ANTH2170 6.0 Sex, Gender and the Body: Cross-Cultural Approaches to the Body, Gender, Sexuality and Kinship
Course Director: Dr. Arne Steinforth
Are we defined by our biological setup? Are gender differences such as “male promiscuity” or “female monogamy” genetically hardwired? Is the “love match” found equally across cultures? Is the nuclear family the universal building block of society? How do we explain alternative sexualities?
This course introduces you to what anthropologists know about sex, love, gender and the body cross-culturally, and it critically examines prevalent explanations of what is (and what is not) supposed to be “natural” about these categories. What we consider “natural” in sex, gender and the body has profound implications for how we organize society – including social norms concerning sexuality, marriage, the family, reproduction, or health. Through the media, we are, at the same time, increasingly subject to ideological discourses on human biology, many of which make claims about how human societies ought to be organized and interpreted.
Human nature is most often understood as rooted in biology – represented in the human genome which has become the dominant metaphor used to justify widely divergent political positions. Arguments of “nature” are used to explain both male domination and also the extension of LGBT rights likewise. Anthropologists, however, take a cultural approach to understanding human nature. In this course, students will learn how socially constructed our ideas about nature actually are and explore the implications of these ideas for individuals and societies.
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