University of Southern California



Dr. Erin Moore, Department of Anthropology

Fall 2020 University of Southern California

Report Covid Symptoms/ Testing: 213 740-9355

Class: Tuesday Thursday 11-12:20 Pacific Time, Zoom

Student chat hours by e-mail for appointment, epm@usc.edu, or after class.

Computer support, Blackboard support 213 740-5555

Sex, Love and Marriage: An Introduction to Kinship (8/6/20) Draft

Anthropology 370 Section 10732R (4 units)

Anthropology is the study of what it means to be human – across time and geography. What makes “common sense” to us is not necessarily common sense to another. The purpose of anthropology is to open our eyes to the diversity of human life. We do not all see the world with the same eyes. Here we attempt to walk one semester in someone else’s shoes.

Have you ever realized that your culture tells you with whom you are allowed to: flirt, tell dirty jokes or have sex? These intimacies lead us to culturally “permissible” relationships, falling in love, and maybe, some form of marriage.

What is a marriage? What does love have to do with it? Do you expect sex with marriage; do you need the state or a religious body to approve the union; do you even need the agreement of both partners? Who chooses your mate(s), how many and what genders? Do the rules of your culture say you should marry your mother’s brother’s daughter (a cousin to us) or that you can never marry a cousin? What is incest? Why are some families organized around men (patriarchy) while others around women (or men and women equally)?

The study of kinship is a cross-cultural look at sex, love, courtship, marriage, family, inheritance -- and the homogenizing effects of modernity. Kinship refers to whom we consider family: blood, marriage, cultural rules and personal choices (adoptions, wet nurse, godparenting, your mother’s best friend, a lover, a family pet?). It is not necessarily biology!

The purpose of this course is to explore a wide variety of human relationships in our own society as well as other cultures around the world. Through the study of specific cultures, we will explore how kinship is related to gender, economic activities, and political systems. In this class, we will discuss the major concepts, controversies, and theoretical issues related to marriage, the family and the formation of social groups -- including the new reproductive technologies (surrogacy).

We will visit: South Asia (India, Nepal, Pakistan), Africa, China, Native Americans and the modern United States.

Student Learning Goals:

1. Apply anthropological concepts, theories and methodologies to your own and others’ lives. (This is graded through participation, written responses, kin chart, research project, and exams).

2. Evaluate and synthesize current kinship research.

3. Create an original kinship chart based on ethnographic research collected within your family (or another family). 

4. Construct an annotated bibliography based on library research with comparative analysis of course materials.

5. Present research findings to the class in a Power Point presentation. 

Required Texts:

1. Lila Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds (2008) (Egyptian Bedouin patrilines, polygyny)

2. Shanshan Du, “Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs, ” Gender Unity and Gender Equality Among the Lahu of Southwest China, (2002) Columbia University Press, New York.

3. Linda Stone, Kinship and Gender, An Introduction (2019), 6th edition (BE SURE YOU GET THIS EDITION)

PLUS: There are items on electronic reserves, called Ares reserve:

Click to open the article you need.  “View Item.” It is sideways?  Save to your desktop (under file at top of computer, “Save As…..”), once on your desktop you can “Rotate View” (under view at top).  

Course Requirements:

Grades:

Daily stuff: 25%

Participation: 10%

Written reflections: 15%

Exams: (48% total)

2 Midterms 15% and 15%

2 Quizzes 9% each, 18%

Paper stuff: 27%

Kin Chart 10%

Research project: Annotated bibliography plus Power Points 17%

BEFORE YOU ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR ASSIGNMENTS PLEASE REVIEW THIS SYLLABUS.

THE ZOOM classroom: Ideas for classroom netiquette

The lectures will be recorded.

Please use a computer and sit/stand instead of walking around.

Dress in classroom attire.

Don’t eat during the class.

Have camera on if possible.

Make sure that we can see your face on the screen with the right lighting.

Students should use their full name, change the name (click the name) for our class if you are using someone else’s computer.

Turn off your phone at the start of class and stow it.

Have the screen in gallery view while we are having a discussion.

This is my ideal. What makes sense to you? Email and discuss with me or in class.

1. Participation in class: A dialog (active attendance), 10% This is a book group. I want to read and discuss the materials with you. The class will be held as part lecture and part seminar format. Grading rubric: talking, thoughtful ideas that furthered the discussion or opened new avenues for discussion, discussion board contributions, etc.

Please be on time (coming late I mark in my grade book, sign in a few minutes early to chat).

2. Written reflections sent by computer to the professor, 15%

Write on ALL the materials due for the day of the class.

