This course will explore the contributions feminist anthropology has made to the study of gender and to the study of culture and difference more broadly. Students will read feminist ethnographies that focus on gender in both Western and non-Western contexts and theoretical and experimental writings by feminist anthropologists concerned with the politics of difference and the politics of cultural representation. Open to any interested student.
Symbols construct experience and enable communication, transaction, and conception.
Cultures included are from Papua New Guinea, indigenous Australia, native North and South America, and rural Africa. Open to any interested student. This course in political anthropology examines a series of cases and features of power structures and relations cross- and interculturally. Central questions concern the relationship between culture and politics. The cultural sweep of the class is global and mostly non-Western.