Special Topics: Research-Led Seminar in Anthropology and Planetary Futures

This advanced thematic seminar is a postgraduate level course designed for students enrolled in the Master of Anthropology and Planetary Futures. This seminar is part of the “special topics” curriculum and offers an in-depth exploration of specific themes and research methodologies aligned with the expertise of the faculty member leading the course (subject to regular rotation). Each offering of this seminar will focus on a different ethnographic and theoretical problem at the forefront of the discipline, providing students with a unique opportunity to engage in high-level thinking, collaborate with faculty, and contribute to research projects rooted in ethnographic methods and writing. The course is structured to critically examine the chosen theme, enabling students to develop a comprehensive understanding of the underlying social, cultural, political, and environmental dynamics at play. By doing so, students will contribute to the broader field of anthropology and its potential to shape more sustainable and just futures for our planet. It is important to note that the course content and structure will be reshaped and adapted for each offering based on the expertise and research agenda of the faculty member leading the seminar. The format, assessment structure, reading list, and schedule will be updated to align with the specific theme and research area of the “special topic.” Students enrolled in the Master of Anthropology and Planetary Futures program have the opportunity to take this course up to two times, each time exploring a different theme and scholarly agenda. This seminar provides an unparalleled opportunity for students to engage with cutting-edge research. Please refer to the class summary for the specific term in which you wish to enrol for a detailed description of the expert guest convenor, theme, format, scheduling, assessment structure, and indicative readings. Sample topics may include, but are not limited to, the following. · Migration & Xenophobia · Tecno-solutions and limits · Monsters · Crises of freedom: Slavery, trafficking & other misfits · Crises of Waste · Financial Crisis · Democracies of/in Crisis · Conservation and Extinction 2026 Grift Economies: Anthropology of Scams and Scamming This seminar approaches scams, grifts, and fraudulent economies as social phenomena worthy of serious anthropological attention. Drawing on Marcel Mauss's concept of the "total prestation," we examine how grifts—like gifts—are embedded in complex webs of social relations, moral economies, and cultural logics. However, where gift exchange creates reciprocal gift economies across diverse cultural and political-economic contexts. The course asks: How do grifts materialize wealth, produce value, and generate new forms of precarity? What role do gender, technology, and political affect play in structuring economies of deception? Organized thematically rather than regionally, the seminar moves from foundational questions about wealth and obligation to contemporary manifestations of financial mania, political chaos, and kleptocratic governance. We examine how confidence tricks exploit desire and ambivalence, how pyramid schemes emerge in post-socialist transitions and Global South contexts, and how charismatic leadership mobilizes speculative fervor in cryptocurrency markets. Later weeks explore the intersection of grift economies with right-wing populism, grievance politics, and authoritarian capitalism, analysing phenomena from QAnon conspiracies to Argentina's libertarian turn. Throughout, we attend to how ethnographic methods can illuminate the moral ambiguities, structural conditions, and lived experiences that make grift economies both productive and predatory, asking how anthropology's analytical tools—from kinship and exchange theory to studies of secrecy and speculation—can help us understand economies organized around deception in our current historical moment.