Readings

The readings assigned for each class session are listed below. Questions for each session's readings are available on the Study Materials page.

Books

[RCG] = Buy at Amazon Andersen, Margaret L., and Patricia Hill Collins. Race, Class and Gender . 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000. ISBN: 9780534568924.

[Legacies] = Buy at Amazon Bogarad, Carley Rees, Lynne Crockett, and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt. Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction . Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2008. ISBN: 9781428206298.

Buy at Amazon Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780521017114.

[SocLit] = Buy at Amazon Coser, Lewis. Sociology Through Literature . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972. ISBN: 9780138215385.

[SCRE] = Buy at Amazon Ferrante, Joan, and Prince Browne, Jr. The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2001. ISBN: 9780130283238.

[Body] = Buy at Amazon Lock, Margaret, and Judith Farquhar. Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780822338451.

[RES] = Buy at Amazon Nagel, Joane. Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780195127478.

Buy at Amazon Pascoe, C. J. Dude , You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780520252301.

Buy at Amazon Rhodes, Lorna A. Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520240766.

[CDUS] = Buy at Amazon Susser, Ida, and Thomas C. Patterson. Cultural Diversity in the United States: A Critical Reader . Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. ISBN: 9780631222132.

Week # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction to Course
2 Studying Identity and Difference: Concepts

Pascoe, pp. 1-174.

Optional

Buy at Amazon Davis, Natalie Zemon. "Boundaries and the Sense of Self in Sixteenth-Century France." In Heller, Thomas C., Morton Sosna, and David E. Wellbery. Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780804712910.

Buy at Amazon Mead, George Herbert. "The Self, the I, and the Me." In Lemert, Charles. Social Theory: The Multicultural & Classic Readings . Boulder, CO: Westview, 2009. ISBN: 9780813343921.

Bentham, Jeremy. " Of the Principle of Utility ." The Principles of Morals and Legislation , 1789.

Wade, Nicholas. " Human Culture, an Evolutionary Force ." New York Times , March 1, 2010.

3 Analytic Perspectives: Bodies

Buy at Amazon Gordon, Linda. "Social Purity and Eugenics." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America . New York, NY: Penguin, 1990. ISBN: 9780140131277.

Buy at Amazon Gould, Stephen J. "Measuring Bodies." The Mismeasure of Man . New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996. ISBN: 9780393314250.

[Body] Schmidt, Matthew, and Lisa Jean Moore. "Constructing a 'Good Catch', Picking a Winner: The Development of Technosemen and the Deconstruction of the Monolithic Male."

Buy at Amazon Kondo, Dorinne. "On Being a Conceptual Anomaly." Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1990. ISBN: 9780226450445.

Buy at Amazon Pascoe, Peggy. "Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of 'Race' in 20th-Century America." In Ruiz, Vicki, and Ellen Carol DuBois. Unequal Sisters: An Inclusive Reader in US Women's History. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415958417.

Optional

Springen, Karen, and David Noonan. " Sperm Banks Go Online ." Newsweek , April 21, 2003.

Fisher, Ian. " Bill Would Govern Use of Dead Men's Sperm ." New York Times , March 7, 1998.

Harmon, Amy. " First Comes the Baby Carriage ." New York Times , October 13, 2005.

Alvarez, Lizette. " Spreading Scandinavian Genes, Without Viking Boats ." New York Times , September 30, 2004.

Plotz, David. " Who's Your Daddy? " New York Times , May 19, 2005.

Simons, Marlise. " French Uproar Over Right to Death for Unborn ." New York Times , October 19, 2001.

Daley, Suzanne. " France Bans Damages for 'Wrongful Births' ." New York Times , January 10, 2002.

4 Analytic Perspectives: What is "Identity?" "Difference?"

Bourgois, pp. 1-173.

Optional

[Legacies] Díaz, Junot. "Fiesta 1980." Originally in Buy at Amazon Díaz, Junot. Drown . New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1996. ISBN: 9781573220415.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan

" Scandinavia and Ibn Fadlan ." MuslimHeritage.com , February 2, 2007.

5 Analytic Perspectives: Deviance

Bourgois, pp. 174-337.

Optional

Buy at Amazon Durkheim, Emile. "The Normal and the Pathological." In Clarke, Edward J., and Delos H. Kelly. Deviant Behavior . New York, NY: Worth Publishers, 2008. ISBN: 9781429205184.

LaFraniere, Sharon. " A Miniature World Magnifies Dwarf Life ." New York Times , March 3, 2010.

Itzkoff, Dave. "' Family Guy', Palin, and the Limits of Laughter ." New York Times , February 19, 2010.