All students must write a one-page response to readings assigned for EACH class. Give your response to all the readings: relate to other classes, what you like or did not like, how does this relate to your life, etc. approx. 400 words, double-spaced.

NOTE: E-mail to me, epm@usc.edu, Anthro. 370 in the subject line.

Send by 9 am the day of the class. Late responses are not accepted. (I read them before class). You can always send them early (the day before or more). Email the response even if you are absent from class.

Paste it into the e-mail, no attachments.

This homework is graded with a 1 or a 0; if it is inadequate I will contact you through email.

3. A. Draw your own Kinship Chart with a key. 10%

You are the EGO (write this on chart, color in black). Put names and dates of birth and death as best you can. Add birth order, marriage order. You may choose to do a chart of someone else’s family (check with me first). You may draw a chart and photograph it for me or use the computer to construct the chart with Anthropological symbols that we are using.

Do both your mother’s and your father’s lineage. Make a CONSISTENT key on both sides. For the key, remember to include the symbols for man, woman, married, divorced, etc.

Keep the generations on the same line. Include at least 4 generations. If you need to draw over another lineage, indicate with a little detour line. (ask me)

N.B. You will need to spend a few hours getting the information. This is fieldwork. Talk to your family; look at what they have already collected; review old photo albums.

Color code 5 patterns not visible on the chart (health issues, jobs, education, risk-taking, hobbies, military service, etc. Not the patrilineal names.) Color the shapes BOLDLY so that the patterns are obvious. In addition, color your parallel cousins blue stripes.

Do not COLOR the girls pink and the boys blue – that is already marked with shapes, save colors for patterns. Do not color the number of children (this too is obvious).

Do the chart online or on wide paper and photograph it and email to me. Highest grade is 95%.

Chart Due: Sept. 10, 2020

4. Research: Research kinship in another culture. This is your chance to do library research investigating peer reviewed journal articles in Kinship.

(17% total: Annotated bibliography is 12%, Power Point is 5%)

Explore another culture that we have not studied – bilateral, matrilineal, patrilineal. Compare and contrast to the cultures that we have studied. We will have the research librarian come to class to help you get started on the project. This is an opportunity to learn how the USC libraries work and how to do a simple research project.

Get approval from me on your chosen topic. Use 3 sources outside the class assignments; you may have to explore more to find the right resources. You may not use Wiki as a cite.

Go to University libraries () and look at Databases (below), Credo under quick links (to the right to get started), then Anthropology Proquest, or just a general search: Kinship and (choose a culture group, maybe where your ancestors are from), then mark Peer Review and Anthropology in left margin. I like --- data bases, see JSTOR link in the list to the right.

You must use scholarly JOURNAL articles that are accessed through our library online reserves. They must be preapproved by me.

You can get started earlier than this and then skip the class that the librarian leads. Email 3 PDFs to me before the start of class.

1. 10/13 Paper topic and one PDF article about the topic. Email the article and topic to me before the start of class.  I will tell you if you are on the right track.

2. 10/20 send me your other 2 PDFs before class time, not just the citations.

3.  10/29 3-4 page annotated bibliography emailed to me before the start of class. 

Follow this outline for your three references.

This should be about one article per page. At least three pages, 3-4 works total.

If you change the reference, send me the new PDFs.

4. Power Point Presentations: I would like you to tell the class how this culture is similar and different from our other cultures. About 7 min. (7 slides) choose key points only. Have a map, images of the culture, and limit the text on each slide. 95% highest grade.

5. Exams: Essay and short answer (15% ea.)

The exams are not cumulative. There are no phones or bathroom trips allowed during the exams.

6. 2 Quizzes 18% total. Sept. 8, Oct. 20

Students with special accommodations, please advise me during the first week of school. The Office of Disability Services and Programs - (213) 740-0776 dsp.usc.edu

Support and accommodations for students with disabilities. Services include assistance in providing readers/notetakers/interpreters, special accommodations for test taking needs, assistance with architectural barriers, assistive technology, etc.

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8/18 The Field Anthropology, What is Kinship?

Review of Class Format and Assignments, Introductions

8/20 Asynchronous class time (we do not meet): What forces define and control the family/stories about family?

African American Kinship: Readings before class time:

1. Ares Reserves: “Kinship in the African American Family,” Mills, Usher and McFadden. I will also put a copy on Blackboard under assignments for you.

Answer these questions for your email response to me, due by 9 am 8/20: What were the main points made? How did you relate to this writing? Do you have fictive kin? What was interesting to you? Who was the audience for this piece? (You may complete with a friend).

