Instructor: David Valentine Tues & Thurs 5:50 - 7:55pm

Office Hours: Tues. 4:00-5:30pm email: [email protected]

Course Description

What do "sex," "sexuality" and "gender" mean, and how have anthropologists dealt with these concepts? This course will explore ethnographic approaches to sexuality and gender, and the complex relations between sexual and gendered practices, identities, and roles. With a particular focus on ethnographic methodologies and research issues, we will consider how studies of sex and sexuality have intersected with traditional anthropological concerns about kinship, family, and community. We will examine ethnographic studies, both US and non-US focused, to assess how cross-cultural studies of sexuality and gender have contributed to more complex understandings of these areas of human experience. While this course does not specifically focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues in anthropology, we will also look closely at the growing body of gay and lesbian anthropology, examine its roots in feminist anthropology, and place the new anthropological literature on masculinity and transgender issues in the context of this history. Further, we will consider how shifts in feminist and queer politics have also required anthropologists to focus on other differences: class, race, geography, and post-colonial relations. A focus on ethnographic studies will be complemented by readings in other bodies of literature that have informed sexuality studies in the past twenty years, including historical studies, queer theory, and sociology, with the emphasis on how ethnographic studies complicate and elaborate theoretical models from other disciplines.

Course Requirements

Attendance at all classes is required, and participation in class discussion will contribute to your assessment. You will be asked to submit four short (3-4 pages) reaction papers during the course, due in class on the day of the readings which are the topic of the paper. A short ethnographic project is due in class 8. A final paper (up to 15 pages) on a topic related to materials in the course is due in the final class.

Readings

The reading load is not particularly heavy, but there is a lot of material to cover. Prior to the first week, it would be very helpful if you could have read the following review articles which are on reserve in the library. We will draw on this material throughout the course.

Davis, D.L. and Whitten, R.G.

1987 The cross-cultural study of human sexuality. Annual Review of Anthropology 16:69-98

Gagnon, John H. and Richard G. Parker

1995 Introduction: conceiving sexuality. in Conceiving sexuality: approaches to sex research in a postmodern world. John H. Gagnon and Richard G. Parker (eds). London: Routledge.

Morris, Rosalind

1995 All made up: performance theory and the new anthropology of sex and gender. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:567-592.

Weston, Kath

1993 Lesbian/Gay studies in the house of anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 22:339-369.

1. Sexuality in Anthropology (I): Introduction to the Course and the Field or Everything you wanted to know about the Anthropology of sexuality but didn't know how to ask (6/2/98)

An overview of the course, syllabus and requirements, as well as an introduction to anthropological approaches to sexuality, gender and "the body."

Readings: none (presuming that you've read the above)

2. Sexuality in Anthropology (II): function and personality (6/4/98)

Sex and gender have been at the center of anthropological concerns since the discipline's inception. In this class we will explore some of the sexual concerns of our anthropological ancestors.

Readings:

Mead, Margaret

1969 [1935] Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. New York: Dell.

(Selections)

Malinowski, Bronislaw

1960 [1927] Sex and repression in savage society. New York: Meridian Books.

(Part IV)

3. Social Constructionist Theories of Sexuality (6/9/98) Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

Judith Butler and Michel Foucault did not invent social constructionism.... discuss.

Readings:

Foucault, Michel

1978 The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage.

(If you haven't read the whole book before, it's time!)

Weeks, Jeffrey

1981 Sex, politics, and society: the regulation of sexuality since 1800. London: Longman

(Chps.1,2)

Vance, Carole

1991 Anthropology rediscovers sexuality: a theoretical comment. Social Science and Medicine 33(8):875- 84.

Butler, Judith

1990 Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.

(Chps. 1 & 3)

Kessler, Suzanne and Wendy McKenna

1985[1978] Gender: an ethnomethodological approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Chp. 1,5)

Rubin, Gayle

1984 Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. in Pleasure and danger. Carole Vance (ed). Harper Collins.

4. Cross-Cultural Approaches I

The Power of Three: Third Gender Roles (6/11/98)

Much anthropological literature on sex and gender roles in non-US societies have focused on institutionalized third gender categories. What insights do these ethnographies provide?

Readings:

Herdt, Gilbert

1994 Introduction in Third sex, third gender: beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history. Gilbert Herdt (ed). New York: Zone Books.

Nanda, Serena

1990 Neither man nor woman: the Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

5. Cross-Cultural Approaches II:

It looks like Homosexuality, it smells like homosexuality, but is it homosexuality? (6/16/98)

Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

Can a category such as "homosexuality" be used cross culturally? Join the debate!

Readings:

Herdt, Gilbert (ed)

1984 Introduction to Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Elliston, Deborah A.

1995 Erotic Anthropology: 'Ritualized Homosexuality' in Melanesia and Beyond. American Ethnologist 22(4):848-867.

6. Queers in the Field I: Kinship and "Identity" (6/18/98)

Gay and lesbian anthropologists are increasingly coming out in the field, and doing ethnographies of queer communities. How have they engaged with traditional anthropological concerns, and what new insights do these ethnographies offer? And what does the concept "identity" incorporate, obscure, and elucidate for anthropologists?

Readings:

Weeks, Jeffrey

1995 History, desire, and identities. in Conceiving sexuality: approaches to sex research in a postmodern world. John H. Gagnon and Richard G. Parker. (eds)London: Routledge.

