“Stigma: Culture, Deviance, Identity”

Dept. of Communication & Culture

Indiana University, Fall 2008

Prof. Susan Seizer

 

Course meetings:

Class times: TR 11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. class + Th 7:15 pm screenings

Locations: TR classes = Rm. 100, 800 E. 3^rd St.

Thursday screenings = Wylie 015

Office hours: T 2:00-4:00 p.m., Rm. 241, 800 E. 3^rd Street

Email: sseizer@indiana.edu Office phone: 812-856-1986

*Film screenings are run by Assistant Instructor Shira Segal. Please contact Shira directly if you have any scheduling problems with film screenings: sbsegal@indiana.edu

 

Course Description:

 

Cultural value systems in every society rely on sets of mutually defining terms -- for example, normal/abnormal, able-bodied/disabled, heterosexual/homosexual, white/non-white -- that largely determine local attitudes of acceptance or ostracism regarding particular categories of persons. Focusing on social stigma allows us to understand how specific cultural value systems affect our most intimate senses of self, contribute to our very notions of personhood, and inform the way we communicate and engage with others in the world.

 

Stigma theory speaks broadly to the nature of the social relationships that create marked categories of persons, regardless of which particular attributes are devalued. In this class we look both at theory and at particular cases of stigmatized persons and groups, as attention to the particularities of a given stigma keys us in to the cultural values that create and support it. Since stigmas do change over time, identifying strategies that have been effective in creating such change is a primary focus of the course.

 

The theoretical centerpiece of this course is Erving Goffman’s 1963 study Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. We will read this text closely to appreciate Goffman’s insights, and attempt throughout the semester to update the language he uses to convey his points by applying his model to more recent historical and ethnographic case studies of stigmatized persons and groups. Our focus will be on the range and efficacy of the various strategies available for managing and/or defying stigma.

 

The role of the expressive arts -- including novels, short stories, films, and performance art -- in the life trajectories of stigmatized persons and groups will be explored as one popular defiant strategy. We focus in particular on artists and activists whose work addresses contemporary cases of stigma. Weekly screenings of landmark films in the fields of disability studies, black studies, queer studies, gender studies, and India studies supplement regular class meetings; viewing these films is a critical part of this course.

 

Primary texts: The following nine paperback books are available for purchase at the campus bookstore. In addition, there is at least one copy of each on 1-day reserve at the Wells library reserve desk, located in the Kent-Cooper room.

 

·      Goffman,Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Simon & Schuster.

·      Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Harvard U Press.

·      Dreger, Alice. 2004. One of Us: conjoined twins and the future of the normal.

·      Bogdan, Robert. 1988. Freak Show. U of Chicago Press.

·      Groce, Nora Ellen. 1985. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language. Harvard U Press

·      Ishiguro, Kazuo. 2006. Never Let Me Go. Vintage.

·      Feinberg, Leslie. 1993. Stone Butch Blues. NY: Firebrand Books.

·      Weschler, Lawrence. 1995. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder. NY: Vintage.

·      Lorde, Audre. 1980. The Cancer Journals. SF: Aunt Lute Books.

 

All other readings (articles, essays, & chapter excerpts) for this course are downloadable from the Oncourse site, under Resources. Information on using and accessing electronic materials will be discussed at our first class meeting.

Course Requirements:

 

1. Reading: This course is organized as a small seminar for upper level undergraduates. The seminar format means that course meetings will include discussion every session. In order to fully participate in these discussions, it is mandatory that students do all the reading on the syllabus prior to each class meeting.

 

2. Mandatory reading responses posted on Oncourse: Use of the online Oncourse discussion forum facilitates productive discussion in class and keys me in to student responses to the course materials. Every student is responsible for posting for every class, due by 3:00 p.m. on the day before the class meeting. You are allowed to miss three posts without penalty over the course of the semester. At least six of your posts, randomly determined, will be graded over the course of the semester; my comments and grades will be visible to you in the Oncourse Gradebook when one of your posts is graded. Posts should be 1-paragraph-to-1-page responses to the assigned readings and films. They should include at least one question for discussion in class. You are encouraged to read, reply, and comment on each other’s posts. You may post at anytime during the week prior to class, but no later than 3:00 p.m. on the day prior to class. These deadlines give us all time to read each others’ posts and reflect on them before class, and refer to them in class discussion. The aim of the online discussion forum here is to enable us to collectively determine the approach to stigma that we want to develop over the semester, and to ensure full student participation in charting the direction of our class discussions.

