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Anthropology of Gender

Cross-listed as 01:070:378 and 01:988:378 Instructor: Office Phone: Office Hours: Office: Email: Semester: Time: Place: Robert T. OBrien 215.803.5181 M/R 12:30 - 2:00 and by appointment 316 RAB robert.t.obrien@gmail.com Fall 2007, September 4 - December 21 M/W 2:15 - 3:35 PM HCK 113

Course Objectives
To provide students with the knowledge they need to identify, explain, and historically contextualize the fundamental concepts, modes of analysis, and central questions of cultural anthropology. To provide students with concrete knowledge of peoples gendered practices, beliefs, and life-ways in a range of societies, paying attention to the relationship of this gendered knowledge to how groups are represented both in anthropology and in popular culture. To help students gain proficiency in the use of critical thinking skills in their assessment of articles and ethnographic writing. To help students increase their ability to express themselves knowledgably and proficiently in writing about central issues in medical anthropology. To help students improve their expression and proficiency in speaking about central issues in medical anthropology. To help students prepare for life in a diverse and global world by providing them with perspectives and skills for thinking critically about difference and their place within an increasingly integrated world.

Course Requirements:
Your final grade will be based on attendance, completion of ALL your assignments, participation in class activities, and improvement on your written work. Weight distribution of each assignment and a description of their requirements and aims are as follows: Class attendance, preparation, and participation 25% Attendance, preparation and participation are all required. You must come to class with the assignments completed on time and engage in class discussions and activities to receive credit for this portion of your final grade. This portion of your effort will be used to assess your ability to communicate key ideas and to hone your skills at getting to the heart of an argument. Three short essays 75% (25% each) Essays will gauge your knowledge of fundamental concepts while assessing your ability to integrate, synthesize, and understand the significance of the information discussed in class and presented in the readings. Each essay will be returned with feedback, so that you may have the opportunity to craft your critical thinking and writing skills. Your essay assignments will be distributed well in advance of the due dates. They will be 4-7 pages in length. See Writing an Anthropological Essay on Sakai for further guidelines regarding what is expected of you when writing a paper for this class.

Course Description:

Over a century-and-a-half ago, Sojourner Truth questioned essentialized notions about women and men in her Aint I a Woman speech to the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In this speech, Truth called attention to the ways that ideas of gender do not accurately represent the empirical reality of the lived experience of individual women (Or men. Or people of color.). Ethnography has demonstrated that individuals lives involve complex interactions of gendered difference with biology, social structure, and other axes of difference such as sexuality, class, race, nation, and ethnicity. We will examine gender as a set of socioculturally constructed meanings used to define and police difference (including those based on sex, but also class, race, and sexuality). We will discuss biological approaches to sex and gender, ultimately examining their socially-constructed roots. We will explore the work of anthropologists who have looked at gendered difference and its implications using many different frameworks. Anthropologists have looked at gendered difference from a crossroads of knowledge the point where the disciplinary trajectories of humanities, social science, and biology have met in anthropology, and the political, historical, and economic movements that have crossed this point. We will examine this crossroads carefully, considering the practices and beliefs that construct and are constructed by gender. Among the questions we will discuss are: What makes an approach to gender anthropological? How does such an approach conform to, contest, or build on other approaches that address all or part of the problematic of gender? What are the foundations of gendered difference? Are these things different across cultures and in different historical periods? Is gender related to systems of oppression that are natural and biological or are these systems cultural (and, therefore, potentially subject to change)? What are the implications of this gendered difference for other socially and culturally constructed differences race, ethnicity, nation, and class? How do these structures of difference play out in various socio-cultural and political economic contexts? What are the implications of gender theories for the epistemologies and practices of ethnography and for feminism and other social movements?

Lecture and discussion will draw on films, texts, and selected readings on specific aspects of gender, anthropological theory, methods, and case studies. Evaluation of student work will be based on three short papers and class participation. Approach to Teaching: We will argue. We will engage texts, films, places, and people. This course will require your active involvement in class discussions. It will require that you write down your struggles with all the material we'll discuss. To do this, you will need to wrestle with your values, your beliefs, your culture, and your actions, while simultaneously wrestling with those of your classmates, instructor, and our numerous interlocutors. Since for many of you the material will be somewhat unfamiliar, it might appear quite difficult at first. In particular, youll have to get used to a fair amount of technical terminology. We will go over definitions in class, and things should get easier as you become more accustomed to the language, style of argument, and intellectual issues in the readings. Please bring questions on material that you do not understand to class or to my office hours. The only bad questions are the ones that you dont ask. About the Instructor: I am a Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University. I am currently writing the final draft of my dissertation on community development and structural violence in Eastern Kensington, a neighborhood that is also struggling with gendered, class, racial, and ethnic tensions. In addition to having an academic interest in the topics of the course, I am an activist and educator campaigning on development, health, labor, and human rights. An examination of the fluid, lived

experience of gender has been useful to me, since, as Paul Farmer argues, the groups that are most affected by social inequalities are from particular cultural demographics, and, therefore, organizing around these issues requires frank discussion that recognizes social difference and social inequalities. I am looking forward to working with each of you to develop your ideas, to discuss materials, and on anything else related to the class. Please feel free to call, email, or come talk with me about any aspect of the class.

