| Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender Dept. of Anthropology, U. of Minnesota (Anth 5980-003) Fall 2004 Professor David Valentine Class location: 245 Blegan Hall Office: 364 HHH Center Class dates: T/Th 8:15am-9:30am, 9/7/04 - 12/14/04 Phone: 612.625.____ email: [email protected] Office Hours: Tues. 10:30-11:30, Weds. 1:30-2:30, or by appointment Course Description How do contemporary anthropological approaches to sex, sexuality, and gender help us understand the lives of Indian hijras, Brazilian travestis, early twentieth-century American "fairies," Native American "Berdache," 1960s drag queens, contemporary sex workers in the U.S. and the Philippines, or the place of kinship in the contemporary United States? Engaging these and other topics, this course will explore anthropological approaches to sex, gender, and sexuality, 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 gender and sexuality have intersected with traditional anthropological concerns about personhood, kinship, gender roles, and community, and the ways that contemporary anthropological theories of sexuality and gender are both useful and problematic in describing Western and non-Western societies. We will look at the growing body of LGBT/queer anthropology, examine its roots in feminist anthropology, and place the new anthropological literature on transgender issues in the context of this history. Further, we will consider how shifts in feminist and queer scholarship and politics have also required anthropologists of sexuality and gender to incorporate an understanding of race, ethnicity, class, and globalization in their analyses. In particular, the course aims to highlight the impact of poststructuralist arguments about the performative nature of gender and sexual identity and Foucauldian approaches to power and identity formation on anthropological theories. In turn, we will consider what ethnography can contribute to theoretical models developed by scholars working outside the traditions of anthropology. A focus on ethnographic studies will be complemented by readings in other bodies of literature that have informed anthropological studies of sexuality and gender in the past thirty years, including history, queer theory, and sociology. Course Requirements The primary requirements for this class will be three papers, two short papers (4-5 pages for undergraduates, 6-7 pages for graduate students) and a final paper (5-7 pages for undergraduates, 8-10 pages for graduate students). Paper topics will be assigned well in advance, and are due on the dates listed in the syllabus below. Graduate students may opt to conduct a longer research paper in lieu of the class papers. To take this option, students should consult with me early in the semester, and regular updates on your work toward completion are expected through the semester. You are encouraged to send me drafts of your papers via email at least 4 days before the due date. Final versions of papers will not be accepted via email, however. Naturally, your papers should be carefully written and edited, and papers which do not meet an acceptable standard will be returned to you for revision. Your grade will be assessed according to a formula which takes into account not only your written work, but also your participation in classroom discussion and your preparedness. As such, it is expected that you will have completed the reading assignments listed prior to attending class so that you can fully participate in discussions. Graduate students are required to read the readings listed as "recommended," and undergraduate students are strongly encouraged to do so. In addition, weekly postings to the class [WebCT board] are required. I encourage all of you to take advantage of my office hours to come and discuss the class readings or your papers. If you cannot make the listed office hours, contact me to make an appointment. Finally, attendance at all classes is essential. If you have a medical or other emergency that prevents you from attending class, you should inform me prior to the class, or as soon after as is possible. Absences that are not accounted for by a doctor's note or other documentation will be reflected in your grade. What it Means to Read In setting the readings on this syllabus, I am laying out both a historical and thematic approach to the concepts of "sex," "gender," and "sexuality" in anthropology and the social sciences more generally. In reading your class assignments, I expect that you read the articles and books critically, that is, with an eye to the assumptions, claims, and conclusions of the authors. In other words, I expect you to derive from your reading not simply a knowledge of the content of the materials, but also the ways in which these authors understand and work with these broader concepts ("sex," "gender," and "sexuality.") As the semester progresses, you will be encouraged to draw earlier readings into your written work and class discussions. As such, my strong suggestion is that you take notes on the materials you read to aid you in this task. Plagiarism and Grading Plagiarism will not be tolerated, will result in a failing grade, and will be reported to the Student Conduct Committee. The university policy on plagiarism is available at: http://writing.umn.edu/tww/plagiarism/definitions_sara.htm The university grading policies can be found at: http://www1.umn.edu/usenate/policies/gradingpolicy.html Course Readings Three books have been assigned for this class: Newton, Esther (1979 [1972]) Mother camp: female impersonators in America. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Manalansan, Martin F., IV (2003) Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke U. Press. Foucault, Michel (1990) The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. New York: Vintage. The other course readings listed below will be available in the anthropology office. Resource List In addition to the class readings, the following texts are important for the broader field of inquiry, and are included here as a resource for you, but are not required reading for the class: Davis, D.L. and Whitten, R.G. 1987 The cross-cultural study of human sexuality. Annual Review of Anthropology 16:69-98. di Leonardo, Micaela (ed) 1991 Gender at the crossroads of knowledge: feminist anthropology in the postmodern era. