SOCIOLOGY/G
290
“SOCIOLOGY
OF SEXUALITY”
Spring 2006
Wednesdays, 1:00-3:50 pm, in SSB 101
Prof. Steven Epstein
Department of Sociology
University of California,
San Diego
Office phone: 858-534-0489
E-mail: sepstein@ucsd.edu
Home page: http://sociology.ucsd.edu/~sepstein
Drop-in
office hours: Mon 2:30-3:30 pm and Fri 9:30-10:30 am in SSB 476
Description:
Long marginalized within sociology, the
study of sexuality is fundamental for an adequate understanding of core aspects
of everyday life, from the most intimate and personal to the most abstract and
global. Sexual meanings and practices are constitutive of identities,
communities, organizations, and social movements; etched into the structure of
states, economies, and families; tightly intertwined with systems of inequality
based on race, class, gender, and nation; and embedded in the diverse processes
of globalization. Thus the simple premise of this graduate seminar is that the
domain of sexuality is a vital arena for academic inquiry.
We will begin by taking up theoretical
and methodological questions through an examination of social constructionist
approaches; the work of Michel Foucault; and the reception of queer theory in
the social sciences. In the remainder of the course, we will consider a wide
range of topics and themes, including: identities, differences, communities,
boundaries, and movements; sexual morality and social control; science,
medicine, and the production of sexual subjects; technologies of sex;
sexuality, the state, and citizenship; the political economy of sex; and the
globalization of sexualities.
Graduate students from all departments
are welcome. Although one important goal will be to think about sociological
approaches to the study of sexuality, the course readings are interdisciplinary
and include contributions from sociology, anthropology, history, political
science, women’s studies, ethnic studies, queer
studies, and science and technology studies.
Readings:
There is one required book, available for purchase at the
UCSD Bookstore in the Price Center:
Foucault,
Michel. 1979. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. New
York: Vintage.
All other
required readings are electronically accessible via e-reserves
(http://reserves.ucsd.edu/).
Please note that there is a short reading assigned
for the first meeting of the course!
Requirements:
Students taking the course for credit are expected to submit
a paper (20-25 pages in length) by Wednesday, June 14. You must get my approval
of your proposed topic by submitting a short written description by no later
than the end of Week 5 (May 5).
In addition, each student (including auditors) will be asked
to circulate discussion questions in advance of two class meetings during the
quarter. These questions must be emailed to all participants in the seminar by
5:00 pm on the day before class. Students will sign up for specific weeks at
the first meeting of the seminar.
Gagnon, John H., and William Simon [orig. 1973] 2005. Sexual
Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality, 2nd ed. New
Brunswick: Aldine, 1-19 (Chapter 1: “The Social Origins of Sexual
Development”).
Also recommended:
Vance,
Carole S. [orig. 1989] 1998. “Social Construction Theory: Problems in the
History of Sexuality.” Pp. 160-170 in Social Perspectives in Lesbian and Gay
Studies, ed. Peter M. Nardi and Beth E. Schneider. London: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1979. The History of Sexuality, Volume
1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage, 1-73, 92-114, 135-159.
Epstein, Steven. 2003. “An Incitement to Discourse:
Sociology and The History of Sexuality.”
Sociological Forum 18, no. 3 (September): 486-500.
Sedgwick, Eve. 1990. Epistemology
of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 22-48 (Introduction).
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the
Discursive Limits of ‘Sex.’ New York: Routledge, 223-42, notes on 281-84
(Chapter 8: “Critically Queer”).
Stein,
Arlene, and Ken Plummer. 1994. “‘I Can’t Even Think Straight’: ‘Queer’ Theory
and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology.” Sociological Theory 12,
no. 2: 178-87.
Gamson,
Joshua, and Dawne Moon. 2004. “The Sociology of Sexualities: Queer and Beyond.”
Annual Review of Sociology 30, no. 1: 47-64.
Also recommended:
Epstein, Steven. 1994. “A Queer
Encounter: Sociology and the Study of Sexuality.” Sociological Theory
12, no. 2 (July): 188-202.
