Spring 2011
Lecture 34913R 10-11:50 MW
Discussions 34914R through 34921R various times
Joseph R. Hawkins Ph.D.
Office Hrs: by appointment
Phone: Anthropology Offices (213) 740-1900 (messages only) or actually this is best for messages (213) 741 0094 at ONE
Office Location: ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives 909 W. Adams or
GFS 229A
E-mail: jrhawkin@usc.edu
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
The purpose of this course is to help students identify and examine social conflicts through the lens of gender and to make a comparison of such conflicts across cultures, regions and historical periods. The course will depend heavily on anthropological methodologies, feminist, and queer studies. Classes will include lecture, film, a field trip and other resources.
This course seeks answers to questions such as: What do economic and subsistence strategies have to do with attitudes toward sexuality and gender?
What are the ways that cultures provide for children, families and religious beliefs, while including a range of sex and gender roles? What do militaristic institutions have to do with same-sex eroticism? Do homosocial environments produce homosexual responses? How do men seek to control female reproduction? What is “natural” about eroticism?
In China until the late 1930s, many women were forced to bind their feet, a practice that was considered highly erotic. These constraints made it difficult for women to walk, and by extension helped men control their sexual activities and reproductivity (Hinsch 1999).
In certain regions of the world, people choose to raise female children as males. Some sub-arctic cultures do this when there are insufficient numbers of males who can be taught to hunt. As only “men” are allowed participate in the hunt among peoples of this subsistence category, the tribe, or band, depends on
“men” as hunters to feed their group. Transgendered biological females become
“men” and marry women to provide food for their families and their adoptive children (Williams 1986).
In Japan, for over 400 years men and male youths developed marriagelike unions and swore oaths of fealty to one another within the context of the militaristic samurai society. According to many scholars (Plugfelder 2001, Leupp
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1999, Watanabe 1989) males of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) were predominately bisexual, or ambivalent about the sex of their sexual partners.
In India, hijras are “neither man nor woman” (Nanda ) That is, they surgically emasculate themselves, and live lives of religious devotion, while acting as prostitutes and performing at religious rituals (Nanda).
These are only some of the many cultural responses to sex, gender and sexuality found around the world. This course will focus on anthropological and historical research, while inspecting cross-cultural perspectives concerning disparaged power positions for males and females, attitudes and ideas about reproduction, ideas about sex-linked life-courses, gendered identities and sexual practices. Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United
States, South America and the South Seas will all provide areas of study.
Our aim will be to review a broad range of cultural contexts in order to examine the anthropological data that focuses on the categories of sex, gender and sexuality, and to see how these vary from culture to culture. Through such an examination, we will work to see ways we might eliminate gendered essentializations, stereotypes and social inequalities, while simultaneously working to imagine ways of disarming social conflicts based on gender and sexuality.
Required Texts
Brettell, Caroline B., Carolyn F Sargent eds.,
2001 Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective , Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. Fifth Edition (GCC)
Nanda, Serena, Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India, Wadsworth Press,
1990 California. ISBN 0534122043
Course Reader (CR)- Available at Magic Machine
Course Objective
The primary goal of this course is for students to develop a critical awareness of the complex interrelationships between people and their cultures in the past and present, as well as in developed and developing contexts. More specifically, the course’s objective is to broaden awareness about the subjects of sex, gender and sexuality as these relate to patterns of subsistence, cultural ideals, historic eras, religion and ideological concerns. In addition, course assignments are structured to promote the refinement of critical thinking, reading, writing and speaking skills.
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Students with Disabilities
The University of Southern California makes every effort to provide appropriate accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with
Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations should be obtained from DSP and delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open
8:30am to 5pm Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-
0776.
Academic Integrity
Students are expected to submit their own original work for all assignments. Any breach of academic integrity will be treated with the utmost seriousness and could result in failure of this course. If you have any questions about what is acceptable and unacceptable academic practice, please consult the Writing
Center or come see me.
Academic integrity practices, especially citation and plagiarism, are discussed in
“Trojan Integrity: A Guide Avoiding Plagiarism,” which is available on line at http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/docs/tig.pdf. Other useful USC resources:
“Trojan Integrity: A Guide to Understanding and Avoiding Academic Dishonesty” http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/docs/tio.pdf, and
“Academic Integrity Overview” http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/docs/AcademicIntegrityOverview.pdf
Course Requirements:
Class participation 15 points (This includes attendance) 1
Response papers 40 points (4X10)
Discussion Participation 15 points
Two Exams
Final Essay
15 points (2X7.5)
15 points
100 points total
1 Each absence will deduct one percentage point. Four or more unexcused absences are grounds for failure of the class.
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Grade Scale
93-96%=A
90-93%=A-
87-89%=B+
83-86%=B
80-82%=B-
77-79%=C+
73-76%=C
70-72%=C-
67-69%=D+
63-66%=D
60-62%=D-
0-59%=F
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Class Schedule
Week 1
Week 2
Day 1 Introduction, Review Syllabus.
Day 2 Lecture:
Readings:
CR
PPT Sex and Gender
GCC, Part I (pp. 1-48).
Day 1 Biology, Gender and Human Evolution
Day 2
Helen Fisher: Divorce and he Four-Year-Itch
Readings: GCC Part II
CR
Week 3
Week 4
Day 1 Gender and Prehistory
Day 2
Hunters and Gatherers
Readings: GCC
CR
Day 1 Domestic Worlds and Public Worlds
Day 2 Film: Small Happiness
Readings: GCC
CR
Day 1 Equality and Inequality: The Sexual Division of Labor and Gender Stratification
Day 2 Film: Community
Readings:
CR
GCC
Day 1 The Cultural Construction of Gender and Personhood
Day 2 Midterm Exam 1
Readings:
CR
GCC
Day 1 Alternative Gendered Categories
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Week 8
Day 2
Readings: Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India
Day 1 Culture, Sexualities and Body
Day 2
Readings: GCC
CR
Week 9 Day 1 Gender, Property and the State
Day 2 Film: Veiled Revolution
Readings:
CR
GCC
Week 10 Day 1 Gender Household and Kinship
Day 2
Readings: GCC
CR
Week 11 Day 1 Masculinity, Gender, Ritual and Religion
Day 2 My Film: Sacred Striptease : A Japanese Rite of Renewal and Plenty
Readings: GCC
CR
Week 12 Day 1 Gender Politics and Reproduction
Day 2
Readings:
CR
GCC
Week 13 Day 1 Culture Contact, Development and the Global Economy
Day 2 Midterm Exam 2
Readings: GCC
CR
Week 14 Day 1 Homosexualities Then and Now
Day 2 Visit to ONE Archives
Readings: CR Excerpt from across Space and Time
Homophobias: Lust and Loathing
Week 15 Day 1 Gender and Violence
Day 2 Summary
CR
This class deals with a number of topics that can be challenging to traditional morality and religious ideals. No one is asking you to accept the ideas presented here wholesale. Instead, you are asked to read, listen and evaluate the ideas for
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yourself, while respecting the rights and ideas that may differ from your own and evaluate them critically.
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