6 Deviance and Stigma: The Outer Limits of Identity Rhodes, pp. 1-224.
7 Sexuality

[RES] "Introduction: Sex matters: Racing Sex and Sexing Race," "Ethnosexual Frontiers: Cruising and Crossing Intimate Intersections," "Constructing Ethnicity and Sexuality: Building Boundaries and Identities," "Sex and Race: The Color of Sex in America," "Sex and Nationalism: Sexually Imagined Communities."

Optional

[RES] "Sex and Conquest."

[Body] Pedersen, Susan. "National Bodies, Unspeakable Acts: The Sexual Politics of Colonial Policy Making."

[Body] Abelove, Henry. "Some Speculations on the History of 'Sexual Intercourse' During the 'Long Eighteenth Century' in England."

[RCG] Takagi, Dana. "Maiden Voyage: Excursion into Sexuality and Identity Politics in Asian America."

Bumiller, Elisabeth. " Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy Filed in Senate ." New York Times , March 3, 2010.

Boylan, Jennifer Finney. " Is My Marriage Gay? " New York Times , May 11, 2009.

Rudnick, Paul. "Don't Ask Me." New Yorker , March 22, 2010.

9 Gender

Buy at Amazon Laqueur, Thomas. "Orgasm, Generation, and the Politics of Reproductive Biology." In Lancaster, Roger N., & Micaela di Leonardo. The Gender Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy . New York, NY: Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 9780415910057.

Willis, Paul. "Masculinity and Factory Labor." Originally in Buy at Amazon Clarke, John, et al. Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory . London, England: Hutchinson, 1979. ISBN: 9780312889784. In Buy at Amazon Alexander, Steven, and Jeffrey Seidman. Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521359399.

Buy at Amazon Cohn, Carol. "Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War." In Kimmel, Michael S. The Gendered Society Reader . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780199733712.

Lucal, Betsy. "What it Means to be Gendered Me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System." Gender and Society 13 (1999): 781-797.

Optional

Kramer, Heinrich, and James Sprenger. " Part I, Question V ," " Part I, Question XI ," " Part II, Question I, Chapter III ." The Malleus Maleficarum , 1486.

Buy at Amazon Stolke, Verena. "Invaded Women." In Hendricks, Margo, and Patricia Parker. Women, "Race" and Writing in the Early Modern Period . New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 9780415077781.

Buy at Amazon Kapsalis, Terri. "Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and the Tools of Reproduction." Public Privates: Performing Gynaecology from Both Ends of the Speculum . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780822319214.

Buy at Amazon Bordo, Susan. "Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture." In Counihan, Carole, and Penny Van Esterik. Food and Culture: A Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 9780415977777.

Buy at Amazon Tsing, Anna. "Monster Stories: Women Charged with Perinatal Endangerment." In Ginsburg, Faye, and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture . Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780807046135.

Kendall, Lori. "'Oh No! I'm a Nerd!': Hegemonic Masculinity on an Online Forum." Gender and Society 14 (2000): 256-274.

Pyke, Karen D., and Denise L. Johnson. "Asian American Women and Racialized Femininities: 'Doing' Gender Across Cultural Worlds." Gender and Society 17 (2003): 33-53.

Glaberson, William. " For Transgender People, Name is a Message ." New York Times , January 24, 2010.

Brown, Patricia Leigh. " A Quest for a Restroom That's Neither Men's Room Nor Women's Room ." New York Times , March 4, 2005.

10 Religion; Social Class

Jacobson, Shari. "Modernity, Conservative Religious Movements and the Female Subject: Newly Ultraorthodox Sephardi Women in Buenos Aires." American Anthropologist 108 (2006): 336-346.

Rouse, Carolyn, and Janet Hoskins. "Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance." Cultural Anthropology 19 (2004): 226-249.

[SocLit] Orwell, George. "The Pecking Order of a Restaurant," 1933. "The Lower Classes Smell," 1937.

[RCG] Mantsios, Gregory. "Media Magic: Making Class Invisible."

[RCG] Zinn, Maxine Baca, and D. Stanley Eitzen. "Economic Restructuring and Systems of Inequality at Century's End."

[RCG] VanderStaay, Steven. "The Armstrongs: an Oral History."

[RCG] Newman, Katherine. "Working Poor, Working Hard."

Optional

[SocLit] Orwell, George. "Shooting an Elephant," 1945.

[Legacies] Vonnegut, Jr., Kurt. "Harrison Bergeron."

11 Ethnicity

Buy at Amazon Malamud, Bernard. "The Jewbird." In Cassill, R. V. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction . 1st ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 9780393090727.

