Sex, Money, and Power: Anthropology of Intimacy and Exchange
ANTH 203
Fall 2020 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
FGSS 223, AMST 228 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, Queer Studies |
Sex and money--intimacy and economy--are often imagined to occupy distinct and separate spheres. Sex and intimacy are located in the private or domestic realm, in spaces of leisure, feelings, care, and personal connections. Money and economy, on the other hand, are purportedly public, located in the market and tied to labor, rationality, and impersonal (non)-relations. This course brings these spheres together, focusing on the links, exchanges, and circuits between the intimate and the economic in diverse cultural contexts.
Drawing on anthropological, feminist, Marxist, queer, and critical race theory, we will build
working definitions of key concepts: intimacy, division of labor, domestic labor, sexual labor, exchange, commodity, value, neoliberalism, consumer culture, and more. We'll test, apply, critique, and expand these concepts as we work through ethnographic case studies on contemporary sex work and tourism, marketing and pornography, reproduction and domestic labor, marriage, class and sexual lifestyle, labor and care work, and sex stores and commodities. We will connect economic, cultural, and political formations with race, ethnicity, nation, sexuality, class, and gender, scaling up to consider global and transnational exchanges and down to consider how these circuits impact families and communities. Throughout, we will ask: Whose labor is valued and recognized, and why? How do bodies accrue value, and in what kinds of marketplaces? When are intimacies--sexual and social--commoditized? How is race, gender, and sexuality central to these exchanges? How do new transnational circuits constrain and/or empower people? And finally, who benefits from these relations, and who does not? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ANTH |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ANTH)(CSCT)(FGSS)(HRAD-MN)(STS) |
Major Readings:
TBD, drawn from:
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning And Caring In The Shadows Of Affluence
Nicole Constable, Romance On A Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, And "Mail Order" Marriage
Patty Kelly, Lydia's Open Door: Inside Mexico's Most Modern Brothel
Jane Ward, Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations
Margot Weiss, Techniques Of Pleasure: BDSM And The Circuits Of Sexuality
Erica Lorraine Williams, Sex Tourism In Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements
Greg Mitchell, Tourist Attractions: Performing Race And Masculinity In Brazil's Sexual Economy
Elizabeth Bernstein, Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, And The Commerce Of Sex
Katherine Frank, G-Strings And Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars And Male Desire
Alexandra Chasin, Selling Out: The Gay And Lesbian Movement Goes To Market
Silvia Federici, Revolution At Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, And Feminist Struggle
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Examinations and Assignments:
short memos; class discussion; final paper/project |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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