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The aim of this module is to make sense of our deeply troubled global moment with its ongoing environmental and political crises by situating these crises within histories of colonialism as well as long-standing moral and ethical debates within anthropology and its neighbouring disciplines. This module does not act as a comprehensive overview of theory, neither does it restrict itself to texts written by anthropologists. Instead of a chronological or ‘canonical’ understanding of anthropological theory, the course weaves together contemporary ethnographies with classical texts from social theory. We will explore fundamental questions such as: what does it mean to be human? What are the moral and ethical foundations of humanitarian actions? Do some lives have more value than others? How might the ecological crisis be understood as a crisis in imagination? How might anthropological theory and the conceptual tool kit that anthropology has to offer help us better understand, interrogate, and transform the debates, practices and moral foundations of global humanitarianism? We go into the microscopic details of neighborhoods, households, and individual biographies while at the same time, we locate these lives within larger political, historical and social landscapes. We explore themes that have been long-standing topics of study within anthropological theory such as: mythology; the study of bureaucracy; everyday ethics and concepts of care as they are linked to debates and issues within humanitarianism ranging from the politics of aid, ideas of neutrality to the making of ‘slow disasters.’ The course explores the role of the nonhuman within humanitarianism while simultaneously situating the ‘natural’ within the folds of the all too human.