Syllabus
History 398, Section 001
Honors Seminar: Gender, Religion, and Sexuality in World History
Spring 2016 TR 12:30-1:45 Honors House 155
Prof. Merry Wiesner-Hanks
Office: Holton 316 Office hours Tuesday/Thursday 11-12 and by appointment
e-mail: merrywh@uwm.edu
This seminar explores ways in which gender, religion, and sexuality intersected in the
interactions among groups and individuals in world history, and, in particular, ways
gender, sexuality, and religion were used to create distinctions between self and other.
This process, sometimes called “Othering,” is a way of defining and securing one’s own
positive identity through the stigmatization of or separation from an “other.” When
social, ethical, cultural, or literary critics use the term “the Other,” they are thinking about
the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes
another group. Theologians also sometimes use notions of “the Other” to talk about God,
or about attitudes toward the divine. These various understandings of otherness have
interacted in complex ways in different historical situations. The idea of “the Other”
emerged in social, feminist, and psychoanalytical theory to discuss the ways in which
markers of social differentiation shape the meaning of “us” and “them.” These categories
of distinction can be based on race, geography, ethnicity, economic class, or ideology as
well as gender, religion, and sexuality, but we will pay particular attention to the latter
three in this seminar. Readings will include written original source materials from both
local and text-based religions, general surveys of specific issues and theoretical
perspectives, and case studies that will also serve as models for research papers. We will
also be examining religious imagery and viewing several films that present these issues in
historical and contemporary cultures. The course will be organized topically, with
material for each topic from several different religious traditions and periods to allow
comparative analysis.
As you learn the content of this course, you will also be developing historical thinking
skills. Historical thinking requires understanding and evaluating change and continuity
over time and making appropriate use of relevant historical evidence to answer questions
and develop arguments about the past. It involves going beyond simply asking “what
happened when” to evaluating why and how events occurred and processes unfolded. It
involves finding and assessing historical sources of many different types to understand
the contexts of given historical eras and the perspectives of different individuals and
groups. Historical thinking is a process of chronological reasoning, which means
wrestling with issues of causality, connection, and context with the goal of developing
credible explanations of historical events and processes based on reasoned interpretation
of evidence. The brief papers and class discussion will provide you with opportunities to
sharpen your historical thinking skills, and the longer research paper will give you an
opportunity to demonstrate these in a sophisticated and in-depth way.
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The course will be conducted primarily in discussion format, and a share of your grade
will be participation in class discussion. In order to participate you must obviously be in
class; for that reason, I will take attendance every day, and your course grade will be
affected by a significant number of absences. (Meaning more than four.) In order to
participate effectively, you will need to do the readings, and to bring the readings to class,
as we will be referring to them regularly. In addition, every day before class (except for
days on which there are no readings), you will need to post at least one question based on
the readings in the drop box of the D2L site.
Course Requirements
Your grade in this course will be based on six different components:
1. (Worth 10%) Questions Based on Course Readings: Beginning with Week 2, by
midnight of the day before every class that there are readings, you are responsible to post
in the Dropbox of D2L at least one question based on the readings for that day. Put your
question(s) in the Comments section, and also upload them (or upload something) as a
document, because D2L will not allow comments alone to be submitted through the Drop
Box. These questions will be graded simply as submitted or missing.
These may be questions about things that you don’t understand or find confusing, things
you want to know more about, things that bother you in the readings, etc. Ideally these
are to be questions that open up discussion, rather than closing it down, so they should
not be answerable with “yes” or “no.” In general, analytical questions that begin with
“why” or “how” are more interesting than those that begin with “who”, “what”, or
“when.” I will use these questions to shape class discussion.
2. (Worth 10% each) Three brief (2-3 pages) papers responding to specific questions
about the readings, films, or presentations. I will give you instructions on these as we do
the readings; due dates are on the syllabus.
3. (Worth 30%) One longer (10-15 page) paper on an appropriate topic of your own
choosing. Instructions and grading rubric are at the end of this syllabus. We will be
developing these and discussing them in class throughout the semester, and you will have
a series of preparatory assignments, for which the due dates are in the syllabus. You will
make a brief in-class presentation of your research toward the end of the semester.
4. (Worth 30%) Participation in class discussion. It is expected that everyone will
contribute to class discussions. If speaking in public is difficult for you, let me know
immediately and we will make arrangements for you to talk with me about the readings
privately outside of class.
Technology:
Cellphones and I-Pods need to be turned off and put away.
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Laptops are fine for displaying sources for discussion and for note-taking. They are not
for web-searching or Facebook updates during class. This is a zero-tolerance policy; offtask computer use will result in my prohibiting you from using a laptop in class, and you
will be required to use ancient technology from that point on, in other words a hand
holding a writing implement.