Seidman, Steven, ed. 1996. Queer Theory/Sociology.
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Chauncey, George. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban
Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic
Books, 66-97 (Chapter 3: “Trade, Wolves, and the Boundaries of Normal
Manhood”).
Cohen,
Cathy J. 1996. “Contested Membership: Black Gay Identities and the Politics of
AIDS.” Pp. 362-94 in Queer Theory/Sociology, ed. Steven Seidman. Cambridge,
MA: Blackwell.
Nagel, Joane. 2000.
“Ethnicity and Sexuality.” Annual Review of Sociology 26: 107-133.
Armstrong, Elizabeth A.
2002. Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco,
1950-1994. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1-28, notes on 213-19
(Chapter 1: “The Transformation of the Lesbian/Gay Movement”).
Gamson, Joshua. 1996. “Must Identity Movements
Self-destruct? A Queer Dilemma.” Pp. 395-420 in Queer Theory/Sociology,
ed. Steven Seidman. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Also recommended:
Ponse, Barbara. 1978. Identities in the
Lesbian World: The Social Construction of Self. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press.
Parker, Richard G. 1991. Bodies,
Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil. Boston:
Beacon Press, 67-97.
Halberstam, Judith. 1998. “Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM
Border Wars and the Masculine Continuum.” GLQ 4, no. 2: 287-310.
Carrillo, Héctor. 2002. The Night Is Young: Sexuality in
Mexico in the Time of AIDS. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 31-96.
Ward, Jane. 2003.
“Producing ‘Pride’ in West Hollywood: A Queer Cultural Capital for Queers with
Cultural Capital.” Sexualities 6 (1):65-94.
Rubin, Gayle S. 1993.
“Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Pp.
3-44 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove, Michèle
Aina Barale and David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge.
Freedman,
Estelle B. 1989. “‘Uncontrolled Desires’: The Response to the Sexual Psychopath,
1920-1960.” Pp. 199-225 in Passion and Power: Sexuality in History, ed.
Kathy Peiss and Christina Simmons. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Stein, Arlene. 2005. “Make
Room for Daddy: Anxious Masculinity and Emergent Homophobias in Neopatriarchal
Politics.” Gender & Society 19 (5):601-620.
Also recommended:
Wiegman,
Robyn. 1993. “The Anatomy of Lynching.” Pp. 223-245 in American Sexual
Politics: Sex, Gender, and Race Since the Civil War, ed. John C. Fout and
Maura Shaw Tantillo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stein, Arlene. 2001. The Stranger Next Door: The Story of
a Small Community’s Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights. Boston:
Beacon Press.
Carrillo, Héctor. 2002. The Night Is Young: Sexuality in
Mexico in the Time of AIDS. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 131-179.
Meyerowitz, Joanne. 2002. How Sex Changed: A History of
Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 98-129, notes on 308-14 (Chapter 3: “From Sex to Gender”).
Kline, Wendy. 2001. Building
a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to
the Baby Boom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 32-60, notes on
172-77 (Chapter 2: “From Segregation to Sterilization: Changing Approaches to
the Problem of Female Sexuality”).
Terry, Jennifer. 2000. “‘Unnatural Acts’
in Nature.” GLQ 6, no. 2: 151-193.
Epstein, Steven. 2003. “Sexualizing Governance and
Medicalizing Identities: The Emergence of ‘State-Centered’ LGBT Health Politics
in the United States.” Sexualities 6, no. 2 (May): 131-171.
Also recommended:
Stein,
Edward. 1999. The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of
Sexual Orientation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Farquhar,
Judith. 2002. Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 211-242 (Chapter 5: “Sexual Science”).
Waites, Matthew. 2005.
“The Fixity of Sexual Identities in the Public Sphere: Biomedical Knowledge,
Liberalism and the Heterosexual/Homosexual Binary in Late Modernity.” Sexualities
8 (5):539-569.
Maines, Rachel P. 1999. The Technology of Orgasm:
“Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 67-110, notes on 150-66 (Chapter 4: “Inviting the Juices
Downward”).
