Instructor: Allison Alexy / alexy [at] virginia.edu
Brooks Hall 207
Office hours by appointment
Chemistry Building 262, Monday - Friday, 1 - 3:15pm
Course Description
This course is an introduction to theories of sex, gender, and sexuality in cultural anthropology. Starting from the premise that gender is not a biological given but rather a social construction, we will explore how sex, gender, and sexuality are socially constructed and experienced by reading ethnographic texts and watching films. We will use these texts to trace the overwhelming significance of attention to "gender" in contemporary anthropology. Thus the course is as much about what gender has done to anthropology as it is about how anthropology can help us understand gendered lives.
Throughout our readings and discussion, cross-cultural examples are of fundamental importance. We will be considering a diversity of gendered performances. Key questions and themes include:
The sex / gender system: How are sex and gender different? How have they been theorized? How can we use such theories in our readings of ethnography?
Performance: How is performance constructed in counter-distinction to biology? How is performance a lens through which we can describe gender?
Intersectionality: How are gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation intertwined in experience? How have such intersections been obscured or under-emphasized in mainstream American feminist theories, and to what effects?
Power: How does gender relate to constructions of power? How should we begin to understand and represent power? How have theories of "power" prompted significant thinking in contemporary anthropology?
Resistance: How is resistance possible? What constitutes resistance? How can we determine it? Can people be resisting social norms without intent?
Social change: How does social change happen? How is social change related to power? Are recent changes in gender norms fundamentally changing society?
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