 

3. Two Short Papers, 3-5 pages each:

Paper #1 due Oct 14

Paper #2 due Oct 30

 

4. Midterm: 5 page take-home essay on the subject of different strategic responses to stigma, including such ideas as the deployment of subcultural capital; the pros and cons of visibility and invisibility; and the creation and documentation of alternative rituals and bodily practices. The midterm essay will be handed out in class on Oct. 28 and due in class on Nov. 6.

 

5. Final: The final for this class is an interactive web-based project in two parts:

1. Write up a report on an interview, event, topic, or experience that you either conduct, witness, research, or remember that allows you to explore questions of the management of stigma among a particular community, group, or category of people. Make your description “thick”: that is, give us enough detail and characterization that your readers can usefully join you in “thinking with” your material. In your report, include sections on how this particular stigma relates to others we’ve discussed in class, and on how the situation you are considering sheds light on the workings of stigma in general. Post your report on the Oncourse Forums topic “Final Projects.” Your report should be roughly 2 full pages (that is, quite a bit longer than our usual reading response posts, and roughly equivalent to a 4-page double spaced paper). This report is due by midnight on Monday, December 15th.
2. Respond to the reports of two other students. The first will be to the posting of a student with whom I have paired you (I will provide this list in class): you will respond to each other’s posted reports. The second is to a posting of your choice. In this way, every student’s report will receive at least one response from a classmate, and possibly more. Post your responses by using the “Reply” tab in the Oncourse forum for Final Projects so that others can benefit from your comments as well. Your two response posts are due by midnight on Thursday Dec. 18^th.

The structure for the responses you give your classmates is as follows:

• Which two further questions would you ask of the person or persons who figure in the report if you had the opportunity to do so, and why?
• Give feedback to the student writing the report on the choices they’ve made in their approach to the subject, and in their presentation of the resulting material. (Constructive comments and suggestions are the goal here.)
• Which two theorists/authors/filmmakers whose work we’ve studied this semester do you think would have interesting comments and questions to ask of this report, and what might they be? (So for example, what kinds of questions might James Scott ask about the situation described here, and how might his questions refocus the study?)

Your report should allow you to further study questions raised in class regarding relations of stigma, the specific strategic responses to stigma among a particular community or people, and your own negotiation of these relations in researching your topic. You might think of topic selection here as a sort of pilot project: here is a chance to approach a subject of interest to you from a particular angle, that of stigma and its attendant relations. Hopefully this angle will add depth to what you envision doing with this interest as you proceed in life and in your future studies. Write your report in the first person. The response portion of the project is designed to allow everyone to learn from your final project, not just me, creating a larger forum for discussion and thought.

*Note: If you are short of ideas for a topic for your final project, find a list of possible subjects and reference materials on the last four pages of this syllabus.

 

Grading (by percentage points)

Attendance & class participation = 15%

Weekly web postings = 35%

Two short papers due Oct. 14 & Oct. 30 = 10% each (total 20%)

Midterm essay due Nov. 11 = 15%

Final Project report & responses due in December = 15%

 

Syllabus

 

Class 1: Tuesday, Sept 2 – Introduction to syllabus and course objectives.

• Review Syllabus, Oncourse, ERes electronic reserves; fill student info sheet
• Handout #1: Study guide to reading Goffman: definitions and key concepts
• Handout #2: Film screening schedule
• Handout #3: “Flesh Trade: Weighing the Repugnance Factor,” NYT July 9, 2006
• In-class viewing: “If You Could See Her Like I Do” from Cabaret, 1972

 

Class 2: Thursday Sept 4 - Key texts and theories (1): Goffman day 1

Read:

• Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Ch. 1, pp. 1-40.

 

 

Class 3: Tuesday Sept. 9 -- How stigma changes

Read:

• Langston Hughes, 1933, “Passing,” Ch. 4, and “Poor Little Black Fellow,” Ch. 6, both in The Ways of White Folks (Oncourse)

• In-class: introduce the concentric circles model of subject positions and “the charmed circle.”

In-class handouts:

• on the abject (Judith Butler, via Julia Kristeva)
• on the charmed circle (from Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex” [Oncourse])

 

Class 4: Thursday Sept. 11 - Goffman day 2

Read:

• Goffman, Stigma, Ch.2 pp. 41-104.
  
