Anthropology 455:  Advanced Research in the Anthropology of Gender   W’2008

Kathy Fine-Dare  Office:  279 Center of SW Studies

 

Catalogue description:       Students will work all term on a focused research project that requires familiarity with gender research in the social sciences.  Common course readings and discussions will center on feminist research methods and the ethical implications and applications of such research.  Students who wish to rework their research into a proposal for post-BA fellowships (e.g., Fulbright) will be given guidance.

 

Course goals:  The purpose of this course is to provide a guided framework in which you produce a 15-page paper that contributes to the conversation on feminist and gender research in a focused and thesis-driven manner.  Ideally, you will use this course as an opportunity to expand preliminary research and readings you have already conducted on your own or in another course on a topic and problem related to gender theory, feminist methods, and/or women’s issues.  The specific path you will follow is roughly this, with due dates for each portion to be established sometime by late January:

 

  1. Produce several topics of interest for class discussion/consideration;
  2. Narrow your topic s down to 1-2;
  3. Think about problems related to these topics and the feasibility of pursuing a particular topic in terms of the problem;
  4. Decide on a topic and problem; write this up into a research proposal;
  5. Develop your proposal on the basis of independent research, class discussion, tutorials with me, and insights derived from the common texts we are reading together;
  6. Produce an informally annotated bibliography (and “webliography”) of resources;
  7. Produce an outline of your research;
  8. Produce a brief research prospectus that could be used for something like Fulbright;
  9. Produce two rough drafts of your paper;
  10. Produce a final version of your paper that contains:

n  title page

n  abstract

n  outline of topics

n  body of paper

n  endnotes

n  references cited

 

Required text

  • Feminist Anthropology: A Reader.  Ellen Lewin, ed.  2006.  Blackwell

 

Course meetings:

            We will meet weekly to a) discuss a chapter of Lewin, and b) review progress on your research paper.