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dynes, Wayne R. and Stephen Donaldson (eds) 1992 Studies in homosexuality. Volume 2: Ethnographic studies of homosexuality. New York: Garland. Ford, Clellan S. and Frank A. Beach 1951 Patterns of sexual behavior. New York: Harper & Row. Ginsburg, Faye D. and Rayna Rapp 1995 Conceiving the new world order: the global politics of reproduction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ginsburg, Faye D. and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (eds.) 1990 Uncertain Terms: negotiating gender in American culture. Boston: Beacon Press. Lamphere, Louise, Helena Ragon�, and Patricia Zavella (eds) 1997 Situated lives: gender and culture in everyday life. New York : Routledge. Marshall, Donald S. and Robert C. Suggs (eds.) 1971 Human sexual behavior: variations in the ethnographic spectrum. New York: Basic Books. Meyerowitz, Joanne 2002 How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Opler, Marvin K. 1965 Anthropological and cross-cultural aspects of homosexuality. In Sexual inversion: the multiple roots of homosexuality. Judd Marmor (ed.) pp. 108-123. New York: Basic Books. Ortner, Sherry B. 1996 Making Gender: toward a feminist, postcolonial, subaltern etc. theory of practice In Making gender: the politics and erotics of culture. Boston: Beacon. Reiter, Rayna Rapp (ed) 1975 Toward an anthropology of women. New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist and Louise Lamphere (eds.) 1974 Women, culture and society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Snitow, Ann, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (edss) 1983 Powers of desire: the politics of sexuality. New York: Monthly Review Press. Vance, Carole 1992 [1984] Pleasure and danger: exploring female sexuality. Second edition. Harper Collins. Course Outline Part I: Definitions and Boundaries 1. Introduction to the course (9/07/04) 2. "Sex" for the Ancestors (9/09/04) 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. Sex, Sexuality, and Gender in Anthropology (9/14/04) Readings: L�fstr�m, Jan 1992 Sexuality at stake: the essentialist and constructionist approaches to sexuality in anthropology. Suomen Antropologi 17(3):13-27. Vance, Carole 1991 Anthropology rediscovers sexuality: a theoretical comment. Social Science and Medicine 33(8):875- 84. Part II: Histories of Gender 4. The Anthropology of Women (9/16/04) Readings: Rubin, Gayle 1975 The traffic in women: notes on the "political economy" of sex. in Toward an anthropology of women. Rayna Rapp Reiter (ed). New York: Monthly Review Press. Ortner, Sherry 1974 Is female to male as nature is to culture? In Women, culture and society. Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds.) pp. 67-87. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 5. Feminism and Anthropology (9/21/04) Readings: di Leonardo, Micaela 1991 Introduction: Gender, culture, and political economy: feminist anthropology in historical perspective. In Gender at the crossroads of knowledge: feminist anthropology in the postmodern era. Berkeley: University of California Press. Strathern, Marilyn 1987 An awkward relationship: the case of feminism and anthropology. Signs 12(2):276-292. Recommended: Moore, Henrietta 1988 Feminism and anthropology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Chp. 1) Visweswaran, Kamala 1997 Histories of feminist ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:591-621. 6. The "Sex wars" and Social Constructionism (9/23/04) Readings: Vance, Carole 1992 More danger, more pleasure: a decade after the Barnard sexuality conference. In Pleasure and danger: exploring female sexuality. Harper Collins. Rubin, Gayle 1992 [1984 Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. in Pleasure and danger. Carole Vance (ed). Harper Collins. Recommended: Freedman, Estelle and Barrie Thorne 1984 Introduction to the feminist sexuality debates. Signs 10(11):102-06. Alarc�n, Norma 1990 The theoretical subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American feminism. In Making face, making soul/haciendo caras: creative and critical perspectives by feminists of color. Gloria Anzald�a (ed.) pp. 356-369. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. 7. Kinship and Reproduction (9/28/04) Readings: Collier, Jane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanagisako 1997[1981] Is there a family? New anthropological views. In The gender sexuality reader. Roger N. Lancaster and Micaela di Leonardo (eds.) Pp 71-81. New York: Routledge. D'Emilio, John 1983 Capitalism and gay identity. In Powers of desire: the politics of sexuality. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (eds.) Pp. 100-113. Schneider, David M. 1997 Power of culture: notes on some aspects of gay and lesbian kinship in America today. Cultural Anthropology 12(2):270-274. Gay marriage debate from Anthropology News Part III: Histories of Sexuality 8. Histories of Sexuality I (9/30/04) Readings: Foucault, Michel 1990 The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. New York: Vintage. 9. Histories of Sexuality II (10/05/04) Readings: Foucault, Michel 1990 The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. New York: Vintage. 10. Histories of Sexuality III (10/07/04) Readings: Weeks, Jeffrey 1981 Sex, politics, and society: the regulation of sexuality since 1800. London: Longman (Chapters1,2) 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, Chapter 1) Part IV: Queering Anthropology 11. Queering Anthropology I (10/12/04) **Paper 1 Due** Readings: Weston, Kath 1993 Lesbian/Gay studies in the house of anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 22:339-369. Newton, Esther 1979 [1972] Mother camp: female impersonators in America. