This section contains the required readings for the course. Readings are also presented by session.
Required Texts
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. First Picador ed. New York, NY: Picador, 2003. ISBN: 9780312422158.
Prieur, Annick. Mema’s House, Mexico City: On Transvestites, Queens, and Machos. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226682563.
Paxson, Heather. Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520223714.
Readings by Session
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to the Study of Gender and Sexuality: The Sex/Gender System | |
| Part I: Concepts and Themes | ||
| 2 | Is Sex to Gender as Nature is to Culture? |
Hubbard, Ruth. “Rethinking Women’s Biology.” In The Politics of Women’s Biology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990, pp. 119-129. ISBN: 9780813514895. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. “The Five Sexes.” The Sciences (March/April 1993): 20-24. |
| 3 | Cultural Acquisition of Gender as Learned Behavior |
Thorne, Barrie. “Children and Gender: Constructions of Difference.” In Theoretical Perspectives on Sexual Difference. Edited by Deborah Rhode. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990, pp. 100-113. ISBN: 9780300044270. Le, Huynh-Nhu. “Never Leave Your Little One Alone: Raising an Ifaluk child.” In A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies. Edited by Judy S. DeLoache and Alma Gottlieb. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 199-220. ISBN: 9780521664752. Diener, Marissa. “Gift from the Gods: A Balinese Guide to Early Child Rearing.” In A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies. Edited by Judy S. DeLoache and Alma Gottlieb. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 91-116. ISBN: 9780521664752. |
| Part II: Gender as a Social Institution | ||
| 4 | Arranged Marriage and Inheritance in Agricultural and Pastoral Societies |
Begin reading Middlesex. Discuss through p. 125. Collier, Jane. “From Mary to Modern Woman.” American Ethnologist 13, no. 1 (1986): 100-107. |
| 5 | Science, Republicanism and The Woman Question |
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. “Introduction: The Romantic Solution.” In For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Experts’ Advice to Women. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1978, pp. 1-29. ISBN: 9780385126502. Kapsalis, Teri. “Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and the Tools of Reproduction.” In Public Privates: Performing Gynaecology from Both Ends of the Speculum. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997, pp. 31-59. ISBN: 9780822319283. |
| 6 | Social Reproduction: Reproducing Formal and Informal Class Relations |
Rapp, Rayna. “Family and Class in Contemporary America: Notes Toward an Understanding of Ideology.” In Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. Edited by Barrie Thorne and Marilyn Yalolm. New York, NY: Longman, 1982, pp. 25-39. ISBN: 9780582282650. Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor.” In Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History. 3rd ed. Edited by Ellen C. DuBois and Vicki Ruiz. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999, pp. 436-459. ISBN: 9780415925167. Romero, Mary. “Who Takes Care of the Maid’s Children? Exploring the Costs of Domestic Service.” In Feminism and Families. Edited by Hilde Lindeman Nelson. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996, pp. 151-169. ISBN: 9780415912532. |
| 7 | Women in the Global Economy (No Lecture) |
Freeman, Carla. “Designing Women: Corporate Discipline and Barbados’s Off-Shore Pink-Collar Sector.” Cultural Anthropology 8, no. 2 (1993): 169-186. Film: Redmon, David. Mardi Gras: Made in China. Revised ed. Carinvalesque Films. Brooklyn, NY: D. Redmon, 2006. |
| 8 | Gender, Work and Professionalization |
Weston, Kath. “Production as Means, Production as Metaphor: Women’s Struggle to Enter the Trades.” In Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture. Edited by Faye Ginsburg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1991, pp. 137-151. ISBN: 9780807046128. McDowell, Linda. “Body Work 1: Men Behaving Badly” and “Body Work II: The Masqueraders.” In Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997, pp. 158-203. ISBN: 9780631205302.
