26 September 2019
Professors Jean and John Comaroff are Visiting J Y Pillay Professors from Harvard to the Yale-NUS Anthropology Department this semester. They met and married at the University of Cape Town, where they both studied Anthropology. They were drawn to the discipline because it was the only discipline offered that acknowledged the African context in which it was taught. They appreciated that it studied culture through a lens of respect, and with a critical eye to the colonial effects and dynamics of inequality.
They perceive Anthropology to have shifted from the study of other cultures by the West in the colonial era, to being about anything and everything in the post-colonial era. The discipline has become more critical, less ethnocentric, and more involved with historical context of study. When asked about their experience in Singapore, they said they find Singapore a fascinating place to study Anthropology based on the complex structure of the society and the state. Their advice to budding anthropologists at Yale-NUS is to follow your passions. As Prof. Jean Comaroff said, anthropology will never be mainstream, so one must have a reason to do it. They urged students to never believe what they see, and to accept that they will be discomforted in the world because the world is a discomforting place, which is part of what makes the discipline of Anthropology important. They said anthropologists must use their passions and the things they learn as a call to action. Prof. John Comaroff added, the work should always be interesting, because the world will never cease to be interesting.
This semester, Prof. Jean Comaroff is teaching a class called Ethnography as Theory and Practice: Classical and Contemporary Readings, and a class called Medicine, Culture, and Modernity. Prof. John Comaroff is teaching a class called Theory from the South: A Critical Perspective, and a class titled Anthropology of Politics and Law: An Introduction.
Yale-NUS Anthropology Department enthusiastically welcomes Professors Jean and John Comaroff. We’re so happy to have the opportunity to study with you this semester!
What are the best reasons to study Anthropology at Yale-NUS?
Anthropology has been described as the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. Combining scientific rigor with humanistic imagination, anthropology embodies the best of what a liberal arts education has to offer. In the Anthropology major, you’ll learn valuable methods of analysis that will enable you to appreciate the full complexity of cultural phenomena. But you’ll also keep your eyes on the big picture, maintaining a truly expansive view of what it means to be human. In these ways, Anthropology provides great preparation for the professional and social challenges that you’ll face as leaders in the 21st century.