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Oslo Summer School in Comparative Social Science Studies 2007

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Contemporary Art and Anthropology:
Challenges of Theory and Practice
Lecturer: Associate Professor Arnd Schneider,
Department of Social Anthropology,
University of Oslo

Main disciplines: Anthropology, Fine Arts, Media Studies
Secondary disciplines: Art History/Criticism, Cultural Studies

Dates: 30. July - 3. August 2007

Course Credits: 10 pts (ECTS)
Limitation: 30 participants

Application details:
http://www.sv.uio.no/oss/index.html

Objectives
This course will look at recent border crossings between art and 
anthropology, and explore the epistemological challenges arising from 
it. Following the so-called ‘ethnographic turn’, contemporary artists 
have adopted an ‘anthropological’ gaze, including methodologies, such as 
fieldwork, in their appropriation of other cultures. Anthropologists, on 
the other hand, in the wake of the ‘writing culture’ critique of the 
1980s, are starting to explore new forms of visual research and 
representation beyond written texts.

This course will explore the potential for future collaborations between 
art and anthropology. The curriculum will be based on an examination of 
key texts, and review of a number of paradigmatic artists and issues 
(such as, fieldwork/ site-specific ethnography, appropriation, research 
in and representation of different sensual domains/’synaesthesia’).

In its workshops and assessment options the course encourages 
presentation and submission of practice-based visual work.

The course format is lectures and workshops, in which students are 
encouraged to present their work in progress.

The course is interdisciplinary and directed at doctoral students and 
researchers in the social sciences, humanities, and in the visual arts 
(including anthropology/visual anthropology, sociology, art criticism, 
art history, fine arts, film practice and studies, design, media 
practice and cultural studies).


Essential readings (we strongly encourage students to obtain and read 
the following books in advance)

Schneider, Arnd & Wright, Christopher (eds.). 2006. Contemporary Art and 
Anthropology. Oxford: Berg.
Schneider, Arnd. 2006. Appropriation as Practice: Art and Identity in 
Argentina. New York: Palgrave.
Coles, Alex (ed.) 2000. Site-Specificity: The Ethnographic Turn. London: 
Blackdog Publications (with contributions by Lothar Baumgarten, James 
Clifford, Susanne Küchler, Arnd Schneider).
Marcus, George./ Myers, Fred. 1995.The Traffic in Culture, Berkeley: 
University of California Press. (especially “The Traffic in Art and 
Culture: An Introduction” by the editors, and Hal Foster’s essay “The 
artist as ethnographer”).

Assessment is either

in the form of a written essay (6000 – 8000 words), or;
by a visual piece of work accompanied by a 3500 words interpretive 
statement.
Visual work can be submitted in the following formats (DVD, CD-Rom, PAL 
VHS, photographic portfolio/essay as bound copy A4 format). Work will 
not be returned. Students who want to select this option should discuss 
and agree this with the course director before the end of the course week.

Full course details at:
http://www.sv.uio.no/oss/schneider.html

The Lecturer
Arnd Schneider writes on contemporary art and anthropology, migration 
and ethnographic film. His main publications include Appropriation as 
Practice: Art and Identity in Argentina (Palgrave, 2006) Futures Lost: 
Nostalgia and Identity among Italian Immigrants in Argentina (Peter 
Lang, 2000), and as co-editor with Christopher Wright, Contemporary Art 
and Anthropology (Berg, 2006). His essays “The Art Diviners” 
Anthropology Today (1993, 4) “Uneasy Relationships: Contemporary Artists 
and Anthropology” Journal for Material Culture (1996, 2), “On 
appropriation” Social Anthropology (2003, 2), explore a new emerging 
field of art practices and anthropology.

Arnd Schneider co-organised Fieldworks: Dialogues between Art and 
Anthropology, an international conference at Tate Modern, London, 
September 2003. Arnd Schneider is Associate Professor at the University 
of Oslo, and has also been a Reader in Anthropology, University of East 
London and a Senior Research Fellow, University of Hamburg.

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