|
| 9 | Gender and Agency |
Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Bargaining with Patriarchy.” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274-290. Abu-Lughod, Lila. “The Romance of Resistance.” American Ethnologist 17, no. 1 (1990): 41-55. |
| 10 | Appetite, Image, Control |
Counihan, Carole M. “Food Rules in the United States: Individualism, Control, and Hierarchy.” In The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999, pp. 113-128. Gremillion, Helen. “In Fitness and in Health: Crafting Bodies in the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa.” Signs 27, no. 2 (2002): 381-414. |
| Part III: Gender and Sexuality as Identity | ||
| 11 | The Invention of Sexuality-based Identities |
Katz, Jonathan Ned. “The Invention of Heterosexuality.” Socialist Review 20, no. 1 (1990): 7-33. Davis, Maxine. “The Importance of Sexual Harmony.” In The Sexual Responsibility of Women. New York, NY: Dial Press, 1956, pp. 22-36. Bérubé, Allan. “Marching to a Different Drummer: Lesbian and Gay GIs in World War II.” In Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Edited by Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1983, pp. 88-99. ISBN: 9780853456094. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Continuum.” In Women-Sex and Sexuality. Edited by Catharine Stimpson and Ethel Spector Person. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981, pp. 62-91. ISBN: 9780226774770. |
| 12 | Coming Out and Leaving the Closet Behind |
Stein, Arlene. Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, chapters 1, 2 and 3, 1997. ISBN: 9780520202573. Lewin, Ellen. “Wives, Mothers and Lesbians: Rethinking Resistance in the U.S.” In Pragmatic Women and Body Politics. Edited by Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 164-177. ISBN: 9780521629294. |
| 13 | Other Genders/Sexualities |
Herdt, Gilbert. “Gender and Socialization.” In The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea. Wadsworth Publishing; 1 edition, 1987, pp. 67-99. ISBN: 9780030689079. Prieur, Annik. Mema’s House. Chapter 1. |
| 14 | Transvestite Lives and Sex Work | Prieur, Annik. Mema’s House. |
| 15 | Transgender and Transexualism in the U.S. |
Heyes, Cressida J. “Feminist Solidarity after Queer Theory: The Case of Transgender.” Signs 28, no. 4 (2003): 1093-1120. Film: Schermerhorn, Candace, and Bestor Cram. You Don’t Know Dick: Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men. VHS. Berkeley, CA: University of California Extension Center for Media and Independent Learning, 1997. |
| 16 | Intersexuality |
Chase, Cheryl. “Hermaphrodites with Attitude.” GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4, no. 2 (1998): 189-211. Beeman, William, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Brown University. “What are you?” Baltimore Morning Sun, Sunday, March 17, 1996. Discuss Middlesex. |
| 17 | Do Western Sexual Identities Travel? |
Swarr, Amanda Lock, and Richa Nagar. “Dismantling Assumptions: Interrogating ‘Lesbian’ Struggles for Identity and Survival in India and South Africa.” Signs 29, no. 2 (2004): 493-516. Wardlow, Holly. “Anger, Economy, and Female Agency: Problematizing ‘Prostitution’ and ‘Sex Work’ among the Huli of Papua New Guinea.” Signs 29, no. 4 (2004): 1017-1040. |
| 18 | Sexism, Racism and Violence |
de Leonardo, Michaela. “White Lies, Black Myths: Rape, Race and the Black ‘Underclass’.” In The Gender/Sexuality Reader. Edited by Roger N. Lancaster and Michaela de Leonardo. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 53-68. ISBN: 9780415910057. Heise, Lori L. “Violence, Sexuality, and Women’s Lives.” In The Gender/Sexuality Reader. Edited by Roger N. Lancaster and Michaela de Leonardo. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 411-433. ISBN: 9780415910057. |
| Part IV: Reproductive Politics and Gendered Citizenship | ||
| 19 | De-essentializing Sex/Gender/Kinship |
Collier, Jane, Michelle Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanagisako. “Is there a Family? New Anthropological Views.” In Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. Edited by Barrie Thorne and Marilyn Yalolm. New York, NY: Longman, 1982, pp. 25-39. ISBN: 9780582282650. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. “Lifeboat Ethics.” In The Gender/Sexuality Reader. Edited by Roger N. Lancaster and Michaela de Leonardo. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 82-88. ISBN: 9780415910057. Landsman, Gail. “‘Real Motherhood’, Class, and Children with Disabilities.” In Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism. Edited by France Winndance Twine and Helena Ragoné. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 169-187. Gailey, Christine Ward. “Ideologies of Motherhood and Kinship in U.S. Adoption.” In Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism. Edited by France Winndance Twine and Helena Ragoné. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 11-55. |
| 20 | Fetal Images and Abortion Debates |
Petchesky, Rosalind. “Fetal Images: The power of visual culture in the politics of reproduction.” Feminist Studies 13, no. 2 (1987): 263-292. Banerjee, Neela. “Church Groups Turn to Sonogram to Turn Women From Abortions.” New York Times, February 2, 2005, National section. Layne, Linda L. “Baby Things as Fetishes? Memorial goods, Simulacra, and the ‘Realness’ Problem of Pregnancy Loss.” In Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood: Race, Class, Sexuality, Nationalism. Edited by France Winndance Twine and Helena Ragoné. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 111-138. |
| 21 | Nationalism, Reproductive Politics and Gender |
Kanaaneh, Rhoda. “Conceiving Difference: Birthing the Palestinian Nation in the Galilee.” Critical Public Health 7, nos. 3-4 (1997): 64-79. ———. “Boys or Men? Duped or ‘Made’? Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military.” American Ethnologist 32, no. 2 (2005): 260-274. |
| 22 | Making Modern Mothers | Paxson, Heather. Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece. Chapters 1-3. |
| 23 | Making Modern Mothers (cont.) | Paxson, Heather. Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece. Chapters 4-5. |
| 24 | Student Presentations | |
| 25 | Student Presentations (cont.) | |
