2022-23 Academic Catalog

Using ethnographies, this seminar explores the meanings of reproductive beliefs and practices in comparative perspective, particularly the relation between human and social reproduction. It focuses on (but is not limited to) ethnographic examples from the United States/Canada and from sub-Saharan Africa (societies with relatively low fertility and high utilization of technology and societies with mostly high fertility and low utilization of technology). Topics examined include pregnancy and birth as rites of passage and sites of racialization; abortion; biological vs. social motherhood; maternal morality; stratified reproduction in reproductive technologies and carework; love and sexual economies. Expected preparation: Sociology/Anthropology 110 or SOAN 111 or GWSS 110, and an additional SOAN course, or instructor permission.