Course Policies
This class meets 3 hours per week. Students can expect 6 to 9 hours of preparation (reading, reflecting, reviewing notes, preparing for class and exams, writing papers, etc.) per week. Policy on Cell Phones: Cell phones, pagers and beepers must be turned off during class except with special permission from your instructor. Attendance, Preparation, and Participation: Attendance, preparation and participation are all required. You must come to class with the assignments completed on time and engage in class discussions and activities to receive credit for this portion of your final grade. You are allowed two excused absences. Use your free absences for illness or true emergencies. Any unexcused absences (i.e. without a doctors note or a death in the immediate family) will result in a deduction of 3 points from your participation grade. Please review the syllabus before scheduling trips, job interviews, or appointments as I will not accept these as valid reasons for missing class, assignment due dates, or exams (see exception directly below). If you know now that you will be missing a class because of a prior commitment, see me during the first week of classes. This will count as your one excused absence. Likewise, any excused absence(s) after the first will result in a 3 point deduction. Absence due to illness still means that you are not able to participate in class. It is your responsibility to keep track of your absences to know when you are in danger of incurring the absence penalty. If you have more than 4 absences by the week before the withdrawal date, you will be asked to withdraw from the course. On occasion, there will be films screened in class. If you miss the in-class screening, please make arrangements to view the materials on your own. Policy on Religious Holidays: If you will be observing any religious holidays this semester which will prevent you from attending a regularly scheduled class or interfere with fulfilling any course requirement, I will offer you an opportunity to make up the class or course requirement if you make arrangements by informing me of the dates of your religious holidays during the first week of the semester. Readings: All assigned readings must be completed by the time class begins. Tips on reading for a college class: Read with a dictionary. Wikipedia is only as good as the person who wrote the entry. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and wikis should only be used as an aid while working on your own. One gains full facility with terms and concepts particular to disciplines like anthropology only through the process of integrating what you already know, what you will pick up on your own, and what you will gain by being guided by the instructor and the scholars we will read. Take notes while reading. o Write down terms with which you are unfamiliar Look them up in the glossary and/or a dictionary. Bring terms that you do not understand to class. o Copy quotes (cite the text and page) that you think capture an important part of the reading that raises a question you want to discuss.

o Try to summarize the main points of the reading. You might also come to class with something that happened to you that relates to the reading a conversation you had in another class, a book you read, a movie you saw.

Grading and Evaluation I use the following scale when assigning letter grades at the end of the semester: A+ 96-100 excellent A 91-95 B+ 86-90 above average B 81-85 C+ 76-80 average C 71-75 D 61-70 needs attention and improvement F 0-60 unsatisfactory Academic Honesty: Rutgers University upholds high standards of academic integrity. Instances of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated; students violating the Universitys academic integrity policy will be subject to appropriate sanctions. Plagiarism can result in a failing grade for the course. Students found guilty of plagiarism are subject to penalties including dismissal from the University. If you use someone elses work whether the actual words or the ideas cite the reference. If you have any questions, see the discussion of plagiarism in the Rutgers undergraduate bulletin. If you still have questions (e.g. May I use Wikipedia?) come and see me. Students are responsible for finishing work on time and attending exams. All assignments must be completed in order to pass the course. The dates and material in this syllabus may be subject to change, so listen carefully to announcements in class. In accordance with University policy, make-up exams are permitted only in highly unusual circumstances. A student who misses an exam must notify me of the reason for the absence within twenty-four hours of the exam. Pre-existing travel arrangements do not constitute an acceptable excuse for missing an exam. Anyone who misses an exam and does not notify me within twenty-four hours will receive no points on that exam. Permission to take a make-up exam requires documentation of the reason for absence from a Dean and/or a physician. Final papers that are handed in late will be penalized one-half grade per day (i.e. from an A to an A-, an A- to a B+, a B+ to a B, etc). Anyone caught cheating or plagiarizing will immediately be reported to the appropriate authorities. No credit will be given to students who are absent on the days of the in-class writing, and there will be no make-ups for these, since only the best three of the four will count. In order to discuss the material, you will have to engage and understand all of the texts, etc. that we use. A substantial part of your grade will depend on class discussion and participation.

