Final Paper (Spring 2011)

Due: Monday, May 16, by 5 pm at my office (Vollum 312)

Length and Format: No more than 10 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins all around, 12 point fonts. Please spellcheck and number your pages. They should be well-organized, with a clear thesis or argument that is

1. articulated in the first or second paragraphs,
2. supported by evidence from readings, and
3. reconsidered and fleshed out in a conclusion.

Evaluation: I will evaluate and respond to papers based on (in order of priority):

1. Degree to which you respond to the assignment and incorporate ideas and issues from class materials in your discussion;
2. Extent to which you demonstrate clear understanding of basic terms presented in the course;
3. the creativity and originality of your ideas
4. The clarity of your organization and writing

Topic: This is your final analytic paper for the semester in which you have the chance to apply some of the theories we have read about sex, gender and sexuality cross-culturally in relation to a particular topic emerging from the third unit of the course. The focus of your paper is open to a wide range of subtopics or themes within this.

The third unit of the course emphasizes difficult issues that have been raised or alluded to throughout the semester: the ways in which sex, gender and sexuality are both mutually constituted and inextricably bound up with relations of power in particular socioeconomic and cultural contexts.

Choose a topic related to one of the thematic foci from weeks 10-13 (Gendered Violence, Colonialism, Nationalism and the State, Work and Globalization, or Selling Sex) and use it to examine the ways in which the articulation of relationships among sex, gender and sexuality reproduces and/or contests unequal socioeconomic relations (of wealth, status, authority, power, prestige).

Consider perhaps:

• What is your general theory of sex/gender/sexuality?
• How are we to conceptualize the relationships between sex, gender and sexuality in terms of both cultural politics and political economy?
• How can this perspective help understandings of possibilities for change and contestation within unequal socioeconomic systems?

To do this, draw on a range of theorists and/or ethnographies from the semester; NOT just from the final weeks and NOT just from the week of the topic you choose. Depending on your chosen topic, your arguments will be strengthened by looking at appropriate readings from the supplementary lists on the syllabus, or by drawing on other outside reading, especially sources that will help you ground your discussion in a particular history and cultural politics. All outside sources must be cited in a bibliography. See this page on anthropological citation for correct citational practices.