Anthropology 2501/ WST 2121
Spring 2018
The Anthropology of Gender: from Cross-Cultural to Transnational Perspectives
Tuesdays and Thursdays
2:20 pm to 3:35 pm
GELMAN B04
Contact Information
Prof. Syed Mohammad Ali
Office Hours: Thursday 11am-1pm
Office: 2112 G St. NW, Room 102
Email:
Teaching Assistant: Ferhan Güloğlu
Office hours: Tuesday 1-2 pm
Location: 2114 G St. Room 101-A
Email:
Course Description
This course aims to introduce students to the anthropology of gender. It will begin by examining early anthropological works focusing on women and gender, and different conceptual approaches to this area of study. Later in the course, we will investigate questions of power, ideology, and hegemony with reference to the notion of gender. In studying these concepts, we will adopt an applied anthropological perspective to study gender-related issues in our contemporary world, ranging from the problems of violence to topics of economic exploitation, and representation.
Learning Goals
By the end of this class, students will be able to:
- Understand the social construction of sex and gender, and the historical and socio-cultural variability of gender systems
- Show how gender systems are related to culture, society, political economy, power, race, colonialism, transnationalism and globalization
- Use the category of gender and gendered analyses to critically interrogate socio-cultural processes and phenomena
Course requirements
Class attendance (10%)
In-class participation (5%)
Participation via discussion boards (15%)
Two in-class exams (15% each)
One final paper (35%)
In-class presentations (5%)
Extra credit (1%)
Assignment deadlines & assignment details
Class attendance (10%): attending all lectures is a primary component leading to excellence in this course. Attendance is therefore required and failure to show up to class without a valid excuse or proper documentation (e.g. physician’s note) will adversely affect your final grade. If you miss more than two classes without proper documentation, I reserve the right to drop you from the class
In-class Participation (5%): Your participation grade will be assessed based on your presence in class and the quality of your participation during the class, including responding to questions posed by the instructor, by student presentations, and by participating in group-work activities. Your active participation is crucial not only to your own learning, but to those of your peers and to your instructor. Participation doesn’t necessarily mean speaking a great deal in section. The ability to listen attentively, respond thoughtfully to others’ comments and ask questions—including not being afraid to say ‘I don’t understand’—are productive to discussion and our collective learning.
Weekly discussion posts via Blackboard(15%): The texts we are reading are at the center of our learning. Active engagement with these texts is vital – for your learning and for our discussions. To help ensure that we all reading actively, over the course of the semester, everyone is required to post starting from the 2nd week of the course – through Blackboard – 200-word reflections on the readings. These are not formal papers, but rather are an opportunity for you to react to and reflect on the readings for the week. Raise questions the readings posed for you, think about how they relate to other things we have read, consider how they fit into the course as a whole. These postings are not a test of whether you “get” the readings, but an opportunity to engage actively with them. These postings will help jumpstart our discussions of the readings, so you should be prepared to talk about your posting in class. Postings are due 10 am on the day of the class.Also, please note that you will not be expected to submit discussion contributions on the day of the two in-class tests.
In-class tests (15% each): There will be two exams in the course, a mid-term on February 13 and on March 27. In these exams you will be asked to answer 3 out of 5 short essay questions (these tests will be non-cumulative and only cover the materials for the specified segment of the course).
Final paper (35%): Write an essay 2,500 words, including bibliographies. The final papers are to be submitted via Blackboard by 12:00 pm on 7th May using Safe Assign.
Topics for final paper:
Q.1. Discuss some of the intersections between notions of gender, ethnicity and religious identities, using illustrative examples in support of your arguments.
OR
Q.2. Examine the role of the state in construction and mediation of gender difference through a case study.
OR
Q.3. Pick one major gender related issue in our contemporary world (violence, economic exploitation, etc.) and discuss its varied implications on the everyday life of women.
Note: Please ensure that your final paper is submitted to SafeAssign as a Word document saved in the following format: STUDENTNAMEFinalpaper.doc.
In class presentations (5%): Students will be required to give a 10-12 minutes group presentation (with 5 students in a group) on April 24 or April 26 based on the topic they have chosen to write their final papers. Student presentations will be assessed based on the strength and clarity of their arguments, the comprehensiveness of their presentation, and the extent to which all group members have participated in the group presentation.
General Basis of Assessment for Presentations:
Subject/Content: Were the issues raised informative and relevant? Did the presentation have a clear focus?
Organization/Clarity: Was the presentation easy to follow? Was there a clear introduction? Did it follow a systematic and coherently trajectory?
Sensitivity to the Audience: Was the presentation engaging? Did you make effective use of pauses, gestures, change in pace and pitch? Did you make use effectively of AV aids?
General Basis of Assessment for Final Papers:
Do you clearly state your argument? Think of your argument as the underlying problematic or question that your paper seeks to address, and that both shapes and provides momentum to your discussion. The strength of an argument relates to how well it enables you to assess and analyze your topic.
Do you provide compelling grounds to support your argument? How well do you draw upon, and make connections with your materials in supporting the point(s) you are making? Do you draw on specific passages or arguments? Are there materials you did not draw on that would have addressed the issue you are discussing more effectively?
