The History of Sexuality
Sexuality in America
History 01:512:225
Fall 2011
Rutgers University
Professor: Dr. Johanna Schoen
This course is designed to present the history of sexuality both as an integral part of American history and as a distinct and exciting new subject of historical study. We will explore the history of sexuality within the family and its move into the marketplace. Our goal is to understand the factors that shaped people's sexual lives: social customs and taboos, methods of birth control and abortion, religion, medical and psychological writings, and state policies. The course is open to first year students and non majors.
Learning Goals
1. This course is designed to present the history of sexuality both as an integral part of American history and as a distinct and exciting new subject of historical study.
2. We will explore the history of sexuality within the family and its move into the marketplace.
3. Students will understand the factors that shaped people's sexual lives: social customs and taboos, methods of birth control and abortion, religion, medical and psychological writings, and state policies.
4. The course will take part in the Rutgers SAS Core curriculum; goals H and K.
Course Materials
John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality
Elizabeth Reis (ed.), American Sexual Histories
Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Diane Middlebrook, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton
This course will address sexually explicit material.
Course Requirements
Reading Assignments
To guide your reading for this course, I will give you a short writing assignment to complete with your reading. These exercises will help you focus your thoughts and prepare you to participate in class discussion. Completion of these exercises is required. (They and participation in discussion make up 25% of your grade). I will give you the respective assignment during the class meeting before reading is due and you should turn them in at the class meeting for which the readings are due. The amount of reading is manageable, but only if you devote several hours a week to it, starting with the first week and continuing through the last. Recall that for every hour of class time, you should be spending two hours outside the class in preparation. That means six hours of preparation weekly for this three-hour course. Class meetings will be more enjoyable and more interesting if you are equipped, by your reading, to catch the more subtle points and to try out your own interpretations and questions. There are 16 writing assignments. You can miss no more than two of these over the course of the semester. If you miss more than two, I will count them as failed assignments.
Discussion
We will devote a great deal of time to discussion of common readings and continuing themes of the course. No specific days will be set aside for discussion; instead, we will routinely combine discussion and lecture during our class meetings. In order to be prepared for discussion, you should complete the reading on the day for which it is assigned.
Book Papers
You will write two 5-page papers, one on Harriet Jacobs and one on Suits Me. Each book paper counts for 25 percent of the grade.
Book Paper I
Reading Question: How did Dr. Flint try to control Jacob’s sexual life? In what ways did Harriet Jacobs try to regain control? How successful was she?
Book Paper II
Reading Question: How did Billy Tipton construct and reconstruct his sexual identity? According to what factors did others judge Billy a man or woman?
Exam. There will be a final exam on December 16 at 9:45 AM.
Lateness Policy All late assignments will be marked down. One-third of a grade will be deducted for every 24 hour period (or portion thereof) your paper is late. That is, a “B” paper will turn into a “B-” paper if it is up to 24 hours late, and into a “C+” paper if it is up to 48 hours late.
If you need to turn in a paper late, you will need to bring it to the departmental office at 280 Schaeffer Hall (open M-F 8:00-12:00 and 1:00-5:00) and have the secretary note the time and date you turned it in, or you will need to get it to me personally. If you slip it under my office door, I have no way of knowing when you turned it in, and I will grade it according to the time and date I find it. If you have a severe personal emergency that makes it impossible for you to meet the deadlines, please see me. Computer problems do not constitute personal emergencies!
You must complete all written assignments in order to receive credit for this course. I will not accept assignments via email or attachments. Only paper products, please. I will turn back all assignments in a timely manner. If I do not turn back your assignment, it is your job to bring this to my attention. If you believe I have not recorded a grade for an assignment you have turned in, you must clear this up during the semester. After the semester is over, I will not be able to consider claims that you turned in an assignment if I have no record of it.
24-3-7 Policy
If you have a question or complaint about a grade on a paper, you have to wait 24 hours before making an appointment to see me or one of the TAs about the matter. You need to make the appointment within 3 days and have met to discuss the matter within 7 days. Because of the size of the class, we cannot accommodate rewrites. You are, however, encouraged to give me or the teaching assistants a draft of your paper so that we can comment on it and make suggestions for revision before it is due.
Grading
Your grades will be calculated as follows:
Book Paper I 25%
Book Paper II 25%
Discussion and Discussion Papers 25%
Final 25%
Students with disabilities may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. If you have a disability and require such modification, please contact me during my office hours.
The University also has resources for students experiencing non-academic difficulties, such as personal or emotional strain. The University Counseling Service offers confidential consultation for students. You may phone them at 335-7294 M-F 8-5. After hours, phone the Crisis Center at 351-0140.
I encourage you to take advantage of all academic and non-academic services offered by the University. Your tax and tuition dollars pay for them -- don’t feel shy about using them!
Class Schedule
Aug. 23 Introduction: What is the History of Sexuality?
25 Sexual Attitudes of the Old World
Readings: Intimate Matters, Introduction
Part 1: Sexuality in Preindustrial America, 1600-1800
27 Cultural Diversity in the Era of Settlement
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapters 1 and 2
Assignment: List the factors that shaped sexual relations in the New World.