Coopersmith, Jonathan. 2000. “Pornography, Videotape, and the Internet.” IEEE
Technology and Society 19, no. 1 (Spring): 27-34.
Moore, Lisa Jean. 1997. “‘It’s Like You Use Pots and Pans to
Cook. It’s the Tool’: The Technologies of Safer Sex.” Science, Technology,
& Human Values 22, no. 4 (Autumn): 434-471.
Fishman, Jennifer R. 2004. “Manufacturing Desire: The
Commodification of Female Sexual Dysfunction.” Social Studies of Science
34, no. 2 (April): 187-218.
Alexander, M. Jacqui.
1994. “Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and
Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas.” Feminist Review
48:5-23.
Richardson, Diane. 1998. “Sexuality and Citizenship.” Sociology 32
(1):83-100.
Larvie, Sean Patrick.
1999. “Queerness and the Specter of Brazilian National Ruin.” GLQ 5
(4):527-558.
Manalansan, Martin F.
2005. “Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City.” Social
Text 23 (3-4):141-155.
Also recommended:
Weeks, Jeffrey. 1998. "The Sexual Citizen." Theory, Culture
& Society 15 (3-4):35-52.
Bell, David, and Jon
Binnie. 2000. The Sexual Citizen: Queer Politics and Beyond. Cambridge,
England: Polity.
Prieur, Annick. 1998. Mema’s House, Mexico City: On
Transvestites, Queens, and Machos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
41-103 (Chapter 2: “Everyday Life of a Jota”).
Frank,
Katherine. 2002. G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2002, 203-28 (Ch. 6: “Hustlers, Pros, and the Girl Next Door: Social
Class, Race, and the Consumption of the Authentic Female Body”).
Bernstein, Elizabeth.
2005. “Desire, Demand, and the Commerce of Sex.” Pp. 101-125 in Regulating
Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, edited by E. Bernstein and L.
Schaffner. New York: Routledge.
Walters, Susanna Danuta. 2001. All the Rage: The Story of
Gay Visibility in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 235-272,
notes on 310-12 (Chapter 11: “Consuming Queers: Advertising and the Gay
Market”).
Boellstorff, Tom. 1999. “The Perfect Path: Gay Men,
Marriage, Indonesia.” GLQ 5, no. 4: 475-510.
Parker, Richard G. 1999. Beneath
the Equator: Cultures of Desire, Male Homosexuality, and Emerging Gay
Communities in Brazil. New York: Routledge, 179-221, notes on 262-64
(Chapter 6: “Changing Places”).
Carrillo, Héctor. 2004.
“Sexual Migration, Cross-Cultural Sexual Encounters, and Sexual Health.” Sexuality
Research and Social Policy 1 (3):58-70.
Nguyen, Vinh-Kim. 2005.
“Uses and Pleasures: Sexual Modernity, HIV/AIDS, and Confessional Technologies
in a West African Metropolis.” Pp. 245-267 in Sex in Development: Science,
Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective, edited by V. Adams and S. L.
Pigg. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Also recommended:
Povinelli,
Elizabeth A., and George Chauncey. 1999. “Thinking Sexuality Transnationally.” GLQ
5, no. 4: 439-450.
Rofel, Lisa. 1999. “Qualities of Desire: Imagining Gay
Identities in China.” GLQ 5, no. 4: 451-474.
Altman, Dennis. 2001. Global Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Wonders, Nancy A., and Raymond
Michalowski. 2001. “Bodies,
Borders, and Sex Tourism in a Globalized World: A Tale of Two Cities—Amsterdam
and Havana.” Social Problems
48, no. 4 (November): 545-71.
Cantú, Lionel. 2002. “De Ambiente: Queer Tourism and
the Shifting Boundaries of Mexican Male Sexualities.” GLQ 8, nos. 1-2: 139-166.
Manalansan, Martin F. 2003. Global Divas: Filipino Gay
Men in the Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Binnie, Jon. 2004. The
Globalization of Sexuality. London: Sage.