Anthropology Options (Part II)

So it's been a while. It took far longer than I would have liked for me to finally choose my modules, but in all fairness, it wasn't entirely my fault. It was partly due to the system we have on portico and my being unable to understand how things work. Rather than just looking on the "select modules" list, I decided to browse the module database, not realising until much later that this shows all modules that have ever been available (I think), and not just the ones on offer for that year. So I had many, many more to try to choose between, such as Anthropology of Western Industrial Societies, or the main ones I wanted to do - Ethnographic Film Theory and Practical.

Ethnographic Film Practical would have been perfect for me. It was a term long course that ended up with you producing a 15 minute professional-quality film. It takes you through everything, from using the camera and equipment, coming up with what you're going to film, and editing afterwards. Considering I've sort of decided that I'd like to work in television and/or film (on the production side, not the on-screen side), I thought this would be perfect. But I wasn't sure if it was available for undergraduates or if I'd have to pay the lab fee (which was anything between £550 and £1500 depending on how much the department paid for you). So I sent an email to our undergraduate coordinator, and waited many, many days for my dilemma to be resolved.

As it happens, it's not an available module, which I'd have realised had I only looked at the options under the "select modules" section. I felt like this:

Yes, I'm overreacting a little. I did feel stupid, and annoyed, and irritated, and many other words that mean similar things, but that's just because I'm impatient. Despite the fact that I'm still able to change what modules I want to do in the first week of taking them (which isn't until the first week in October), I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. The fact that I wasted almost a week looking at modules I'm unable to take anyway really annoys me. On the plus side, H told me about a module that SOAS are doing (or so we think), which is "The Other in Horror and Science Fiction". I think it sounds really interesting, and not just because it involves watching a film every week and has no exam at the end (only essays). So I've picked that one as my non-department module, and I really, really hope it gets the go ahead. It's hosted by their anthropology department, so I can't see why it wouldn't be.

The other modules I picked ended up being Digital Culture; Psychiatry; Science, Society and Biomedicine; and Nationalism, Ethnicity and Race. I don't actually know which I'm looking forward to the most - I think they'll all be really interesting. Although it's strange - I think I'm actually looking forward to Digital Culture the least, despite that being the module that I wanted to do all of last year, and was looking forward to for ages. Now that I've gone off the idea of my dissertation being internet-related, I'm definitely not as interested as I was.

And I think I know why - I'm interested in the internet, I really am. I've spent half my life on it. I find it fascinating how communities form and interact on various social networking sites, and how they seem to come together as one big "internet community" in the face of things such as SOPA and CISPA. But I think I was considering doing my dissertation on the internet last year mainly due to me not wanting to have to interact with people on a face-to-face basis. I'm shy, and I also have a tendency to isolate myself. I isolated myself a lot last year, there was no way I wanted to be interviewing anybody. I thought that if I had to, I could chat to people online, and send out questionnaires. And then when I was trying to think of a dissertation idea, I came up with about twenty ideas that weren't quite anthropological enough, or doable, or interesting enough. It drove me a little mad.

So I'm not doing the internet for my dissertation. Not in the slightest. I started thinking that I wanted to do something related to the medicalisation of gender (or biomedical creation of gender, or something). I've now decided that what I would really like to do is look at the self and identity in people who suffer from depression. Mum suggested I look at anorexia, but I pointed out that my medical essay last year focussed a lot on food control and anorexia, despite it being on control and use of the body amongst women in general. I'd be rehashing a lot of old ground, although I do agree that it would be a fascinating topic.

No, I decided I wanted to do depression and the self because I've been interested in identity, personhood and the self since the start of the degree. My best essay in first year was on body modification, and then I loved the medical anthropology module last year. Well, I loved it in sorts - I didn't like the lectures (or go to many of them) because I didn't like the teaching styles, but I really enjoyed the tutorials and the readings, and it's a topic I've considered studying further as a masters degree.

But masters degrees are expensive, and I don't want to go into anthropology as a career. I can't afford to study something just because I find it interesting, which is a shame, but c'est la vie.

And now I have to go and pack, because I'm going back to Liverpool today on a train that leaves in two hours, so I have to leave here in an hour. I've wasted most of the morning on the internet, so I'm now in a bit of a rush. At least I was able to update this.