ANTHRO 342

Human Sex, Gender and Sexuality


Please note: this is archived course information from 2019 for ANTHRO 342.

Description

This course covers some of the many anthropological questions about gender in human societies through cross-cultural and -temporal perspectives.

Gender as culturally constructed and experienced has been a field of anthropological enquiry for decades, raising key questions such as the following: How many genders are there? What forms do they take cross-culturally and historically? How are gender forms, norms and relations enmeshed in wider social relations and cultural systems? These and other questions are considered from anthropological perspectives.

The course takes a culturally relativist position and you are expected to do likewise. The focus is on anthropological understanding of embodied, social, cultural and political phenomenon and on engaging our assumptions about things we take for granted, wherever we find ourselves on the gender (or gender politics) spectrum.

By the end of the course, you should:

  • Understand sex, sexuality and gender as social and cultural phenomena
  • Recognise the embeddedness of gender in wider community, national and global structures and relationships
  • Understand the topics covered in cross-cultural and historical perspective
  • Be able to think reflexively about your own gender position, identity and situation
  • Understand a range of anthropological perspectives and theories on gender
  • Be able to critically analyse social and scholarly ideas about gender

View the course syllabus.

Availability 2019

Semester 2

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Dr Alex Pavlotski

Reading/Texts

TBA

Assessment

Coursework only

Points

ANTHRO 342: 15 points

Prerequisites

ANTHRO 203 or 30 points at Stage II 

Restrictions

ANTHRO 211 and ANTHRO 215