2. Oral history, genealogy quest:

2.“Class Time:” Watch on your own or with a friend. “13th Amendment,”

(1.40) 2016 Ava DuVernay, Black American Filmmaker from Southern California, (Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature, Peabody Award and Columbia Journalism School DuPont Award).

Blackboard discussion board: After you have watched the film answer these questions on our discussion board in Blackboard. Write your own post and then contribute to a conversation from others. 1. How does this film relate to the study of kinship? 2. What are some of the forces that change kinship? 3. How does this relate to the other reading assigned? 4. What spoke most to you?

8/25-27 The Power of Patrilines, Men Managing Families (write on both materials)

Patrilineal Descent (or Agnatic descent) and the NUER

1. Stone and King: Chapter 3 The Power of Patrilines, pp. 61-82 (Stop at the Nepali materials)

2. (Same Sex marriage in Kenya: whose patriline do you inherit from?)

Things to think about:

Incest: Lessons of endogamy and exogamy: who can you have sex with according to the cultural rules. When can you have sex with a man not your husband? When do women marry women? What if you can’t have babies? This culture is very creative in their solutions.

Film look at the Nuer.

9/1 Patrilineality in the Middle East

Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds , (Chapter on Theory of Ethnography), Introduction pg. 1-42. This chapter is key to how we will read materials in the future.

9/3 Even in an Islamic patrilineal society the women love “dirty” stories, refuse arranged marriages, and run away.

1. Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds Chapter 1, Patrilineality pgs. 45-85

Reading Notes to help: Migdim is the matriarch, her husband Jawwad, died after his brother died in a “rubbishing” accident.  They have a son Hamid and a son Haj Sagr that are featured in this reading.  Ungraded quiz today on all materials to date (a quiz to tell you this is what I am looking for). Quiz bowl.

9/8 Polygyny, "Without co-wives a woman's work is never done."

What is the experience of polygyny? Is there jealousy? Is it over sexuality or is it about material possession?

Abu-Lughod Ch. 2 Polygyny pp. 87-125

Reading Notes: Haj Sagr has three wives: First, Gateefa, his parallel cousin (the child of his father's brother who died), then Saffiya (married right after he married Gateefa), and Azza (Tunisian, wants a separate apartment).  

Gateefa was a young girl when Haj claimed her as his bride (as a cousin-right).  She had many daughters (11 kids in all, mostly daughters). 

Read to me in class the parts you liked best of the first two chapters.

Can you recite a folktale from the book (I will ask in class) – why is it included here?

Film clip in class: Maasai Women, The Maasai of Kenya

QUIZ 1 in class.

9/10 Reproduction, Magic: “God will provide but we have to help ourselves.” What is the magic that you believe in (baseball players, real estate sellers, students taking exams, etc.)?

Abu-Lughod Chapter 3 Reproduction pp. 127-167

See Super Bowl magic, Is this like the amulets the Bedouins use? (write on this too)

Instead of the response, come to class with five words (or a drawing) that capture the essence of the chapter for you.

KIN CHART DUE TODAY IN CLASS. (or turn it in early)

9/15 Patrilineal Parallel-Cousin Marriage (could you draw this relationship?)

Marriage? What do we mean by marriage in this culture?

Abu-Lughod Chapter 4 pp. 167-202

9/17 “Dadi ‘s Family”, Asynchronous class. Watch on your own or with a few others over Zoom with a screen share.

, 58 min.

Blackboard discussion board: After you have watched the film answer these questions on our discussion board in Blackboard. Write your own post and then contribute to a conversation from others. 1. How does this film relate to the study of kinship in Egypt? 2. How does this relate to the other readings assigned? 3. What spoke most to you? 4. What was the point of the film?

9/22 South Asia: Hindu Patriarchies In India and Nepal

“Karma is more important than progeny.” What does this mean?

Patriarchy in South Asia; Caste Endogamy, Domestic Development Cycles

1. Stone, Kinship and Gender (book you bought): pg. 82-100 Case 3: Nepalese Brahmans

9/24 Polyandry (many husbands)

Would you want to have more than one husband if you are a woman or share your wife with your brother if you are a man? Why polyandry?

Stone Ch. 6, Marriage through Case 8, Nyinba Polyandry: 169- 178 (Stop at Marriage and Alliance).

9/29 Exam Review, see the review sheet, the lectures posted on blackboard and come to class with your questions. I will not give a new lecture here. We will have a quiz bowl for team extra credit on the exam.

10/1 Exam: The exam will take up the entire session. There will be no extra time. No phones nor bathroom breaks during exam. Open book/notes.

10/6 II. MARRIAGE

What is marriage anyway? What does love have to do with it? What is a Matriarchy?