  

 

Class 5: Tuesday Sept. 16 -- Goffman day 3

Read:

• Goffman, Stigma, Chs. 3-5, pp. 105-147 (finish the book)

Supplementary reading (voluntary):

• Yoshino, Kenji. 2006. Covering: the hidden assault on our civil rights. “Preface” pp. ix-xii, and “An Uncovered Self” pp. 3-27 (Oncourse)

 

Class 6: Thursday Sept 18 –– Key texts and theories (2): Bourdieu day 1, “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier” (p. 6)

Read:

• Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. “Introduction” (pp. 1-7) and “Conclusion” (pp. 466-484).

 

 

Class 7: Tuesday Sept. 23 – Bourdieu day 2: “Tastes are perhaps first and foremost distastes, disgust provoked by… the tastes of others” (p. 56)

Read:

• Bourdieu, Distinction, Ch. 1, “The Aristocracy of Culture” pp. 11-58 – read as much as you can of this chapter. *Also read Appendix 1, pp. 503-518.
• In class viewing of musical genres discussed by Bourdieu -- youtube.com

 

Class 8: Th Sept 25 – Strategic Responses to stigma #1: Hebdige, Hipness, & Music Subcultures

Read:

• Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. “Introduction” pp. 1-19, from the book directly (Oncourse) AND pp. 130-143 (key excerpts from the book), in The Subcultures Reader, ed. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton 1997 (Oncourse).
• In class viewing: M.I.A., “Galang Galang” music video, to try our hand at some interpretive readings of the meanings of style here!

 

 

Class 9: Tuesday Sept. 30 -- Hipness & Music Subcultures 2

Read:

• Thornton, Sarah. 1997. “The Social Logic of Subcultural Capital” in The Subcultures Reader, ed. K. Gelder and S. Thornton, NY: Routledge, pp. 200-209 (Oncourse)
• Becker, Howard. 1963. “The Culture of a Deviant Group: the ‘jazz’ musician” in The Subcultures Reader, pp. 55-65 (Oncourse)
• Irwin, John. 1970. “Notes on the Status of the Concept ‘Subculture’,” in The Subcultures Reader, pp. 66-69 (Oncourse) ‘Hipness’ & Music Subcultures

 

Class 10: Thursday Oct 2: Classic stigma – the freak show, Bogdan day 1

Read:

• Bogdon, Robert. Freak Show. pp. vii-116, Preface and Part 1

 

 

Class 11: Tuesday Oct 7 – Bogdan, day 2: Issues in the display of persons (1)

Read:

• Bogdon, Robert. Freak Show. chs. 9 & 10, pp. 234-281 (end of book)
• Joan Hawkins, 1996. “One of Us: Todd Browning’s Freaks,” in Freakery, ed. Rosemarie G. Thomson, NY: NYU Press, pp. 265-276. (Oncourse)

View in class:

• Chinese State Circus Swan Lake http://www.sonnyradio.com/swanlake_0001.swf

*First short paper assignment handed out in class (the assignment is on Oncourse)

 

 

Class 12: Thursday Oct 9 [Yom Kippur]: Issues in the display of persons (2): What to do? Taking on established display practices and entrenched attitudes

Read:

• Fusco, Coco. 1995. “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.” In English is Broken Here. NYC: The New Press, pp. 37-64 (Oncourse)

• Show in class: “The Couple in the Cage” (dir. Coco Fusco, 1993, 32 min.)

 

Class 13: Tuesday Oct. 14 – Strategic Response #5: Claiming, aiming, and turning stigma around: addressing stigmatizing attitudes in performance and action

*1^st short paper due in class today

• Discuss the two videos “Sideshow Gals” & “Un Cirque a New York” in class, and your paper writing experience

Read:

• Dreger, Alice. 2004. One of Us: Conjoined Twins in Medical Discourse. Introduction and Ch. 1, pp. 1-50.
• Recommended viewing, available at Kent-Cooper room in Wells library:
• “Juggling Gender” (dir. Tami Gold, 1990, 29 min.)

