Reflections on 'the ending' as an analytical concept and an empirical reality
By Finn Sivert Nielsen
Understanding the articles:
The reading list for this course consists of 39 articles and text extracts. A few of these are anthropological, but the majority are written by specialists in other disciplines; quite a few are articles or news items that have appeared in the media. In some of the texts you will therefore come across specialized terms, vocabularies, methods etc. that you will not have the qualifications to understand. It is not recommended that you try to understand these articles in detail. Instead, try to grasp their general argument and to incorporate it into the general scheme of the course. As far as the journalistic accounts are concerned, I suggest you read them as evocative statements that (potentially) give substance to the course theme.
Coordinating your reading with the teaching schedule:
Lectures and student presentations will be
concentrated in two 3-day periods in weeks 44 and 47-48 respectively.
(The two 3-day periods will consist of one 3-hour session (day 1), one
7-hour session (day 2) and one 3-hour session (day 3).) Because of the
structure of the course, you will have to read the entire first half of
the course curriculum before the course even starts in week 44; some of
you will also have to prepare a student presentation for this week. The
second half of the literature must be read before week 47, and
additional student presentations must be prepared for this week. Details
on the student presentations will be published on this website.
Please, therefore:
1) Register your participation in the course with me as soon as possible (this will give you access to the course literature and the online course forum).
2) Start reading the texts for week 44 as soon as possible.
3) Start preparing the student presentations for week 44 as soon as the assignments have been made public.
4) Start using the online course forum (Endings Forum) well before we meet for the first time on October 30. Use the forum to exchange viewpoints on course texts, ask questions of the teacher, discuss student presentations etc. The Endings Forum is accessible from: www.necenedu.net/ (username and password will be supplied on registration to the course).