Sexualities
This class is about sex – from a feminist and ethnographic perspective. We will start and end by asking ‘what is sex?’, and we’ll look for answers in ethnographies (anthropological and otherwise) on a range of topics including sexual subcultures (kink and asexuality), sex work, porn, sexual violence, and sexual reproduction. You can think of this class as ‘sex and…’, as in sex and gender, sex and race, sex and money, sex and disability. You can also think of it as ‘sex in…’, as in sex in Brazil, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic; sex in the suburbs, in the Rust Belt, in Silicon Valley. (Most case studies take place in the Americas, including the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean.) Requirements for the class are a mix of conventional reading, writing and discussion with group projects that may include performance or video elements, as well as an opportunity to produce your own mini-ethnography.