Does your paper demonstrate your comprehension of the materials and issues at hand?
Are you able to convey your argument effectively? Here I am referring to the clarity of your writing style, including your spelling, grammar, diction, syntax, etc.
Extra credit
To obtain an extra credit point, students must attend an event(a talk, a panel discussion or a relevant documentary) in the DC metro area of relevance to this course, and write a reaction paper based on the talk, summarizing not only the main arguments of the talk but also providing a critically analysis of it.
Please note that merely handing in a reaction paper does not mean that you will be given an extra credit point. The paper must also be well written to earn extra credit.
You are also advised to confer with the tutor to see if the event you have chosen to attend and write about is relevant to this course.
The deadline for this extra credit paper is 1,000 words, and while you are welcome to had in this assignment early, the deadline for its submission is 1st April.
Please note that the extra credit papers are to be directly emailed to the tutor (Not the Instructor) for assessment purposes.
Resources
This course will draw upon in-class movies and a range of academic articles and book excerpts to facilitate class discussions. All the required reading materials will be made available via Blackboard.
Schedule of classes
Class 1 Tuesday (1/16) Introduction
Class 2 Thursday (1/18)Gender in context
Reading:
Excerpt from writings of Margaret Mead from in Moore, Jerry (ed.), 2009, Visions of Culture: An Annotated Reader, Lanham, AltaMira Press.
Class 3 Tuesday (1/23) In-class movie: Observer Observed (88 mins.)
Class 4 Thursday (1/25)Patterns of culture
Reading:
Excerpt from writings from Ruth Benedict in Moore, Jerry (ed.), 2009, Visions of Culture: An Annotated Reader, Lanham, AltaMira Press.
Class 5 Tuesday (1/30)Marxism and feminism
Reading
Chapter 16 in Moore, Jerry, 2012, Visions of Culture: An introduction to anthropological theories and theorists (4th edition), Lanham, AltaMira Press.
Class 6 Thursday (2/1)Pollution and Purity (Mary Douglas)
Reading:
Gulliver, P.H. 1967, "Mary Douglas: Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, viii, 188 pp. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966. 25s",Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 462-464.
Duschinsky, R. 2011, "Purity, power and cruelty",Critique of Anthropology,vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 312-328.
Class 7 Tuesday (2/6)Gender and practice (Sherry Ortner)
Readings:
Chapter22 in in Moore, Jerry, 2012, Visions of Culture: An introduction to anthropological theories and theorists (4th edition), Lanham, AltaMira Press.
Class 8 Thursday (2/8)Gender and masculinity
Readings:
Excerpt from2013, Ghannam, Farha,Live and Die Like a Man: Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt,Stanford, Stanford University Press.
Class 9 Tuesday (2/13)First in-class exam
Class 10 Thursday (2/15)Religion and politics (Sexual difference vs. religious difference)
Readings:
Mahmood, Saba, 2012, ‘Religious freedom, the minority question, and geopolitics in the Middle East’,Comparative Studies in Society and HistoryVol, 54, (2): 418-446.
Mahmood, Saba, 2012, ‘Sectarian conflict and family law in contemporary Egypt’, American Ethnologist, Vol. 39 (1), pp. 54–62.
Class 11 Tuesday (2/20)The politics of veiling
Reading:
Abu-Lughod, Lila, 2002, ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others’, American Anthropologist, Vol, 104: 783–790.
Class 12 Thursday (2/22)Ayan Hirsi Ali’s activism
Reading:
Schrock, Richelle D. 2016, ‘Fictions of all-encompassing precarity in the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’,Frontiers37, (1): 66-89.
Class 13 Tuesday (2/27) Guest lecture: Reproducing pious babies: Embodiment, Science and the State in Turkey. Class will be led by Ferhan Güloğlu
Class 14 Thursday (3/1) Multiculturalism and the politics of veiling in Quebec
Reading:
Ali, Syed, M. and Ashgar, Anila, 2015, ‘The Charter of Quebec Values: Public Discourses around competing gender identities and notions of public space’, Canadian Diversity, Vol. 10:2, p. 5-16
Class 15 Tuesday (3/6)Gender violence and structural inequalities
Reading:
Krishnan, S. 2005, "Do Structural Inequalities Contribute to Marital Violence? Ethnographic Evidence from Rural South India",Violence Against Women,vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 759-775.
Class 16 Thursday (3/8)Why has Malala become so problematic?
Reading:
Khoja-Moolji, S. 2015, "Reading Malala",Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East,vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 539-556.
Tuesday 3/13 Spring Break
Thursday 3/15 Spring Break
Class 17 Tuesday (3/20) Violence against women, rethinking the issue of its framing
Reading:
Kogacioglu Dicle, 2004 The Tradition Effect: Framing Honor Crimes in Turkey differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Volume 15(2), pp. 119-151
Class 18 Thursday (3/22)Honour killings (Continued)
In-class movie -A Girl in a river (40 mins.)
Reading:
Gill, A.K. 2013, "Feminist Reflections on Researching So-called ‘Honour’ Killings",Feminist Legal Studies,vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 241-261.