 

Class 14: Th Oct. 16: What is done to some people to make others comfortable

Read:

• Dreger, Alice. 2004. One of Us, Chs. 2-3

Recommended reading:

• B. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett. 1991. “Objects of Ethnography,” in Exhibiting Cultures, ed. Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine. Wash: Smithsonian Institution Press 386-443 (Oncourse)
• Mannix, Daniel P. 1950. “Joining the Sideshow.” In Memoirs of a Sword Swallower. San Francisco: V/Search Publications reprint 1996, pp. 15-30 (Oncourse)
• David Gerber, 1996. “The Careers of People Exhibited in Freak Shows: The Problem of Volition and Valorization” in Freakery, ed. Rosemarie G. Thomson, NY: NYU Press, pp. 38-54 (Oncourse)

 

 

Class 15: Tuesday Oct 21 – Strategic Responses to stigma 3: invisibility pros & cons

Read:

• Groce, Nora Ellen. 1985. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language.

 

Class 16: Thursday Oct 23 – strategic responses #3 cont’d: Staring Back

Read:

• Lucy Grealy, “Pony Party” (Oncourse)
• Stryker, Susan. 1994. “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Camounix: Performing Transgender Rage.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, pp. 237-254 (Oncourse)

[Note: Placed here, this essay is grouped with other autobiographical statements on confronting stigma, foreshadowing our unit on transgender (in two weeks), and tying into the monstrous freak body stuff and performance art stuff (previous two weeks).] (Oncourse)

• Leonard Kriegel, “Falling into life” (Oncourse)
• Lathrop, D. 2003. “Tiny Tim” New Mobility magazine, Dec., p. 34-5 (Oncourse)
• “Nancy Chapman, The Duchess of Leeds” (2007, New Mobility) (Oncourse)

 

 

 

Class 17: Tuesday, Oct 28 –Strategic responses to stigma 4: Disability Activism

Read:

• Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies. Chs. 1-2, pp 1-51. NY: Columbia U Press (Oncourse)
• Rothschild, Joan. 2005. Introduction, pp. 1-10, The Dream of the Perfect Child. (Oncourse)

 

Class 18: Thursday, Oct 30 -- Disability Activism 2: Universal Design

*2^nd Short Paper due in class

Read four news articles:

• King, Martha. “Unlimited by Design” Inside MS, Vol 16, No. 3, Fall 1998 pp. 10-13 (Oncourse)

• Stone, Karen, “Practical, Beautiful, Humane” Inside MS, Vol 16, No. 3, Fall 1998 pp. 14-17 (Oncourse)

• Ervin, Mike. “Visitability.” New Mobility, Vol 8 No. 47, pp 40-43 (Oncourse)

• Nussbaum, Debra. 1998. “Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind.” NY Times, March 26, 1998 (Oncourse)

Suggested viewing (available at reserve desk in library):

·      “My Left Foot” (dir. Jim Sheridan, 1989; 98 min.)

 

Class 19: Tues Nov 4 -- Strategic Responses to stigma #6: biological manipulations and transgender warriors

Read:

• Feinberg, Leslie. 1995. Stone Butch Blues. Read the first half of novel.

*Midterm exam handed out in class: take-home essay, 5 pages, due Nov. 11:

 

Class 20: Th Nov. 6-- –Transgender (day 2)

Read:

• Stone Butch Blues, finish novel.
• NY Times article on transgender tradition in Albania, by Dan Bilefsky, Published: June 25, 2008, pdf (Oncourse)

Recommended reading:

• Dreger, Alice. 1998. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Harvard U Press.

 

 

Class 21: Tuesday, Nov. 11 – Trans Somatechnics: do we choose our bodies?

*Midterm due in class

Read:

• David Valentine, 2008. “Sue E. Generis: problematizing the naturalness of non-transgender bodies”
• Susan Stryker, 2004. “Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin.” In GLQ 10:2 , pp. 212-215.

Recommended:

• Students might like to watch on their own “Gendernauts” (1999, dir. Monika Treut), in which Stryker and other transgender activists appear. The VHS tape is available in the Kent-Cooper room.

 

Class 22: Thursday, Nov. 13 -- Internalizing ideology, day 1

Read:

• Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, chs. 1-12, pp. 3-146 (first half of novel)

 

 

Class 23: Tuesday, Nov 18 – Internalizing ideology, day 2

Read:

• Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, chs 13- 23, pp. 146-288 (finish the novel)

 

Class 24: Thursday Nov. 20 – Strategic responses to stigma #7: putting the terms of display on display

Read

• Weschler, Lawrence. 1995. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder.

·      Fieldtrip to “Wonderlab”

 

 

Class 25: Tuesday Nov. 25 ––Strategic responses to stigma #8: Everyday resistance

• Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the Weak, Chs 1 & 2, “Small Arms Fire in the Class War,” and “Normal Exploitation, Normal Resistance,” pp. 1-47 (Oncourse)

*Begin discussing final project in class

**No class Thursday Nov. 27 – Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Class 26: Tuesday Dec. 2–Everyday resistance, cont’d.

