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Semester 2

Anthropology of Sex and Reproduction (SCAN10068)

Subject

Social Anthropology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed at least 3 Social Anthropology courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses.

Course Summary

Sex and reproduction are a necessity, a desire, a human compulsion. They are simultaneously private and public, as intimate acts and matters of open social concern. Sex sells, but it can be posed as indicative of larger social concerns. Political sex scandals, teenage pregnancy, designer vaginas, emergency contraceptives, and genetically engineered babies, have all provoked alarm and titillation at the failings, fears, and excitement of modernity. Human reproduction is crucial to social reproduction, as the birth of babies also produces parents, families, nations, and futures. From myths of origin to pornography, reproductive rights to the politics of motherhood, this course examines anthropological approaches to the study of sex and reproduction, asking why two aspects of life so crucial to biological existence can be seen as a desire, a danger, a choice, a risk, or even the very point of life itself. It addresses the multiple biological, political, ethical, material, and religious ways in which people engage with desire, love, and kinship.

Course Description

Academic Description: While myths of origin, kinship diagrams, and the rituals of protecting, proving, and sacrificing virginity have a long and glorious anthropological history, the intimate details of the everyday sex and reproduction they hint at have often been relegated to the periphery of anthropological subfields. All the while, the well-trodden trope 'sex sells' becomes increasingly true in diverse ways. Social movements are formulated in response to sexual and reproductive injustice and inequality. Developments in science and technology illuminate and transform how people think about and act upon their own sexual and reproductive capacities. The rise of transnational travel and communications facilitates an awareness of what might otherwise be hidden. Sexual and reproductive consumers can engage in intercourse, surgery, and pharmaceuticals; sperm can be bought, wombs can be rented; and everything can be watched online. As sex and reproduction - both frequently private acts of public concern - are shaped in response to mass global consumerism, they also remain deeply embedded in specific social, legal, ethical, and religious contexts. This course will examine these specific forms of relatedness through an in-depth analysis of the dynamic interplay between sex, gender, and reproduction as they intersect with concepts of identity, personhood, citizenship, and morality. The course will engage students with classic and contemporary anthropological literature, and encourage them to consider how and why sex and reproduction have been approached in particular ways during specific historical periods. *Outline Content* Why Sex and Reproduction Matter, Sex, Race, and Gender, Making Sense of Flesh, Blood, and Bodies, Materialities of Sex, Sex and the State, Making Babies, Making Parents Reproductive Decisions and Technologies, Value and Exchange, Sex, Procreation, and Religion, Rights, Choice, and Agency. *Student Learning Experience* This course is taught through lectures and seminars. Although grounded in social anthropology, this course is open to students with backgrounds in social sciences, medicine, biomedical sciences, and the humanities. Lectures will introduce the core anthropological theories and debates in sex, reproduction, and gender. Content will be delivered in lecture sessions involving some participatory activities. These will be supported by separate seminars, during which students will present their own research in small groups. Students are expected to actively discuss readings in class, and to participate in classroom activities and discussions during lecture time.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

view the timetable and further details for this course