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How can we use material traces of past lives to understand sex and gender in the past?
Browsing All Posts filed under »sexuality«
Sex and gender: what makes for a successful final project?
Ideally, a student final project proposal would show a degree of understanding of concepts presented in the class, but would extend them in some way. For my project, I would like to learn more about the galli of ancient Rome, whom I read about in my article for Project Benchmark I. They are interesting because […]
Approaching sex through archaeology: celibacy and sex
May 8, 2010
By the last week of the third part of the course, students are finally ready to begin to address one of the major drawbacks of much of the archaeology of gender: the way it elides sexual practices and experiences. By juxtaposing archaeological, art historical, and documentary history approaches to sex work and celibacy, we leave […]
Approaching sex through archaeology: third genders and beyond
May 5, 2010
Returning to a theme from the previous week, third genders, I begin my discussion of method and theory and how they change what archaeologists think we can do with a reconsideration rooted in Sandra Hollimon’s work on Chumash society of California. In Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives, I describe what Hollimon sketches out in a series […]
Approaching sex through archaeology: methods and theories
May 4, 2010
My Discovery course at Berkeley, “Archaeology of Sex and Gender”, is taught over a 15 week semester. The first two sections of the course, “Thinking about sex and gender: disciplinary approaches” and “Sex and gender in the past: regional traditions” can stand alone as a one-quarter course at colleges that use the quarter system. Together, […]
Native North America: from bodies to practices
May 2, 2010
The last case study that I incorporate into the middle section of my course, Archaeology of Sex and Gender, draws on the archaeological, bioarchaeological, historical and ethnographic record from Native North America. The emphasis on the widest possible range of disciplinary perspectives is critical, to remind students of the differences in perspectives and methods that […]
Classic Maya: sexual bodies
May 1, 2010
In Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives, I draw on my own work on Classic Maya sex/gender in Chapter 3, which deals centrally with sexuality in hierarchical societies. In addition to asking students to read Chapter 3 in the book, I selected a group of articles that all explore the way idealized, sexualized bodies were represented in […]
Classical bodies
April 30, 2010
Classical studies are a rich source of potential material, and many students have some level of comfort with these societies. So I use this material to add to the previous contrast of archaeology/art history an additional dimension, documentary history. David Halperin’s article “Why is Diotima a Woman?” appears on many reading lists in history of […]
Getting a little less comfortable: Egypt and Mesopotamia
April 29, 2010
Each regional traditions segment moves further outside what students may consider their comfort zone. Each also includes articles selected to focus attention on specific contrasts and specific issues. The second group of articles deals with Egypt and Mesopotamia, societies routinely taught in K-12 curricula in the US. I use three articles that all deal in […]
Sex and gender in the past: Using regional traditions
April 27, 2010
Because archaeology means prehistory to many people, students often come to my course expecting it to be a kind of world survey of sex and gender in the past. This would be a daunting task, and it is not what I am trying to do. So: how not to disappoint while engaging students in my […]
So what does Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives do?
April 22, 2010
Karina Croucher provides a better overview of the book than I ever have, in her April 2010 review in the American Journal of Archaeology Online: The book is structured into an introduction and five chapters that cover various thematic areas. The author challenges constructions of sex and gender categories, addresses aspects of power and hierarchy, […]
May 13, 2010
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