Program Overview

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Multimodal Anthropology - Experimental Approaches

Course Description

This course serves as an immersive introduction to the realm of multimodal anthropology, focusing on the practical application of audio-visual and diverse multimodal methodologies within the sphere of social science research. With a hands-on approach, students will learn how to incorporate multimodal elements into their research projects. The course encourages participants to think beyond the usual boundaries of social sciences and reflect critically on how knowledge is produced. It also teaches students to effectively communicate research findings using various media.

Course Objectives

The purpose of the internationalisation electives is to provide students with the opportunity to use a foreign language in an academic setting, and to work with an academic theme within the humanities. The purpose is also to teach the students to operate in a cross-disciplinary teaching context, thereby gaining a cross-disciplinary perspective on their own subject area.

Academic Objectives

In the evaluation of the student’s performance, emphasis is placed on the extent to which the student is able to:

• relate the exercises carried out to academic (multimodal) anthropology
• apply the key theoretical and methodological approaches of the course
• critically reflect on their own oral and/or written products (and those produced by others) in relation to the academic and theoretical discussions of the course.

Skills

• engage in critical scientific analysis of multimodal approaches and discuss the epistemological implications of the given methodological/analytical/ethical approaches applied in their work
• discuss the theme of the course in the foreign language in an academic context.

Competences

• independently plan and carry out collaborative multimodal exercises with fellow students and research participants
• participate constructively in learning collaboration in a foreign language across educational and/or cultural backgrounds
• gain perspective on and compare the academic profile of the degree programme in relation to the subject areas of the humanities.

Course Details

• ECTS: 10
• Forms of instruction: Classroom instruction, practical, and supervision
• Form of examination: Take-home assignment (Assign)
• Language of instruction: English
• Level: Bachelor
• Location: Aarhus
• Maximum number of participants: Maximum 30 participants. 10 seats are reserved for international exchange students from AU partner universities.

Teaching

• Instructors:
  • PA Peter Kærgaard Andersen
  • Course coordinator: Christian Suhr
• Comments on the form of instruction: The course covers a variety of elements, including conceptualisation of multimodal, digital and online components in social science research, practical development and implementation of multimodal components, basic editing of multimodal material, analysis and discussion of multimodal media, epistemological dimensions of multimodal anthropological approaches, and ethical issues related to multimodal practice.

Literature

• Madden, R. 2010. Looking at People: Observations and Images. 96-114 in Madden, R. Being Ethnographic: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Ethnography. London: SAGE.
• Mead, M. and Bateson, G. 1977. On the Use of the Camera in Anthropology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 4(2):78-80.
• Pink, S. 2013 [2009]. The Visual in Ethnography: Photography, Video, Cultures and Individuals. In Doing Visual Ethnography 2nd ed. London: Sage.
• Cox, R., Irving, A. and Wright, C. 2016. Introduction: the sense of the senses. 1- 19 in Cox, R., A. Irving and C. Wright (eds.) Beyond text? Critical practices and sensory anthropology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Vium, C. 2018. Temporal Dialogues: Collaborative Photographic Re-enactments as a form of Cultural Critique, Journal of Visual Anthropology 31(4-5):355-375.
• Dattatreyan, E. G. and Marrero-Guillamón, I. 2019. Introduction: Multimodal Anthropology and the Politics of Invention. American Anthropologist 121(1):220-228
• Pink, S. 2007. Walking with video. Visual Studies, 22(3):240-252.
• Waltorp, K. 2018b. Intimacy, concealment and unconscious optics: Filmmaking with young Muslim women in Copenhagen. Journal of Visual Anthropology 31(4).
• Høgel, J. K. 2013. Montage as analysis in ethnographic and documentary filmmaking: From hunting for plots towards weaving baskets of data. 213-225 in Transcultural Montage (ed. C. Suhr and R. Willerslev). London: Berghahn Books.
• Otto, T. 2013. Ethnographic Film as Exchange. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14(2):195-205.
• Willerslev, R. and Suhr, C. 2013. Introduction: Montage as an Amplifier of Invisibility. 20-39 in Transcultural Montage (ed. C. Suhr and R. Willerslev). London: Berghahn Books.
• Castaing-Taylor, L. 1996. ‘Iconophobia’ Transition 69:64-88.
• Haraway, D. 1988. Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3):575-99.
• Hastrup, K. 1992. Anthropological Visions: Some Notes on Visual and Textual Authority. 8-25 in: Film as Ethnography ed. Peter Ian Crawford and David Turton. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Pink, S. 2015. Interpreting multisensory research: organizing, analysing and making meaning. 141-161 in Pink, S. Doing Sensory Ethnography (Second Ed.). London: Sage.

Examination

• Form of examination: Take-home assignment (Assign)
• Form of co-examination: Internal co-examination
• Assessment: 7-point grading scale
• Permitted exam aids: Not specified

Comments

• Ordinary examination: The exam consists of a portfolio that contains 3-8 assignments. The number of assignments in the portfolio, their form (individual and/or group-based, written, oral, product, reflection, peer feedback, set question or student’s choice of question, etc.) and their length is announced in writing in Brightspace and orally by the teacher at the beginning of the semester.
• Re-examination: The re-examination consists of a portfolio that contains 3-8 assignments of the same type and number as in the ordinary exam. The number of assignments in the portfolio, their form (individual and/or group-based, written, oral, product, reflection, peer feedback, set question or student’s choice of question, etc.) and their length is announced in writing in Brightspace at the end of the teaching period at the latest.

Course Registration

• Course registration for students at Aarhus University: Registration for courses takes place in Student Self-Service. Sign in via mystudies.au.dk.

Credit Module

• Credit module: If you are studying for a university degree, you can replace some of the compulsory or elective courses in your degree programme with individual courses from Aarhus University. Read more about credit modules.

Continuing and Further Education

• Continuing and further education: Read more about how you can take a single-subject course under the vacant place scheme on au.dk/evu (in Danish).

Exchange and Vacant Place Scheme

• Exchange and vacant place scheme: Under "Course type" you can search for courses that are available under the exchange or vacant place scheme. Please note that this does not guarantee admission to the course.