[RCG] Takaki, Ronald T. "A Different Mirror." Originally in Buy at Amazon Takaki, Ronald R. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America . Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 2008. ISBN: 9780316022361.

[RCG] Ferber, Abby L. " What White Supremacists Taught a Jewish Scholar About Identity ." Originally in The Chronicle of Higher Education , May 7, 1999.

[RCG] Cofer, Judith Ortiz. "The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María."

[RCG] Moraga, Cherríe. "La Güera." Originally in Buy at Amazon Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa. This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by Women of Color . New York, NY: Kitchen Table Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780913175187.

[CDUS] Biolsi, Thomas. "Contemporary Native American Struggles."

Buy at Amazon Zia, Helen. "Gangsters, Gooks, Geishas and Geeks." In Schaefer, Richard T. Racial and Ethnic Groups . 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. ISBN: 9780130418692.

[SCRE] "Constitution of the State of California, Article XIX: Chinese."

[SCRE] Gould, Stephen Jay. "Science and Jewish Immigration."

[Body] Cosgrove, Stuart. "The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare."

13 Race

Buy at Amazon Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. "Racial Formation." Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s . New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 9780415908641.

Smedley, Audrey. "'Race' and the Construction of Human Identity." American Anthropologist 100 (1999): 690-702.

[SCRE] U.S. Office of Management and Budget. "Federal Statistical Directive No. 15: Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting."

[SCRE] Jensen, Robert. "White Privilege Shapes the U.S." and "More Thoughts on Why the System of White Privilege is Wrong."

[SCRE] Jefferson, Thomas. "Letter From Thomas Jefferson: Virginia's Definition of a Mulatto."

Buy at Amazon Du Bois, W. E. B. "The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study," 1899. " The Souls of Black Folk ," 1903. In Farganis, James. Readings in Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. ISBN: 9780078111556.

[Legacies] Jacobs, Harriet. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl."

Optional

Nixon, Ron. " DNA Tests Find Branches but Few Roots ." New York Times , November 25, 2007.

Potok, Mark, et al. " The Geography of Hate ." New York Times , November 25, 2007.

Saulny, Susan. " With New Homes, Town Makes Amends for Its Bias ." New York Times , March 10, 2010.

Wise, Tim. " Imagine: Protest, Insurgency, and the Workings of White Privilege ." April 25, 2010.

14 Race, Gender, Ethnicity I

[CDUS] Merry, Sally. "Racialized Identities and the Law."

[SocLit] Brown, Claude. "Everybody White She Saw Was Mr. Charlie."

[SocLit] Johnson, James Weldon. "To be a Negro."

[SocLit] Twain, Mark. "Huck Breaks the White Code."

[SocLit] Wright, Richard. "The Price of Keeping One's Place."

[RCG] Anderson, Elijah. "The Police and the Black Male."

[RCG] Dyson, Michael. "The Plight of Black Men."

[SCRE] Zinn, Howard. "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition."

Pollock, Mica. "Race Bending: 'Mixed' Youth Practicing Strategic Racialization in California." Anthropology & Education Quarterly 35 (2004): 30-52.

Rotimi, Charles N. "Genetic Ancestry Tracing and the African Identity: A Double-Edged Sword?" Developing World Bioethics 3 (2003): 151-158.

15 Race, Gender, Ethnicity II

Buy at Amazon Cole, Johnnetta Betsch, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. "Collisions: Black Liberation Versus Women's Liberation." Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities . New York, NY: Ballantine, 2003. ISBN: 9780345454133.

[RCG] Davis, Deirdre. "The Harm That Has No Name: Street Harassment, Embodiment, and African American Women."

[RCG] McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege."

[RCG] Williams, Patricia. "Of Race and Risk." (Also in Schaefer, Racial and Ethnic Groups .)

" How to Tell Your Friends From the Japs. " Time , December 22, 1941.

[SCRE] Forbes, Jack D. "'Indian' and 'Black' as Radically Different Types of Categories."

[SCRE] Browne, Prince. "Why 'Race' Makes no Scientific Sense: The Case of Africans and Native Americans."

Lei, Joy L. "(Un)necessary Toughness? Those 'Loud Black Girls' and Those Quiet Asian Boys.'" Anthropology & Education Quarterly 34 (2003): 158-181.

Optional

[CDUS] Goode, Judith. "Teaching Against Culturalist Essentialism."

[RCG] Churchill, Ward. "Crimes Against Humanity."

Harmon, Amy. " Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of its DNA ." New York Times , April 21, 2010.