58吃瓜

SA4040 Perception, Imagination and Communication

Academic year

2026 to 2027 Semester 1

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 10

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Planned timetable

To be confirmed.

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Dr H O B Wardle

Dr H O B Wardle
This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr H Wardle

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

This module will explore the basic human capacities to envision, see and share knowledge as these are transformed biographically across/between diverse space-times, cultures and ecological circumstances. We will examine different kinds of evidence - the experience of a blind man regaining sight or the existence of culturally localised forms of madness - asking what these tell us about individual human perceptual, imaginative and communicative abilities. The module will involve some experimentation: you will create an ethnographic 鈥榩rovocation鈥� to foreground features of contemporary cultural experience. In the process we may learn more about the limits on our autobiographically constituted understanding of the world. We will learn to appreciate Jakob Meloe鈥檚 comment that 鈥榳e are poor observers of whatever activities we are not familiar with as agents鈥�

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisites

BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST PASS SA2002

Assessment pattern

60% coursework, 40% written examination

Re-assessment

3000-word essay

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

Weekly contact: 1 lecture, 1 seminar, plus additional film showings.

Scheduled learning hours

35

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

250

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • 1. contextualize current ideas about consciousness and self in terms of the anthropology of perceptual, imaginative and communicative experience. This involves a review of ideas in the philosophy, psychology and anthropology of conscious experience as well as a focus on themes in existential and cosmopolitan anthropology.
  • 2. gain a closer understanding of how subjective experiencing involves continuous adaptation to ecological, technological and symbolic relationships.
  • 3. explore how human beings form ideas/concepts that are both uniquely autobiographical as well as culturally, socially and ecologically imbued.
  • 4. Consider the idea of anthropology as a discipline that is cosmopolitan both in its method (reflexive ethnographic inquiry) and its epistemology (anthropology as a conversation about being human).