Anthropology Literature & Language Essay Research Paper

Answer the questions, don't make it an essay format. Use the source mentioned in the question. Most of all please have it done in an hour, I can't wait longer. Do not cite or use exact quotes. paraphrase at most and refer to the readings.

Anthropology of Gender

• Please choose 5 of the following prompts, and indicate the prompt # at the top of each response. You do not have to answer them in any particular order, but it must be clear with prompt you are answering.

• Each prompt is worth up to 20 points. 18/20 = 90%, 15/20 = 75%, etc.

• Go into as much depth as possible, engaging with as much of the reading material as possible. 

• Use each response as an opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about anthropological research methods, theories, concepts, and ways of looking at the world. 

• Your grade for each response will be based on how clearly and accurately you answer the question, the extent to which you back up your response with supporting evidence from the readings and/or class discussions, how well you explain the reading materials and author’s main ideas, and the amount of writing you provide.

 CHOOSE FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. At best, Western scientific discourses about the human body are inadequate sources for an understanding of gender. At worst, they contribute to the essentialization of gender differences and inequalities. Drawing upon relevant readings, provide your best account of ways in which these discourses and practices are limited or flawed.  What alternative discourses have you learned about in this course? In what specific ways are these alternative discourses different?
2. Both the Bedouin and mainstream American ideologies appear to endorse the idea that gender is a binary, and reinforce this idea through various social, political and economic institutions and everyday discourses and practices.  Despite this parallel, how do Bedouin and American understandings of gender differ?  What insights can be gained from this comparative study in terms of how discourse and practice bring ideologies to life
3. Ortner presents the thesis that women are universally of secondary status in comparison to men.  After summarizing the logic of Ortner’s thesis, provide an argument either in support of or in opposition to it.  Draw from other relevant readings (specific case examples if possible) from the course to defend your argument
4. Drawing from relevant case examples from the readings, explain how the semiotic concepts of “signifier and signified” can further our understanding of how gender categories and meanings are socially constructed, and how some of those categories and meanings become established as “truths”.
5. Make your best case argument for the relevance of anthropology to policies and debates related to gender, sexuality and public health issues such as HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, and childbirth.  What is unique about the anthropological approach to these kinds of issues?  In what specific ways can anthropological research methods and theories contribute to positive social changes either in our own society or others?
6. Drawing from relevant readings and lectures, discuss the role of institutions like public schools and hospitals in producing subjects with specific forms of gendered personhood.  How do factors such as race and socioeconomic status intersect with gender to produce further inequalities between persons in American society?  
7. Drawing from at least two ethnographic case studies of non-western societies, explain how gender categories and views on sexuality and reproduction gather their meanings in accordance with broader social philosophies and cosmologies.  What are some of the specific mechanisms or practices used in those societies to communicate and reinforce the meanings of gender categories, sexuality and reproduction?
8. Butler has argued that gender identity is performatively constituted.  Drawing from Butler’s article and other case examples from the readings that support her thesis, explain how gender performativity is neither an argument that we freely “make up” our identities or have them “assigned” to us by society.