Critical anthropology of/in Europe

Michaël HERZFELD – Mars-Mai 2026, 3 ECTS

Code Pegasus : UNDSS2-088-0001
Responsable de l’enseignement : Maroussia Ferry

 

Appel à inscription

Cycle de cours « Master class » de Michaël Herzfeld (Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, IIAS Professor of Critical Heritage Studies Emeritus, Leiden University).

Cycle de cours “Critical anthropology of/in Europe” : Salle Marcel RONCAYOLO, (R2-05) : les mardis 31 mars ; 7 avril ; 14 avril et 5 mai de 9h30 à 12h30.

Dans le cadre de son invitation par la Chaire d’anthropologie européenne de l’ENS, le professeur Michaël HERZFELD donnera un cycle de cours excpetionnel de 12h au printemps 2026. Ce cycle, qui accueillera 20 étudiant.es maximum est ouvert à toutes et à tous sur la base d’une sélection.

  • Merci d’envoyer un mail à ces trois adresses en copie : herzfeld@fas.harvard.edu ; frederic.keck@college-de-france.fr ; maroussia.ferry@ens.psl.eu en précisant votre motivation pour ce cycle par rapport à votre projet d’étude et/ou de recherche en maximum 10 lignes + votre année d’étude et discipline/ département de rattachement.
  • Date limite d’envoi : 2 mars 2026 à 13h. Vous recevrez une réponse au plus tard le 6 mars 2026.
  • Objet du mail et du fichier pdf comme suit : NOM_ Prénom_CRITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY-2026

N.B. : les étudiant.es inscrit.es s’engagent à suivre les 4 séances dans leur intégralité.

 

Descriptif du cours

This course addresses the changing meanings of "Europe" from an ethnographic perspective. How do ordinary citizens inside and outside the European Union understand the concept of "European culture" ? How can we use the ethnographic angle of vision to dissect the lingering impact of colonialism on immigration politics, ordinary people’s lives, and anthropological thought about European identity ? The course will explore the potential of certain concepts developed by the instructor – notably cultural intimacy, social poetics, symbolic density, and crypto-colonialism – to explore these questions, turning, toward the end of the course, to the adoption of European civilizational practices and rhetorics by non-European societies as a critical mirror for rethinking the "idea of Europe" in anthropological terms. Readings will be predominantly descriptive and ethnographic rather than theoretical, but the guiding concepts will be articulated early in the course and discussion will focus on how to use those concepts to "unpack" the various ideological constructions of European identity and its subdivisions. The course will be taught in English, but questions and discussion may be in any combination of English and French.

Modalités d’évaluation

Course evaluation will be based on one essay in English or in French, the topic to be agreed individually between the student and the instructor, utilizing at least two of the key concepts of the course and the careful reading of one ethnography.

 

A propos de Michaël HERZFELD

https://anthropology.fas.harvard.edu/people/michael-herzfeld

Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University ; IIAS Visiting Professor of Critical Heritage Studies Emeritus, Leiden University ; and a member of the doctoral program in Beni Culturali, Formazione e Territorio, University of Rome “Tor Vergata.” Author of thirteen books (most recently Subversive Archaism : Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage, 2022 and Lo Stato nazione e i suoi mali, 2024) and numerous articles and reviews, and producer of two ethnographic films, he has served as editor of American Ethnologist (1995-98) and Journal of Modern Greek Studies (2023-24), and has just joined the editorial collective of HAU : Journal of Ethnographic Theory. He is also editor-at-large (responsible for “Polyglot Perspectives”) at Anthropological Quarterly, and is co-editor of “Asian Heritages” (Amsterdam University Press) and “New Anthropologies of Europe” (Berghahn). His research (primarily in Greece, Italy, and Thailand) has addressed historic conservation and gentrification, the dynamics of nationalism and bureaucracy, crypto-colonialism, and the ethnography of knowledge.

Co-editor, HAU : Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus, 
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University

IIAS Professor of Critical Heritage Studies Emeritus, Leiden University

Member, Collegio del Dottorato di ricerca in Beni Culturali, Formazione e Territorio, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"

RECENT BOOKS

Lo Stato nazione e i suoi mali, Castelvecchi, Roma, 2024 : Η πολιτισμική συνέχεια και η υλικοποίηση του παρελθόντος (with a translation into English by Cornelia Mayer

https://www.castelvecchieditore.com/prodotto/lo-stato-nazione-e-i-suoi-mali/

Herzfeld : Cultural Continuity and the Materialization of the Past), Benaki Museum, Athens, 2025