AN 372 - Anthropology of Africa, Gender and Sexuality

Min Units: 3
Max Units: 3
In this course we will use the discipline of anthropology to consider the constructs of gender and sexuality across the continent of Africa. We will be thinking about the relationship between global and local understandings of gender and sexuality as we examine examples of the complexity of gender and sexuality in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and other countries. We will use ethnographies, essays, articles, books, films and to think about gender and health, masculinities, queerness and sexuality on the African continent.

This course introduces students to core concepts and central topics of the cultural anthropological study of gender, and sexuality. Focusing on the body as a site of lived experience, we will explore the varied intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, economics, class, location, and sexual preference that produce different experiences for people both within and across cultures on the African continent. Through ethnographic case studies, we will pay particular attention to how sex, gender, and sexuality are constructed, performed, subverted, and transgressed in a variety of cultural contexts. We will pay particular attention to how gender and other forms of difference are shaped and transformed by global forces, and how these processes are themselves gendered and raced. (U) Annually, term varies