The Universal and the Vernacular. The Global Life of Concepts and Social Forms

Catalog description

Understanding vernacular concepts and terminologies has always been central to the anthropological quest to understand societies from 'a local point of view'. This has often been accompanied by a critique of universalist and Euro-centric assumptions in the social sciences and in social theory. As a result, the convention has become to treat the 'universal' (ideas, frames, institutions) as external, often imposed by colonial powers, while the 'vernacular' conventionally is seen as local and authentic, and the proper site of anthropology. This course seeks to rethink this spatial and historical distinction between the universal and the vernacular. Instead we ask: how, and when, do concepts, or practices, become embedded in a vernacular world? Conversely, instead of assuming that universals all originate in Euro-America, we ask: how do concepts and practices become both global and universal? We will trace how impactful ideologies, social forms and institutions have travelled in time to become perceived as elements of vernacular cultures. Drawing inspiration from the fertile field of global intellectual history, postcolonial thought and 'conceptual history', we will trace how key concepts and practices that are pivotal to public life in different parts of the world have acquired their cultural force and local meanings.