Schedule of Classes, Readings, and Assignments:


As with all things in life, this is subject to change. It is your responsibility to check Sakai and email to keep track of changes. Introduction: Whats at stake in an anthropology of gender? 9/5 Feminism, Anthropology, and Gender 9/10 di Leonardo, Introduction (Gender at the crossroads of knowledge, 1-36) Delmar, What is feminism? (Theorizing feminism, 5-25) Production/Reproduction: Family, Household, Reproductive Sex, and Imagined Communities 9/12 Doing it for Daddy Heng and Devan, State Fatherhood, (The gender sexuality reader, 107-121), Gutmann,

Seed of the Nation, (The gender sexuality reader, 194-208), Lutz and Collins The Color of Sex (The gender sexuality reader, 291-308) 9/17 Davis, Racism, birth control, and reproductive rights (Women, race, and class, 202-222), Williams, On being the object of property (Theorizing feminism 198-213) Collier, Rosaldo, and Yanagisako, Is there a family? (The gender sexuality reader, 7181), Sen, Population (The gender sexuality reader, 89-106), Gal, Gender in the postSocialist transition: The abortion debate in Hungary (The gender sexuality reader, 122133) FILM: Bubot niyar (Paper dolls) (2006, 80 minutes)

9/19

9/24

Gender, Race, and Class 9/26 Mullings (On our own terms, 1-10 and 20-29), Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement (Theorizing feminism, 26-33), Mullings (On our own terms, 107-193) 10/1 The Race/Sexuality/Gender Nexus Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power (The gender sexuality reader, 13-36), di Leonardo, White Lies, Black Myths (The gender sexuality reader, 53-70)

Gender, State, and Nation 10/3 Caught between a Nation and a Gender Alarcn, Kaplan, and Moallem, Introduction: Between woman and nation (Between woman and nation, 1-16), Joseph, Women between nation and state in Lebanon (Between woman and nation, 162-181) 10/8 Imagined Difference Prez, El desorden, Nationalism, and Chicana/o Aesthetics (Between woman and nation, 19-46), Probyn, Bloody Metaphors and Other Allegories of the Ordinary (Between woman and nation, 47-62), Layoun, A Guest at the Wedding (Between woman and nation, 92-110) FILM: Ma vie en rose (My life in pink) (1997, 88 minutes) First paper due Reproducing Woman and Nation Hartman, Seduction and the Ruses of Power (Between woman and nation, 111-141), Jutneau, From Nation-Church to Nation-State (Between woman and nation, 142-161), Prez, Feminism-in-Nationalism (Between woman and nation, 219-242) Reproducing Woman and Nation Hartman, Seduction and the Ruses of Power (Between woman and nation, 111-141), Jutneau, From Nation-Church to Nation-State (Between woman and nation, 142-161), Prez, Feminism-in-Nationalism (Between woman and nation, 219-242) Transnational Gender Chabram-Dernersesian, Chicana! Rican? No, Chicana Riqueo, (Between woman and nation, 264-295) Kondo, Fabricating masculinity: Gender, race, and nation in a transnational frame (Between woman and nation, 296-319), Moallem, Transnationalism, feminism, and fundamentalism (Between woman and nation, 320-348)

10/10

10/15

10/17

10/22

Social Construction, Performance, and Bodies that Matter 10/24 Sedgwick, Gosh, Boy George, you must be awfully secure in your masculinity! (Constructing masculinity 11-20), Butler, Melancholy gender/refused identification

(Constructing masculinity 21-36), Vance, Social construction theory and sexuality (Constructing masculinity 37-48) 10/29 10/31 11/5 Butler Butler FILM: Dirty pretty things (2002, 97 minutes) Second Paper Due Butler Butler Butler

11/7 11/12 11/14

Embodied and Enculturated 11/19 Fox Keller, Secrets of God, Nature and Life (The gender sexuality reader 209-218), Laqueur, Orgasm, Generation, and the Politics of Reproductive Biology (The gender sexuality reader 219-243), Sperling, Baboons with briefcases vs. langurs with lipstick (The gender sexuality reader, 249-264), Patton, From Nation to Family (The gender sexuality reader 279-290) 11/21 11/26 11/28 12/3 12/5 12/10 12/12 NO CLASS Follow Friday Class Schedule Fausto-Sterling NO CLASS AAA in Washington, DC Fausto-Sterling Fausto-Sterling Fausto-Sterling Fausto-Sterling

Week of 12/17 Final Paper Due Required Texts: Available at the Co-op Bookstore Lancaster, Roger N. and Micaela di Leonardo 1997 The Gender Sexuality Reader. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 0-415-91005-6 Kaplan, Caren, Norma Alarcn, and Minoo Moallem 1999 Between Woman and Nation: Nationalism, Transnational Feminisms, and the State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN: 0-8223-2322-2 Butler, Judith 2000 Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 0-415-96923-9 Fausto-Sterling, Anne 2000 Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books. ISBN: 978-0465077144

Cited Texts: (Posted to Sakai) di Leonardo, Micaela 1991 Gender at the crossroads of knowledge: Feminist anthropology in the postmodern era. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berger, Maurice, Brian Wallis, and Simon Watson 1995 Constructing masculinity. New York: Routledge. Davis, Angela Y. 1981 Women, race, and class. New York: Vintage. Del Valle, Teresa 1993 Gendered anthropology. New York: Routledge. Herrman, Anne C. and Abigail J. Stewart, eds. 1994 Theorizing feminism: Parallel trends in the humanities and social sciences. Boulder: Westview Press. Mullings, Leith 1997 On our own terms: Race, class and gender in the lives of African American women. New York: Routledge.

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