Reflections on 'the ending' as an analytical concept and an empirical reality
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By Finn Sivert Nielsen
Student presentations:
Since a lot of students (36 at the last count) have registered for this course, it will be impossible for all participants to make a presentation. You should therefore contact me as soon as possible to state your interest in holding a presentation. There will be a total of 6 presentations held during the course - 3 in week 44 and 3 in week 47-48. A maximum of 3 students will participate in each presentation. Each presentation should be approx. 45 minutes long.
The presentations will focus on the following literature:
Week 44:
- Presentation 1: Time and poetry - based on the texts by Zerubavel, Taha and Nielsen
- Presentation 2: The demise of the public domain - based on the texts by Höjdestrand, Mitchell and Sennett
- Presentation 3: Loss and death - based on the texts by Goffman, Justus, Saarinen, Slaughter, Madison and Lock
Week 47-48:
- Presentation 4: The end of history - based on the texts by Fukayama, Baudrillard and Risse-Kappen
- Presentation 5: The fall of communism - based on texts by Szelenyi, Verdery, Hart and Carothers
- Presentation 6: Collapse of stability - based on the 12 remaining texts on the reading list for week 2, starting with Haley and ending with Redhead (please note that almost all of these texts are very short, most of them are simply news items).
Please note that student presentations should not simply summarize the texts (this is particularly true of presentation 6!). Instead, you should try to draw out salient themes that are present in all or some of the texts, identify interesting differences between the texts - etc. Each presentation should make an explicit attempt to arrive at an anthropologically relevant formulation of what the "ending" - as an analytical concept - might be.
Course papers:
In order to receive credit for the course, students must write a course paper, which will be marked as "passed / not passed" by the teacher. The paper may discuss any subject related to the course. You are free to refer to literature outside the course curriculum, but the paper must also make substantial use of at least 3-4 texts on the curriculum. You may want to use your student presentation as a point of departure when writing your paper. This is fully acceptible, but the paper must expand substantially on the discussion in the student presentation.In addition, please note the following:
- Grading: Papers by Danish students will be marked as "passed / not passed". Foreign students may need a grade on their paper. In order to receive this, you must write clearly on the first page of the paper that you need a grade.
- Deadline: The paper must be sent to me as an email attachment (click here for contact details) no later than December 15, 2007. If it's impossible for you to meet this deadline, please contact me and I will make an exception. Please note: Since I will not be in Denmark when papers are turned in, you must send your paper via email!! Feedback and grades on the papers will be sent to you no later than January 10. If you need to have your paper graded before this date, you must write this clearly on the from page of the paper!
- Paper length: Danish BA students: 15.000 characters; Danish MA students: 5 pages; Foreign students should consult with the international coordinator and their home university.
- Grade form / 'forside': A grade form (available at the department secretariat) must be filled in and delivered to me on the last day of the course (November 27).
- Additional literature for MA students: MA students should turn in a list of additional literature (approx. 200 pages) that they themselves have put together, along with their paper. The list must be approved by me, but since this is a highly experimental course, I will allow you to choose texts of almost any kind, as long as they address the problem of "the ending", and are in some way or other anthropologically relevant. In your course paper, you should make substantial use of at least 1-2 of the texts from the additional reading list.