Preliminary reading list
Incoming students sometimes ask us to recommend books and articles they can read in the summer months, before starting their programmes of study at the LSE. Below is a preliminary reading list which you might like to explore in the coming months - through borrowing some of the titles from your local library rather than buying them. Please note, however, that you are not obliged to do any reading before the course begins.
For students who have a limited background in social anthropology, it may be useful to read one of the following textbooks.
Astuti, R., Parry, J., Stafford, C. 2007 Questions of Anthropology. London Bloomsbury 3PL
Eriksen, T.H 2001 Small Places Large Issues : An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. Pluto Press
K. Morrison 2006 Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought. Sage
Evans-Pritchard, E.E., Gillies, E. 1976 Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic amongst the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Niehaus, I., Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa. Vol.43. Cambridge University Press, 2012
You might also want to read one or more books or articles written by members of staff at the LSE, in order to familiarise yourself with some of our work. If you look at the departmental website, under 'people', you’ll find details of publications by individual members of staff or you can see Recent Books online. You’ll also see that many of us have articles freely available in the LSE Research Online repository. Some recent books include:
Catherine Allerton, Potent Landscapes: Place and Mobility in Eastern Indonesia.
Rita Astuti, Jonathan Parry & Charles Stafford (eds.), Questions of anthropology.
Mukulika Banerjee, Muslim portraits.
Laura Bear, Lines of the nation: Indian railway workers, bureaucracy, and the intimate historical self.
Maurice Bloch, In and Out of Each Other's Bodies.
Fenella Cannell, Power and intimacy in the Christian Philippines.
Fenella Cannell, The anthropology of Christianity.
Matthew Engelke, A problem of presence: beyond scripture in an African church.
Deborah James (Ed), Culture Wars: Context, Models and Anthropologists' Accounts.
Deborah James, Gaining ground: “rights” and “property” in South African land reform.
Nicholas Long (Ed), Sociality: New Directions.
Mathijs Pelkmans, Ethnographies of Doubt: Faith and Uncertainty in Contemporary Societies.
Mathijs Pelkmans, Conversion after Socialism: Disruptions, Modernisms and Technologies of Faith in the Former Soviet Union.
Mathijs Pelkmans, Defending the border: identity, religion and modernity in the Republic of Georgia.
Michael Scott, The severed snake: matrilineages, making place, and a Melanesian Christianity in Southeast Solomon Islands.
Hans Steinmuller, Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China.
Harry Walker, Under a Watchful Eye: Self, Power and Intimacy in Amazonia.
Lists of course-specific readings may be found by consulting the course guide pages. Please note that pages relevant to 2016/17 studies are still being updated.
Course availability
In the first year you will need to take 3 complusory courses (AN100, AN101 and AN102) and an outside option.
Full programme regulations, including details of second and third year compulsory and optional courses can be found here.
Provisional Timetable
The provisional timetable for 2016/17 is not yet available. Larger Anthropology courses will have multiple seminars each week. You will be put into a group at the beginning of term and will only need to attend one seminar per week in addition to the weekly lecture.