Policies:
UWM policies regarding students with disabilities, religious observances, students called
to active military duty, incompletes, discriminatory conduct (such as sexual harassment),
academic misconduct, complaint procedures, and grade appeals can be found at:
www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf
Topics and Reading Assignments
The readings are all available on the course D2L site, labeled as packets. Please print
them out or have them on your laptop in class with you. Especially when discussing
original sources, you must have them in front of you to be effective in discussion.
I. Gender and Sexuality in Creation Accounts
Tuesday Jan. 26: Course Introduction
Readings: Packet 1: Horace Miner, “Body Ritual Among the Nacerima”; Brief creation
accounts from Australia, Japan, North America, West Africa
Thursday January 28: Creation accounts in Western and Eastern religious traditions
Readings: Packet 2: “Women in Creation Accounts” “Creation accounts in Hinduism
and Buddhism”
II. Key Concepts and Issues
Tuesday, February 2: Religion and Gender
Readings: Packet 3: Chapter “Religion” from my Gender in History; Ursula King
“Religion and Gender,” from Companion to Global Gender History
Thursday, February 4
Readings: Packet 4: Dag Øistein Endsjø, Sex and Religion: Teachings and Taboos in the
History of World Faiths, Introduction and Chapter 1; Joseph Runzo, “The Symbolism of
Sex and the Reality of God,” from Runzo and Martin, Love, Sex, and Gender in the
World Religions
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III. Relations between the Body and the Spirit
Tuesday February 9: Body and Spirit in Buddhism I
Readings: Packet 5: Dag Øistein Endsjø, Sex and Religion: Teachings and Taboos in the
History of World Faiths, Chapter 2, “No Sex, Thank You”; “Buddhist Monastic Life”
First brief paper due
Thursday February 11: Body and Spirit in Buddhism II
Readings: Packet 6: Chapters from Liz Wilson Charming Cadavers, and Buddhist
funerary meditations
Tuesday February 16 Medieval Mysticism
Readings: Packet 7: “Religious Mysticism in the Post-Classical World,”
Research paper topics due
Thursday February 18 Body and Spirit in Modern Christianity I
Readings:
Packet 8: Eugenia DeLamotte, “Sexuality, Spirituality, and Power”; Rebecca Cox
Jackson “Three Visions”; Audre Lourde, “The Erotic as Power”; Kwok Pui-Lan,
“Feminist Theology and Female Sexuality” from Women Imagine Change
Tuesday February 23 Body and Spirit in Modern Christianity II
FILM: Agnes of God
Thursday February 25 Body and Spirit in Modern Christianity III
FILM: Agnes of God
Readings: Reviews of Agnes of God
IV. Enemies Within: Witchcraft and Possession
Tuesday March 1: Christianity and its Others
Packet 9: Nicolas Terpstra, “Threats to the Corpus Christianum” from Religious Refugees
in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation, pp. 38-61, 102104.
Thursday March 3: European Witchcraft in the Era of the Witchhunts I
Reading:
Packet 10: Chapter on Witchcraft from my Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe
Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700, pp. 113-130, 141-153
Second brief paper due
Tuesday March 8: European Witchcraft in the Era of the Witchhunts II
Reading:
Packet 10: Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700, pp. 229-235, 260-275
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Thursday March 10: Witchcraft outside of Europe
Reading:
Packet 11: “Shamanism and Tribal Religion,” from Young, An Anthology of Sacred
Texts By and About Women
Jean and John L. Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism, Occult Economies, and the Crisis of
Reproduction in South Africa,” in Ellingson and Green, Religion and Sexuality in CrossCultural Perspective
Working bibliographies due
NO CLASS MARCH 13-20: Spring Break
IV: Missionary Encounters
Tuesday March 22: Protestant Missions in the Nineteenth Century I
Readings: Packet 12: Peter Stearns, Gender in World History, pp. 89-97 “Western
Influences and Cultural Reaction”; Joel Harrington, A Cloud of Witnesses: Readings in
the History of Western Christianity, pp. 424-427, “Missionary Societies”;
Patricia Grimshaw, “New England Missionary Wives, Hawaiian Women and ‘The Cult
of True Womanhood,” from Jolly and MacIntyre, Family and Gender in the Pacific:
Domestic Contradictions and the Colonial Impact
Thursday March 24: Protestant Missions in the Nineteenth Century II
Readings: Packet 13: Rita Smith Kipp, “Emancipating Each Other: Dutch Colonial
