This seminar has two objectives: the first is to explore innovative media forms and formats that bring together anthropology (as a way of knowing and relating across difference) and design (as a way of intervening into the world). Are there ways of working collaboratively across cultural difference that go beyond appropriation, extraction, or exploitation? How can media forms be designed not only to communicate a point or argument, but also to perform or enact it – to bring it into being?  We will examine this by reading the (re)mixed-media monograph Phone and Spear: A Yuta Anthropology by Miyarrka Media, an intergenerational and intercultural arts collective based at Yalakun outstation on Yolŋu country in northern Australia.

The second objective is to develop and practice methods of critical and intensive engagement with a multimedia (or transmedia) scholarly work.  The demands and pace of modern life, and the flood of audio/visual media that battle for our attention, can act as obstacles to important textual modes of thinking and knowing.  Put another way, who has the time—or takes the time—to read and deeply engage with a whole book these days?  Or a book that has been remixed into an audio-visual platform? This seminar will demonstrate the value and rewards of doing so. It will introduce pragmatic and effective practices of critical analysis: how to identify and discuss (1) arguments and narrative strategies of persuasion, (2) the introduction and mobilization of evidence, (3) ways of writing collaboratively, and (4) the use and development of concepts and theory. Students will also explore how the affordances and potentials of a scholarly work can be “activated” for diverse purposes, across media forms and formats.

The book we are reading for this seminar is in English, and so knowledge of English is a requirement for this seminar. Discussions and work performed for this seminar can be in English or German.

Lern- und Qualifikationsziele BA und MA: Um die Lern- und Qualifikationsziele zu erreichen, werden in Gruppenarbeit zu erarbeitende Präsentationen der Seminarinhalte erwartet. Die Formate differieren und können von Plakatgestaltungen über Vitrinenausstellungen bis zu schriftlich fixierten Konzeptpapieren reichen.

Lern- und Qualifikationsziele MA Design Studies: Um die Lern- und Qualifikationsziele zu erreichen, werden zusätzlich zur Präsentation der Seminarinhalte in individuell wählbaren Formaten jeweils eine schriftliche Hausarbeit im Umfang von 20 Seiten oder eine vergleichbare vertiefende Leistung erwartet.