30 Early Anglo-American Sexuality
Readings: “Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven, from 1638 to 1649,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 37-44.
Assignment: What role does religion play in the case of Spencer and Hogg?
Sept. 01 Anglo-Indian Sexual Relations
Readings: Richard Godbeer, “Eroticizing the Middle Ground: Anglo-Indian Sexual Relations along the 18th Century Frontier,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 46-64.
Assignment: What meaning did sexual relations between Native American women and white men hold for the Native women and white men respectively?
03 Sexed Bodies in the American South
08 Same Sex Relations in Colonial America
10 Colonial Sex and Racial Regulation
13 18th Century Courting and Reproduction
Readings: Ulrich and Stabler, “’Girling It’ in 18th Century New Hampshire,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 72-85.
Part 2: Divided Passions: Sexuality between Family and Marketplace, 1780-1900
15 Seeds of Change
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 3
Assignment: List the developments that change colonial sexual culture in the late 18th century.
17 Victorian Sexual Ideals
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 4
Assignment: How do the experiences of men and women change in the 19th century?
20 Sexuality and Medicine: Men’s Bodies, Women’s Bodies
22 Courtship and Marriage
24 Race and Sexuality I
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 5
Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, pp. 1-97
27 Race and Sexuality II
Readings: Harriett Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , pp. 98-205.
29 Outside the family
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 6
Assignment: What opportunities for sexual activity outside the family emerged in the course of the 19th century?
Oct. 1 Prostitution and Sexual Danger
Readings: Patricia Cline Cohen, “Ministerial Misdeeds,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 117-144.
Assignment: What do the competing narratives of Bishop Onderdonk’s transgressions tell us about the narrators’ views of male and female sexual behavior?
4 Same Sex Victorian Relations
Paper on Harriet Jacobs Due
6 Self Control and Sex Reform
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 7
8 Free Love
Readings: Lawrence Foster, “The Psychology of Free Love,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 72-85.
Assignment: What did free lovers see as the ills of Victorian sexual culture? How did they hope to abolish these ills?
Part 3: Toward A New Sexual Order, 1880-1930
11 “Civilized Morality” under Stress
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 8
Assignment: How did sexuality change at the turn of the century?
13 Prostitution Reform
15 Interracial Sex and Politics
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 9
Assignment: How did race influence the sexual lives and perceptions of African Americans?
18 Breaking with the Past
Readings: George Chauncey, “Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion?” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 199-216.
20 Bohemian Life in the 1920s
22 Beyond Reproduction
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 11, Andrea Tone, “Contraceptive Consumers,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 251-78.
Assignment: How did race and class influence women’s sexual experiences in the period under discussion?
25 Sexuality and Popular Culture in 1930s America
27 Eugenic Thought
29 When Abortion Was a Crime
Readings: Reagan, “About to Meet Her Maker,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 228-49.
Assignment: How did the state seek to control those who participated in the termination of pregnancy while abortion was illegal?
Nov. 1 Sexual Identity in the 1930s
Readings: Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton, pp. 3-106
Part 4: The Rise and Fall of Sexual Liberalism, 1920 to the Present
3 Coming Out Under Fire: Gays and Lesbians in World War II
5 Gender Identity in Cold War America
8 Redrawing the Boundaries
Reading: Intimate Matters, chapter 12
Assignment: How did the boundaries drawn around acceptable sexual behavior change in the mid-20th century?
10 The Playboy Revolution
Readings: Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton, pp. 109-205
12 Library Day
15 The Impersonator – Billy Tipton in the 1940s and 50s
Readings: Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton, pp. 209-281
17 Transsexuality in the Cold War Era
Readings: Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sex Change and the Popular Press,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 377-409
Assignment: How is gender constructed in Jorgensen’s transformation from George to Christine? What factors were important in establishing her image as Christine?
19. The Gay Liberation Movement
Paper on Suits Me Due
Thanksgiving Break
29 The Sexual Revolution
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 13, Rickie Solinger, “The Population Bomb and the Sexual Revolution,” in American Sexual Histories, pp. 343-64.
Assignment: Describe the different ways in which people challenged the established sexual order.
Dec. 1 Sex and Modern Society
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 14
Assignment: Describe the changes brought on by the sexual revolution.
3 Pornography and the Modern Marketplace
6 Sexual Identities and Families in Modern America
8 The Rise of Conservatism
Readings: Intimate Matters, chapter 15 and afterword
Assignment: What is the conservative critique of sexual culture of the last two decades? How have they successfully influenced the political and social arena?
10 Contemporary political crisis
16 Final Exam 9:45 AM
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- music as intimate and social private and public
- online dating a critical analysis from the
- intimate geopolitics
- emotional intelligence in relationships handouts
- different types of relationships assert brighton and hove
- establishing healthy boundaries in relationships
- what s wrong with my partner our relationship and what
- what you need is here
- living like weasels by annie dillard blogs baruch
- how shakespearean works
Related searches
- the history of surgery timeline
- the history of cosmetic surgery
- the history of the united states
- the history of the world
- the history of the american flag
- the history of the calculator
- the history of the jews
- the history of the 4th amendment
- the history of the mechanical clock
- the history of the empire state building
- the history of the ancient world
- the history of the un