Sex, Gender and Culture

Catalog description

Understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality profoundly impact the human experience by shaping how we understand our bodies and how we interact with others. This course introduces students to the anthropological study of sex, gender and sexuality, emphasizing both the biological and cultural aspects of these categories. Through a range of ethnographic material, we explore how understandings of sex, gender and sexuality differ cross-culturally and how these understandings shape human lives. Topics that we will cover may include biological understandings of sex, the cultural construction of gender, gender roles and division of labor, sexuality, the body, ritual, religion, kinship, discrimination and resistance, reproduction and the state.