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Recommended: Morris, Rosalind 1995 All made up: performance theory and the new anthropology of sex and gender. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:567-592. 12. Queering Anthropology II (10/14/04) Readings: Rubin, Gayle 2002 Studying sexual subcultures: excavating ethnography of gay communities in urban North American. In In Out in theory: the emergence of lesbian and gay anthropology. Bill Leap and Ellen Lewin (eds). pp 17-68. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Newton, Esther 1979 [1972] Mother camp: female impersonators in America. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. 13. Queering Anthropology III (10/19/04) Readings: Blackwood, Evelyn and Saskia Wieringa 1999 Introduction In Female desires: same-sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. New York: Columbia University Press. Newton, Esther 1979 [1972] Mother camp: female impersonators in America. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Part V: Debates 14. "Ritualized Homosexuality" vs. "Semen Practices" (10/21/04) Readings: Herdt, Gilbert (ed) 1984 Introduction in 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. 15. The Berdache Wars I (10/26/04) Readings: Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas and Sabine Lang. 1997 Introduction in Two-spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Whitehead, Harriet 1981 The bow and the burden strap: a new look at institutionalized homosexuality in Native North America. In Sexual meanings: the cultural construction of gender and sexuality. Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead (eds). Pp.80-113. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Epple, Carolyn 1997 A Navajo worldview and n�dleehi: implications for Western categories. In Two-spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas and Sabine Language (eds.) pp. 174-191. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 16. The Berdache Wars II (10/28/04) Readings: Roscoe, Will 1994 How to become a berdache: toward a unified analysis of gender diversity. In Third sex, third gender: beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history. Gilbert Herdt (ed.) pp. 329-372. Califia, Pat 1997 Sex changes: The politics of transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press (chapter __). 17. Third Gender Natives? (11/02/04) Readings: Wikan, Unni 1991 The Xanith: a third gender role? in Behind the veil in Arabia: women in Oman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Towle, Evan B. and Lynn M. Morgan 2002 Romancing the transgender native: rethinking the use of the "third gender" concept. GLQ 8(4):469-497. 18. Transgender Natives? (11/04/04) Readings: Besnier, Niko 2002 Transgenderism, locality, and the Miss Galaxy beauty pageant in Tonga. American Ethnologist 29(3):534-566. Kulick, Don. 1997 Gender of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. American Anthropologist 99(3):574-585. 19. Homosexual Natives? (11/09/04) **Paper 2 Due** Readings: Donham, Don 1998 Freeing South Africa: the "modernization" of male-male sexuality in Soweto. Cultural Anthropology 13(1):3-21. Cohen, Lawrence 1995 The pleasures of castration: the postoperative status of hijras, Jankhas, and academics. In Sexual nature, sexual culture. P.R. Abramson and S.D. Pinkerton (eds.) Pp. 276-304. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Part VI: Across Domains 20. Gender/Sexuality in a Globalized World I (11/11/04) Readings: Manalansan, Martin F., IV 2003 Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press (Introduction, Chapters 1,2) 21. Gender/Sexuality in a Globalized World II (11/16/04) Readings: Manalansan, Martin F., IV 2003 Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press (Chapters 3-5). 22. (11/18/04) Film: Ladyboys Readings: None 23. (11/23/04) Readings: Manalansan, Martin F., IV 2003 Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Durham: Duke University Press (Chapter 6, Conclusion). **Thanksgiving Break (11/25/04)** 24. Sex Work (11/30/04) Readings: Frank, Katherine 1998 The production of identity and the negotiation of intimacy in a "gentleman's club." Sexualities 1(2):175-201. Enloe, Cynthia 1989 Bananas, beaches, and bases: making feminist sense of international politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Chapter on sex work) Kempadoo, Kamala 1996 Introduction: globalizing sex workers' rights. In Global sex workers. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (eds). Pp. 1-28. New York: Routledge. 25. Incised Bodies (12/02/04) Readings: Chase, Cheryl 1998 Hermaphrodites with attitude: mapping the emergence of intersex political activism. GLQ 4(2):189-211. Walley, Christine 1997 Searching for "voices": feminism, anthropology, and the global debate over female genital operations. Cultural Anthropology 12(3):405-438. 26. Contested Domains I (12/07/04) Readings: Jolly, Margaret and Lenore Manderson 1997 Introduction: sites of desire/economies of pleasure in Asia and the Pacific. In Sites of desire, economies of pleasure: sexualities in Asia and the Pacific. Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly (eds). Pp. 1-26. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Valentine, David 2002 "We're not about gender": the uses of "transgender." In Out in theory: the emergence of lesbian and gay anthropology. Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap (eds). pp.222-245. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 27. Contested Domains II (12/09/04) Readings: Butler, Judith 1994 Against proper objects. Introduction. Differences 6(2/3):1-26. Ortner, Sherry B. 1996 Borderland politics and erotics: gender and sexuality in Himalayan mountaineering. In Making gender: the politics and erotics of culture. Pp. 181-212. Boston: Beacon. 28. (12/14/04) **Paper 3 Due** Course Review |