Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- ANTH 378: Human Sexualities (Rev. C1)

ANTH 378: Human Sexualities (Rev. C1) Report a Broken Link

ANTH 378 provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary introduction to the study of human sexualities. Diverse sexualities raise issues that impact on many aspects of life and society, and this eight-part course addresses a number of these issues from various perspectives. The primary goal of the course is to have you acquire a broad range of knowledge and information about human sexuality.

Textbook

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Routledge, 2012.

Unit 1 – Critical Research Perspectives on Human Sexualities

Reading File: Wood, W. and A. Eagly. “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences.” Psychological Bulletin 128 (2002): 699–727

Video File: “Anne Fausto-Sterling on Gender, Part 1”

Unit 2 – The Natural History of Gender and Reproduction

Reading File 1: de Waal, Frans B. M. “Bonobo Sex and Society.” Scientific American, March (1995): 82–8

Reading File 2: Diamond, Jared. “The Animal with the Weirdest Sex Life.” In Why is Sex Fun? New York, Basic Books: 1997, 1–13

See pages 5 to 13 of this pdf document for the required reading

Reading File 3: Gangestad, Steven W. "Reproductive Strategies and Tactics," In Oxford handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, eds. R. I. M. Dunbar and Louise Barrett (Oxford: Oford University Press, 2007), 321–32.

Video File: “Anne Fausto-Sterling on Gender, Part 2”

Blackledge, Catherine. "The Function of the Orgasm," In Gender, Sex & Sexuality. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 272-284.

Unit 3 – Sexualities in Other Cultures

Reading File 1: Priest, R. J. “Missionary Positions: Christian, Modernist, Postmodernist.” Current Anthropology 42, no. 1 (2001): 29–68

Reading File 2: Heider, Karl. “Dani Sexuality: A Low Energy System.” Man 11, no. 2 (1976): 188–201

Reading File 3: Elliston, Deborah A. “Erotic Anthropology: ‘Ritualized Homosexuality’ in Melanesia and beyond.” American Ethnologist 22, no. 4 (1995): 848–67

Reading File 4: Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Prenuptial Intercourse between the Sexes.” In The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc. (1929), 51–75

Reading File 5: Spronk, Rachel “Sexuality and Subjectivity: Erotic Practices and the Question of Bodily Sensations.” Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 22, no. 4 (2014): 3–21

Video File: “Anne Fausto-Sterling on Gender, Part 3”

Unit 4 – Same–sex Sexualities

Reading File 1: Vasey, Paul. “The Pursuit of Pleasure: An Evolutionary History of Homosexual Behaviour in Japanese Macaques.” Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective, ed. Paul Vasey and Volker Sommer. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2006), 191–219

Reading File 2: Lemiere, Olivier and Andreas De Block. “Philosophy and the Biology of Male Homosexuality.” Philosophy Compass 10, no. 7 (2015): 479–88

Video File: “Anne Fausto-Sterling on Gender, Part 4”

Unit 5 – Beyond the Binary: Multiple Genders, Intersexed Individuals, and Transsexuals

Reading File: Epple, C. “Coming to Terms with Navajo Nádleehí: A Critique of Berdache, “Gay," “Alternate Gender," and" Two-Spirit.” American Ethnologist 25, NO. 2 (2008): 267–90

Video File: "Fa'afahine: Samoan Boys Raised as Girls"

Unit 6 – A Forgotten Plague? HIV and AIDS in Other Cultures

Reading File 1: Setel, P. “Population, Men, and Movement: “(M)oral Demographies of Desire and Risk.” In A Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, 51–88

Reading File 2: Comaroff, Jean. “Beyond Bare Life: AIDS, (Bio)Politics and the Neoliberal Order.” In Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Africa. Hansjorg Dilger and Ute Luig (eds.). New York: Berghahn Books, 2010, 43–60

Reading File 3: Dilger, Hansjorg. “Introduction.” In Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Africa. Hansjorg Dilger and Ute Luig (eds.). New York: Berghahn Books, 2010, 21–42

Reading File 4: Green, Edward C., Daniel T. Halperin, Vinand Nantulya, Janice A. Hogle. “Uganda's HIV Prevention Success: The Role of Sexual Behavior Change and the National Response.” AIDS and Behavior 10, no. 4 (2006): 335–46

Reading File 5: Steinberg, Jonny. “Working through a Paradox about Sexual Culture in South Africa: Tough Sex in the Twenty-First Century.” Journal of Southern African Studies 39, no. 3 (2013): 497–509

Unit 7 – My Body, My Temple: Body Modification and Genital Cutting

Reading File 1: Silverman, E. K. “Anthropology and Circumcision.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): 419–45

Reading File 2: Abusharaf, Rogia Mustafa. “Unmasking Tradition: A Sudanese Anthropologist Confronts Female ‘Circumcision’ and Its Terrible Tenacity.” The Sciences 38, no. 2 (1998): 22–7

Reading File 3: Nędzi, A. “’Entrenched Customs Die Hard . . .' Can Harmful Traditional Practices Be Justified by Cultural Relativism of Human Rights? Case Study of FGM.” OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development 2, no. 4 (2010): 77–86

Unit 8 – What’s Love Got to Do with It? Notions of “Love,” Romance and Desire in a Cultural Context

Reading File 1: van Wijk, Joan. “Romance Tourism on Ambergris Caye, Belize: The Entanglement of Love and Prostitution.” Etnofoor 19, no. 1 (2006): 71–89 NOTE: Please contact the Library for a print version of this reading.

Reading File 2: van Eerdewijk, Anouka. “What's Love Got To Do With It? The Intimate Relationships of Dakarois Girls.” Etnofoor 19, no. 1 (2006): 41–61

READING FILE 3: Lindholm, L. (2006). Romantic love and anthropology. Etnofoor, 19(1), 5–21

Reading File 4: Fuller, C. J., and H. Narasimhan. “Companionate Marriage in India: The Changing Marriage System in a Middle‐class Brahman Subcaste.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. 4 (2008): 736–54