Lewin, Ellen

1993 Lesbian mothers: accounts of gender in American culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

7: Queers in the Field II: Communities and SEX! (6/23/98) Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

When talking about sex and sexuality, sexual practices themselves have often been left out of anthropological accounts. Further, ethical considerations make sex between anthropologists and their "natives" problematic. What kinds of knowledge are produced in encounters between anthropologists and their subjects when sexual desire is the unifying element both of communities and of the anthropologist's focus of study?

Readings:

Murray, Stephen O.

1997 Explaining away same-sex sexualities: when they obtrude on anthropologists' notice at all. Anthropology Today 13(3), 1997. pp. 2-5.

Blackwood, Evelyn

1995 Falling in love with an-Other lesbian: reflections on identity in fieldwork. In Taboo: sex, identity, and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork. Don Kulick and Margaret Wilson (eds). New York: Routledge.

Shokeid, Moshe

1995 A gay synagogue in New York. New York: Columbia University Press.

8. Extending the Analysis I: Race, Class, Difference(6/25/98) Ethnographic Project Due

One of the lessons of feminism has been that considering "gender" without understanding other kinds of social difference is madly problematic. How have anthropologists, dealing with issues of sexuality and sexual identity, drawn on this lesson?

Readings:

Amory, Deborah P.

1996 Club Q: Dancing with (a) difference. In Inventing lesbian cultures in America. Ellen Lewin (ed). Boston: Beacon.

Lancaster, Roger N.

1995 "That we should all turn queer?" Homosexual stigma in the making of manhood and the breaking of a revolution in Nicaragua. in Conceiving sexuality: approaches to sex research in a postmodern world. John H. Gagnon and Richard G. Parker (eds). London: Routledge

Stoller, Ann Laura

1995 Race and the education of desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the colonial order of things. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

(Preface, Chps. 1&2)

9. Extending the Analysis II: Post-Colonial Subjects, Undress! Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

(6/30/98)

Sex is not simply a natural act: how is it implicated in other kinds of social relations, in particular, post-colonial relations of power?

Readings:

Lutz, Catharine A. and Jane L. Collins

1993 Reading National Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

(Chp 6.)

Cantu, Lionel

nd Entre Hombres/Between Men: Latino Masculinities and Homosexualities.

Enloe, Cynthia

1989 Bananas, beaches, and bases: making feminist sense of international politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

(Chps. 1-3)

10. The Man in the Iron John: Deconstructing Heterosexualities and Masculinities (7/2/98)

With all this talk about multiple subject positions, fractured identities, and the death of the subject, have we forgotten about straight white men?

Readings:

Tuzin, Donald

1997 The Cassowary's revenge: the life and death of masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Katz, Jonathan Ned

1995 The invention of heterosexuality. New York: Dutton.

(Chps.1,3,8)

Rhode, Deborah L.

1997 Speaking of Sex: the denial of gender inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

(Chp. 8)

11. Invasion of the Body Theorists!

Bodily Practices, Bodily Make Up (7/7/98)

"The body" is engaged in many ways in social science, feminism, and queer theory. In this class, some of the more fleshy accounts.

Readings:

Lock, Margaret

1993 Cultivating the body: anthropology and the epistemologies of bodily practice and knowledge. Annual Review of Anthropology 22:133-155.

Blacking, John

1977 Towards an anthropology of the body. In The anthropology of the body. John Blacking (ed). London: Academic Press.

Le Vay, Simon

1996 Queer science: the use and abuse of research into homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

(Introduction, Chps 5-7)

12. Return of the Invasion of the Body Theorists!

Symbolic Accounts (7/9/98) Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

The body as a symbol: is it in danger of losing its corporeality?

Readings:

Martin, Emily

1992[1987] The woman in the body: a cultural analysis of reproduction. Boston: Beacon Press.

Martin, Emily

1994 Flexible bodies: tracking immunity in American culture from the days of polio to the age of AIDS. Boston: Beacon Press.

Valentine, David and Riki Anne Wilchins

1997 One Percent on the Burn Chart: Gender, Genitals and Hermaphrodites with Attitude. Social Text 52/53:215-222.

13. Paris is Spawning: Transgender Bodies, Transgender Theory (7/14/98)

From RuPaul to Judith Butler, "transgender" is the new obsession of gender and sexuality researchers. But at what price?

Readings:

Newton, Esther

1979 [1972] Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wilchins, Riki Anne

1997 Read my lips: sexual subversion and the end of gender. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.

(Pp. 1-58,79-89,115-136,141-172)

Kulick, Don.

1997 Gender of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. American Anthropologist 99(3):574-585.

14. So, what's gender and what's sexuality? (7/16/98) Reaction Paper due (1 of 4)

How do we account for the relationships between those human experiences summed up under the terms "gender" and "sexuality?"

Readings:

Valentine, David

In Press "We're not about gender:" how an emerging transgender movement challenges gay and lesbian theory to put the "gender" back into "sexuality." Forthcoming in Queer Anthropology. Bill Leap and Ellen Lewin (eds.)

Rubin, Gayle

1992 Of catamites and kings: reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries. in The persistent desire: a femme-butch reader. Joan Nestle (ed). Boston: Alyson.

Halberstam, Judith

1998 Transgender butch: butch/FTM border wars and the masculine continuum. GLQ 4(2):287-310.

15. SEX! is a verb (7/21/98)-- And so is "paper." Your final assignment is due today!