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Class number:
2995
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Title: Animism |
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Department: Anthropology |
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Career: Undergraduate |
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Component: Seminar |
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Session: Regular |
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Instructor's Permission Required: No |
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Grading Basis: Regular |
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Units: 1.00 |
| Enrollment limited to 14 |
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Current enrollment: 11 |
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Available seats: 3 |
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Start date: Tuesday, January 20, 2026 |
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End date: Friday, May 8, 2026 |
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Mode of Instruction: In Person |
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Schedule: TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM, MC - 309 |
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Instructor(s): Landry, Timothy |
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Prerequisite(s): None |
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Distribution Requirement: Meets Social Sciences Requirement |
Course Description:
What if the world and all within it were aware, sentient, and conscious? What if mountains, rivers, forests, and unseen presences were not things, but beings with whom humans are always in relationship? This seminar explores practices from around the world that experience the universe as animate, ensouled, and alive. Students will trace the history of animism from its treatment as a marker of “primitive” religion to its revitalization in contemporary Indigenous thought. By joining ontological philosophy, theories of universal consciousness, and multispecies ethnography, the course reimagines animism as a theory of persons and interconnection. Together, these approaches raise urgent questions about what it means to live in a more-than-human community of relations and why animism matters today. |