity and creative expression applicable to their own scholarship and research.
8.3 Cultivated an in-depth understanding of the historical depth and cultural diversity of creative practices and modes of creative expression, in both Western and non-Western societies, and a practical understanding of how anthropologists, past and present, have approached their study, both theoretically and methodologically.
8.4 Situate and analyse from an anthropological perspective the topics of creativity, creative expression and the arts in relation to relevant social, political, economic, and historical contexts; and to develop critical awareness of the strengths and limitations of this approach compared to other disciplinary perspectives on creativity.
8.5 Assess the originality and key theoretical contributions of anthropologists working on creativity, art and literature to the wider discipline of social anthropology.
8.6 Understand the impact of key works in the anthropology of creativity on anthropological modes of representation; and have developed a critical understanding of the practical relevance of their training to the use of anthropological methods and representational techniques.
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