Missionaries’ Encounters with Karo Women in Sumatra, 1900-1942,” from ClancySmith and Gouda, Domesticating the Empire: Race, Gender and Family Life in French
and Dutch Colonialism
Tuesday, March 29: Early Modern Catholic Missionaries I
Readings: Packet 14: Joel Harrington, “New World Missions” from A Cloud of Witnesses
Jean de Brebeuf, “Instructions for the Fathers of Our Society who shall be sent to the
Hurons”
Antonio Galvao, A Treatise on the Moluccas, pp. 71-75
Introductory paragraphs and provisional outlines due
Thursday March 31, Tuesday April 5, and Thursday April 7: Early Modern Catholic
Missionaries II
NO F2F Class: Discussion conducted online
Watch Black Robe and The Mission
Readings: Packet 15: James Axtell “Black Robe” from Past Imperfect: History according
to the Movies, Elizabeth Barkley, “Historical Background and Context to the Film The
Mission, and these additional discussions:
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http://h-france.net/fffh/classics/revisiting-an-old-classic-black-robe-three-ways/
http://www.standrews.ac.uk/~histweb/scothist/brown_k/film/closed/reviews/black_robe.html
V. Religion and Same-sex Relations
Tuesday April 12: Homosexuality in World Religions
Reading: Packet 16: Dag Øistein Endsjø, Sex and Religion: Teachings and Taboos in the
History of World Faiths, Chapter 5: Homosexuality: Expected, Compulsory, Condemned
Third brief paper due
Thursday April 14: Same-sex relations in Hinduism I
Film: Fire
Readings: Packet 17: newspaper accounts of protests against the showing of Fire
Tuesday: April 19: Same-sex relations in Hinduism II
Film: Fire
Readings: Packet 18: Tanika Sarkar, “Orthodoxy, Cultural Nationalism, and Hindutva
Violence: An Overview of the Gender Ideology of the Hindu Right” in Pierson and
Chaudhuri, Nation, Empire, Colony
Three in-class reports
VI. Gender Reversals, Gender Transcendence and Third Genders
Thursday April 21: Gender Transcendence in Mythic Figures
Readings: Packet 19: Background: Sabina Ramet, Gender Reversals and Gender
Cultures, introduction
Sylvia Marcos, “Beyond Binary Categories: Mesoamerican Religious Sexuality,” in
essay in Ellingson and Green, Religion and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Three in-class reports
Tuesday April 26: Gender Variance in Early Christianity
Readings: Packet 20: Karen Jo Torjeson, “Martyrs, Ascetics, and Gnostics: Gendercrossing in Early Christianity,” in Sabrina Ramet, ed., Gender Reversals and Gender
Cultures
“Life of St. Mary/Marinos”
Three in-class reports
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Thursday April 28: Gender Transcendence in Hinduism and Buddhism
Readings: Packet 21: Cynthia Ann Humes, “Becoming Male: Salvation through Gender
Modification in Hinduism and Buddhism” ,” in Sabrina Ramet, ed., Gender Reversals
and Gender Cultures
Serena Nanda, “The Hijras: An Alternative Gender in Indian Culture,” in Ellingson and
Green, Religion and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Three in-class reports
Rough drafts due
Tuesday May 3: Gender Transcendence in Native American Culture and Haitian Vodou
Readings: Packet 22: Sabine Lang, “There is More than Just Women and Men: Gender
Variance in North American Indian Cultures,” in Sabrina Ramet, ed., Gender Reversals
and Gender Cultures
Elzabeth McAlister, “Love, Sex, and Gender Embodied: The Spirits of Haitian Vodou” in
Runzo and Martin, Love, Sex, and Gender in the World Religions
Three in-class reports
Thursday May 5: No class meeting; individual paper conferences scheduled May 4-9
Tuesday May 10: Final course wrap-up
May 15: Final papers due
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Research Papers in History
1. Thesis: Your paper should have a clearly-defined thesis, in other words, a point you are
trying to make. You can think of this as the answer to the central question posed by the paper.
(Theses and questions that deal with how and why make much better and more interesting
papers than who, what, and when questions.) Your thesis should be clearly stated on the first
page of the paper, commonly at the end of the first or second paragraph. You do not have to
say “my thesis is,” just state the central point of your paper outright, e.g.: “Queen Elizabeth I
was an extremely effective ruler because she was intelligent and well-educated, and because
she chose both her wardrobe and her advisors wisely.” A thesis presents the central argument
of the paper and does not simply say what the paper will be about. “This paper will discuss
Queen Elizabeth’s education, advisors, and clothing” is not a thesis.