Class 19 Tuesday (3/27)Second in-class exam
Class 20 Thursday (3/29) The acid attacks phenomenon
In-class movie - ‘Saving face’ (40 mins.)
Readings:
Weiss, J. 2014, "Women’s rights in Colombia: Acid Attacks on the Rise",World Affairs,vol. 177, no. 2, pp. 50-57.
DW, 2012, Oscar-winning acid attack film sparks controversy in Pakistan, DW, 23 May 2012. Available at:
Class 21 Tuesday (4/3)Gender and sexuality
Reading:
Jacobsen, C., Fernando, M. and Jakobsen, J., 2016, ‘Gender, sex and religious freedom in the context of secular law’, Feminist Review, No. 113 pp. 96-102.
Class 22 Thursday (4/5)Sexual assault on U.S. campuses
In-class video - Real Time with Bill Maher: The Hunting Ground (@ 6 mins.)
Reading:
Saul, Stephanie and Taylor, Kate 2017, ‘Betsy DeVos Reverses Obama-era Policy on Campus Sexual Assault Investigations’ New York Times 22 September 2017. Available at:
Also see: Betsy DeVos's full speech on Title IX and campus sex assault (30 mins.)
Class 23 Tuesday (4/10)Women in the global political economy
Reading:
Anwary, A. 2017, "Feminised Workforce in Transnational Production: Bangladesh Ready-made Garment Industry",History and Sociology of South Asia,vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 174-191.
Class 24 Thursday (4/12)Rural women
Reading:
Agarwal, Bina, 2003, ‘Gender and land rights revisited: exploring new prospects via the state, family and market’, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 3 (1), pp. 184-224.
Class 25 Tuesday (4/17)Gender, development and neoliberalism
Reading:
Calkin, S. 2017, ‘Disrupting disempowerment: Feminism, co-option and the privatization of gender and development’,New Formations,No. 91, pp. 69-78.
Class 26 Thursday (4/19)Gender and resistance
Reading:
Mumtaz, Khawar & K. Mumtaz, Samiya, 2012, ‘Women's Participation in the Punjab Peasant Movement: From community rights to women's rights?’, South Asia Journal: 35, 138-150.
Class 27 Tuesday (4/24) In-class presentations
Class 28 Thursday (4/26) In-class presentations
Class Policies
No extensions will be given for assignments or exams. If you are late with an assignment you will be penalized a part-grade for each day it is late (e.g. go from an A to A- or A- to B+). If you fail to attend a class exam you will be assigned a failing grade for the exam. The only valid excuse for missing an exam or being late on assignments (including the paper and in-class presentation) is a personal medical or family emergency. Students must contact me and present an excuse in writing from a professional in order tobe allowed to make up work and avoid penalties. Computer failure, travel plans, and work are not acceptable excuses.
I reserve the right to not respond to email questions sent less than 36 hours before an assignment is due, or an exam is scheduled. Please send your questions ahead of time to ensure I have the time to respond to them appropriately.
Electronic media brought to class should only be used for curricular activities (e.g. taking notes) and not for extra-curricular activities (i.e. emailing, checking Facebook, online purchases, browsing the internet). If I discover that you are using electronic media for extra-curricular activity you will automatically be penalized by two percent of your overall grade. Please ensure ringers are switched off and/or that your device does not make any sound.
No topics are off-limits during class discussion, however, please be respectful and judicious in your phrasing of comments and in your responses to your peers’ comments.
Religious Holidays: please contact me two weeks in advance if you are going to miss class due to religious holidays not recognized by GWU’s academic calendar.
Grading Scale
A = 93-100
A - = 90- 92
B+ = 88- 89
B = 82- 87
B- = 80- 81
C+ = 78- 79
C = 72- 77
C- = 70- 71
D+ = 68- 69
D = 62- 67
D- = 60- 61
F = 0- 59
Academic Integrity
All students must practice academic integrity. This means doing your own work, and when you use the words and ideas of others in any written work, you must: 1) identify direct quotations with quotation marks; and 2) indicate the source of ideas that are not your own by using social sciences notation form. If you have any questions at all about what this means, you should speak to your TAs or the instructor. Plagiarism, and all breaches of academic integrity (for example, the sale of lecture-notes from this class, or the use of content from the internet as though it was your own), will be severely dealt with in accordance with the University’s policies and procedures. For more information on The George Washington University’s policies on academic integrity, consult:
Support for Students Outside the Classroom
DISABILITY SUPPORT SERVICES (DSS)
Any student who may need an accommodation based on the potential impact of a disability should contact the Disability Support Services office at 202-994-8250 in the Marvin Center, Suite 242, to establish eligibility and to coordinate reasonable accommodations. For additional information please refer to:
UNIVERSITY COUNSELING CENTER (UCC)202-994-5300
The University Counseling Center (UCC) offers 24/7 assistance and referral to addressstudents'personal, social, career, and study skillsproblems. Services for students include:
-crisis and emergency mental health consultations
-confidential assessment, counseling services (individual and small group), and referrals
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