1. Ares Reserves: Introduction, History of Marriage, Coombs pgs. 1-12,

2. A Different Islamic Marriage in the Middle East

Ares Reserve: Iranian Studies: “Power of Ambiguity: Cultural Improvisations on the Theme of Temporary Marriage” (mechanics: how and when) 123-149. By Shahla Haeri

Ares Reserve: The Law of Desire (case studies of women) 114 -125, 131-132 (Through Ninh), By Shahla Haeri

Islamic (Shia) Temporary Marriage, Mut’a Marriage, temporary sexual contracts sanctioned by religion. Is this marriage? Would American women benefit from such legal protections? Do we have this in the U.S.?

10/8 Matrilineal Descent (or Uterine descent),

Chapter 4: 103-122, Matrilineal Puzzle through The Navajo (Stop at Case 5)

IN Class: Films clips “The Navajo” and “Seasons of Navajo”. Mother-in-Law earrings???

10/13 CLASS TO PREPARE FOR YOUR RESEARCH PAPER (waiting for confirmation)

;

Melissa Miller will lead the class. millerm@usc.edu. Be on time and sign-in.

Paper topic and one PDF (not just the cite) due to me by midnight tonight.

10/15 The Nayar of Southern India

Stone Chapter 4, Case 5: Visiting Husbands the Nayar 122-129. (Stop before the Mosuo)

This is a society with polyandry and polygyny. Are women truly powerful as a result?

Who has the economic and political authority? Where do women have power?

10/20 Walking Marriages: The Na of China (also called Mosuo)

How does the state enter to interrupt a cultural tradition?

1. Ares Reserve: A Society without Fathers or Husbands, by Cai Hua, Introduction 19-24 (notice that this is ideology written about by explorers), Furtive Visits 185-205.

2. At home: The Women’s Kingdom (5:03)

Graded quiz in class today, up thru today’s readings (post midterm).

Send me your second two PDFs today before class.

10/22 Asynchronous class:

Day 2. Ares Reserve: A Society without Fathers or Husbands, by Cai Hua, Furtive Visits 205-232,

AND Stone 130-138 (note the different ideals of reproduction between our societies)

Send the reading response by 9 am 10/22.

During “Class timeish” Watch on your own or with a few others over Zoom with a screen share.

Film: “A Society without Fathers or Husbands” (sign in to USC libraries then in a separate browser:

)

Blackboard discussion board: After you have watched the film answer these questions on our discussion board in Blackboard. Write your own post and then contribute to a conversation from others. 1. Does this film look like what you were expecting for this society? 2. What spoke most to you? 3. What was the point of the film from the filmmaker’s perspective?

III. BILATERAL DESCENT (how is this different from matrilineal descent)

A society that believes in monogamy and strict pairing of the gods, the first couple, in the afterlife AND all political representatives. How does religious mythology reflect the goals of the culture?

10/27 Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs , pg. 10-17 (top), 29-47

Gender theory and the Unity of Female-Male, Mythology.

Religion: Think about this for your response – focus on the Lahu. Do you understand the relationship between religious myths and kinship as lived in a culture? How do Lahu myths compare to our own, to the Navajo Changing Woman, to the Na mountain goddess, and to Brahman gods?

10/29 Dads as Midwives? Life Cycles from Birthing to Funerals.

Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs , Ch. 2 til “Blending Femininity….” pg. 52-71 and Ch. 3 ‘til “Work Hard…” 79-97,

3-4 page Paper Due in Class today. Annotated Bibliography.

Instead of a response today, bring five words to class (or email to me a drawing) that depicts what you read.

11/3 Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs, Leadership, Kinship, The Breakdown of the Ideal – Love-Pact Suicide Ch. 4 pg. 107 – 135, Ch. 6 162-172 (we will talk about these readings over the next class too.)

IV. CHANGES with Modernity.

11/5

1. Finish Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs Ch. 6 cont. 172-184. (Suicides cont.)

2. Stone: Kinship, Gender, and the New Reproductive Technologies, Chapter 9 pg. 255-277,

3. See each U.S. state has their own laws too. What are the laws in your state?

4. Just For fun: learn about celebrity “family building” through a podcast, “the V Word” (two female gynecologists talk about surrogacy in the first two episodes. Kardashian paid, $68,000. for the baby.

11/10 Guest Speaker: Surrogate Mother Julie Stromwall.

Ares reserves. Inhorn: “He Won’t be my Son,” (Complications with Islam), pgs. 94-117.

How does breast-feeding and mut’a marriage change these stories about kinship? Why would he not be the son? To what does this refer?

11/12 Power Points.

11/17 2nd Midterm

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