2. Evidence: The body of your paper consists of the evidence that you present to support your
thesis. This may include the opinions of others about your topic, always properly attributed
and cited, and original source materials. In the case of the above thesis, for example, you
could use biographies and other books, articles, and web materials about Elizabeth or about
Tudor England, the writings of Elizabeth herself or of her contemporaries about her, or visual
evidence such as paintings or drawings of Elizabeth. You may also include the opinions of
those who do not agree with you and discuss the problems with their reasoning or the
evidence they use. (This is particularly appropriate for controversial theses.) In general, a
more wide-ranging and diverse source base makes a stronger paper. For graduate papers, the
majority of your evidence should be in original source materials.
3. Conclusion: Your paper should have a concluding section of one or several paragraphs that
ties your argument together your argument, and returns to the thesis. This is not the place to
introduce new information, though some final speculations about the larger implications of
your study are often common at the very end. An example of the latter might be: “One could
only wish that Queen Elizabeth I’s contemporary namesake was as well-versed in foreign
languages and as stylish in her choice of clothes.”
4. Notes and citations: All direct quotes should be footnoted, as should an author’s opinion on a
subject. Facts that are general knowledge do not need to be footnoted; as a general rule, any
information you could find in an encyclopedia may be considered “general knowledge,” even
if it’s new to you. Encyclopedias, whether print or on-line, are good places to start on a topic,
but are not considered appropriate as a source of evidence, unless you are writing a paper
about encyclopedias. Your footnotes (or endnotes) should be complete, and follow a standard
format such as the MLA Guide to Research Papers or the Chicago Manual of Style
5. Bibliography: The bibliography should be honest, and include only those sources you
actually consulted for your paper, not all those you found on a library or web search on your
topic. Like the notes, entries should be presented in a standard format.
6. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the unacknowledged borrowing of information, wording,
organization or ideas. Whether the original source is public (e.g. a website) or private (e.g. a
classmate’s paper) you need to indicate your indebtedness. Where you repeat the exact
language of your source, you must treat the borrowed material as a quotation and place it
within quotation marks. However, by merely changing a few words or word order or by
paraphrasing, you do not avoid plagiarism. In all cases, you must cite your sources. Scholars
do not work in isolation, but you need to distinguish your own thinking and ideas from those
of others. The dangers of plagiarism are not its discovery and punishment, but the lost
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opportunity for intellectual growth and a false sense of accomplishment. (Adapted from a
handout prepared by the Department of English, Trenton State College)
Grading Standards for History Papers:
The “A” Range: Your work is superior, well above an average level of competence for a class at
this level. This means:
1. You show a high level of intellectual engagement with your thesis and the issues discussed,
and an ability to analyze the evidence and to make your analysis seem interesting and
important. You avoid simply summarizing or repeating what others have already said on the
topic, but introduce new material or formulate your argument in a new way. You also avoid
digressing into a discussion of personal philosophy or extraneous issues.
2. Your essay is coherent and well-organized. It is governed by a clearly formulated argument
that the reader can follow throughout, and makes effective use of the evidence to provide
examples and points of emphasis in your argument.
3. Your use of the evidence is accurate, showing careful reading (or viewing) and understanding
of the material they contain. Points of comparison and contrast among them are noted.
4. Your writing is compelling, active, clear, and direct, and you do not resort to dense phrases
that obscure your meaning, or overly colloquial language inappropriate in an academic paper.
5. The mechanics of your writing, i.e., your sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, etc.,
are both accurate and effective.
The “B” Range: Your work is good, above average, which means:
1. Your essay shows you have thought about your thesis and your topic. Generally speaking,
you avoid simple summary of others’ opinions.
2. Your essay contains a clearly formulated argument that determines its shape and makes some
reference to complexities in the issues involved.
3. Your use of evidence is largely accurate.
4. You have made an effort to achieve clarity and fluidity in expression and develop your ideas
adequately.
5. The mechanics of your writing are largely correct, and you have made an effort to use them
to good effect.
The “C” Range: Your work suggests competence, but problems as well, which means:
1. You may not have thought sufficiently about your thesis or marshalled evidence effectively.
2. Your argument is not expressed clearly and is difficult to follow. Logical connections
between the paragraphs may be weak or absent so that the essay does not hang together and it
may be difficult for the reader to understand your points.
3. Your use of evidence is faulty or incomplete.
4. Your style is not clear or is overly colloquial.
5. Your grasp of the mechanics of writing may not be strong enough to allow you to say what
you mean.
The “F” Range: Papers turned in which turn out to be the work of others are graded in the “F”
range. In cases of suspected plagiarism, the initial burden of proof will lie with you, not me.
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