Winter/Spring 2002

Instructor: David Sutton

Office Hours: MWF 10-10:50, or by appt.

Faner 3542

Phone: 453-3298

e-mail: dsutton@siu.edu

Course Description

How do humans become male and female in different societies. Can men become women and women become men, and what other gender possibilities exist? Is male dominance universal? What are the sources of male and female power and resistence? Do women have a separate culture? What is the relationship between gender, militarism and war? This and other questions will be explored in cross-cultural perspective.We will address these issues through an immersion in the gender systems of a number of different societies.

Course Requirements:

One Mid-Term Examination worth 30% of your grade

One Final Examination worth 35% of your grade (Final paper substitution is a possibility at my discretion).

There will be regular short assignments throughout the term. Buy a notebook in which to keep these assignments. These assignments will be marked on a 4-pt. scale and will count collectively for 20% of your grade.

Summaries: For each class you will turn in a 1-page (250 word max) summary of the reading due for that day. Each summary will be graded on a 4-point scale and collectively they will add up to 15% of your grade. While summaries are due at the beginning of class (or before), do not miss class in order to get your summary in!

Extra Credit: There will be opportunities for an extra-credit short paper/class presentation during the course of the semester. You must discuss this with me with several weeks lead time in order to take advantage of this option.

Attendance Attendance is required. If you anticipate schedule conflicts due to other classes, work, athletic events or other activities you are advised not to take this class because irregular attendance will negatively impact your grade. If you need to miss a class due to illness, religious observances or team participation you must notify me prior to the class.

Required Books: (available at the bookstores)

Evelyn Blackwood Webs of Kinship

Serena Nanda Gender Diversity

Anne Allison, Nightwork, Sexuality, Pleasure and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokio Hostess Club.

Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn.

C.R. Sutton Feminism, Militarism, Nationalism

Other readings will be available for xeroxing in the anthropology reading room

Week 1 Introduction: Gender as as Social Construction.

Readings:

Ursula LeGuin "Is Gender Necessary? Redux"

Katha Pollit "Marooned on Gilligan's Island" (excerpt)

Week 2: Gender & Power: Is Male Dominance Universal? If so, Why? What are the sources of power and oppression?

Readings:

Michele Rosaldo "Woman, Culture & Society, an Overview."

Sherry Ortner "Is Male to Female as Nature is to Culture?"

Eleanor Leacock "Women's Status in Egalitarian Societies"

Leslie Marmon Silko "Yellow Woman and Beauty of the Spirit"

Weeks 3-4 The View from a ‘Matrifocal’ Society. How are kinship, gender and exchanged experienced in a relatively egalitarian society? What are the sources of conflict and cooperation between men and women?

Readings:

Evelyn Blackwood Webs of Kinship

Weeks 5-6 The Ritual and the Everyday. How are gender power, dominance and autonomy experienced in experiences of Birth, Food and the Body

Readings:

Robbie Davis-Floyd "Gender and Ritual: Giving Birth the American Way."

Lila Abu-Lughod “A Tale of Two Pregnancies.”

Lila Abu-Lughod “Is there a Muslim Sexuality?”

Elizabeth Fernea Selections

Anne Allison “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunchbox as Ideological State Apparatus.”

Carol Counihan “Food, Sex and Reproduction”

Henk Driessen "Male Sociability & Rituals of Masculinity in Rural Andalusia."

Weeks 7-8 Are there more than two genders? How are they constructed in different societies.

Readings:

Serena Nanda Gender Diversity

Week 8 MIDTERM EXAM

Weeks 9-11 Life histories and the relationship of gender and religion: A voodun priestess in Brooklyn

Readings:

Karen McCarthey Brown Mama Lola

Weeks 12-13 Constructions of Masculinity: How is masculinity experienced, lived and performed?

Readings:

Anne Allison Nightwork

Weeks 14-15 Gender in Global Perspectives: Nationalism, Transnationalism and Warfare.

Readings:

C.R. Sutton Feminism, Militarism, Nationalism

David Sutton "Rescripting Women's Collective Action."