Anthropology 257 - Rethinking Difference:Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Brazil

Institution:

Bard College

Subject:

Description:

Africana Studies, GIS, GSS, Human Rights This course draws upon material from Brazil to examine constructions and practices of gender and sexuality. It critiques the imagined utopia of Brazilian tropical sensuality best known through popularized global images of Carnival and locates historical sources of this imagery in slavery and colonialism. These images, in turn, are juxtaposed against performances of gender and sexuality in contemporary Brazilian life and their interface with hierarchies of race, age, and social class. Through films and ethnographic texts, students examine gender stereotypes and patterns of heterosexuality, homosexuality, transgenderism, and prostitution. State and church efforts to shape and control ideologies and practices of sexuality and gender are posed against the work of feminists, grass-roots groups, and AIDS activists. All of these issues are considered in relation to the larger global media context, within which Brazilian images and relations of gender and sexuality are shaped and contested.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.bard.edu

Phone Number:

(845) 758-6822

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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