Read:

• Seizer, Susan. 2000. “Roadwork: Offstage with Special Drama Actresses in South India.” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 217-259 (Oncourse)
• George Orwell, 1936. “Shooting an Elephant,” The Orwell Reader pp. 3-9 (Oncourse)

 

Class 27: Thursday, Dec. 4 – Collective resistance: the beginnings of a movement

• In-class screening: “Eyes on the Prize” Part One: Emmet Till and the Montgomery bus boycott [Shira leads class; Prof. Seizer attends the American Anthropological Association meetings in San Francisco, Nov. 19-23]

 

 

Class 28: Tuesday Dec. 9– The intersecting stigmas of sex, race, class, and nationality

• Audre Lorde. 1980. The Cancer Journals. Read the whole book, pp. 9-77. SF: Anut Lute Books.

Recommended reading:

• Susan Sontag, 1990. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors, the combined edition. NY: Doubleday/Anchor Books

 

Class 29: Thursday Dec. 11

• class evaluations & wrap-up

 

Free Week = Monday Dec. 8 – Sunday Dec. 14

Final Exam period = Monday Dec 15 – Friday Dec. 19

Report portion of online final project = Mon Dec 15 [set date & time w/students]

Response portion of online final project = Th Dec 18 [set date & time w/ students]

 

Ideas and possible topics for final projects

(with preliminary suggestions for references and readings)

 

“Camp” as a strategy for resisting stigma

• Newton, Esther. 1972. Mother Camp. The best excerpts have been reprinted in Margaret Mead Made Me Gay, Duke U Press 2000, pp. 11-33 (Oncourse).
• Margaret Mead Made Me Gay, Duke U Press 2000, pp. 1-8 (Oncourse).
• Sontag, Susan. 1966. “Notes on Camp,” in Against Interpretation. Dell, pp. 275-292 (Oncourse)
• Short news article, “On Sontag” from NYTimes August 2006”
• Dyer, Richard. 1992. “It’s being so camp as keeps us going,” in Only Entertainment. Routledge, pp. 135-147 (Oncourse)
• View: “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” (dir. Stephan Elliott 1994; 104 min.)

 

Prison: the other inside

• Performance artist and prison activist Rhodessa Jones, creator of The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women http://www.culturalodyssey.org/v2/aboutus/rhodessa_bio.html.
• Medical testing on prison inmates NYT.pdf (ask Prof. Seizer for pdf)
• Daniel Burton-Rose (Editor), Dan Pens (Editor), Paul Wright (Editor), 1998. The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry
• Jeffrey Reiman The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice, Seventh Edition Allyn & Bacon; 7 edition (July 18, 2003)

 

Same-Sex Marriage

• Chauncey, George. 2004. Why Marriage?: The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality. NY: Basic Books.
• Video: “Tying the Knot,” dir: Jim de Seve. 2004. 81min
• Warner, Michael. 1999. The Trouble with Normal, Ch. 1&2, pp. 1-80 (Oncourse)
• Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1993, “Axiomatic” in Tendencies, Duke U Press (Oncourse)
• Gayle Rubin. 1993. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, , pp. 3-44 (Oncourse)
• Dan Savage, 2005. The Commitment.

 

Maids: doing the dirty work (working through race & class categories)

• Romero, Mary. 1992. Maid in the USA. Ch. 1 & 7 (Oncourse)
• Kamani, Ginu. 1995. “Maria,” in Junglee Girl. SF: Aunt Lute, pp. 125-138.
• Joyce, James. 1926. “Clay,” in Dubliners. NY: Modern Library, pp. 99-106.
• Dickey, Sara. 2000. “Permeable Homes: domestic service, household space, and the vulnerability of class boundaries in urban India.” American Ethnologist, V27 No2: 462-489.

 

Sex-work: in the life

• McClintock, Anne.1993.“Sex Workers and Sex Work: Introduction.” Social Text 37, Winter 1993:1-10.
• Walkowitz, Judith.“Going Public” in Representations 62, Spring 1998, pp. 1-30
• Nine short news articles on Viagra, on ERES: NY Times 4/29/98; NY Times 4/25/98; LA Times 5/9/98; NY Times 5/3/98; LA Times 5/11/98; NY Times 6/6/98; NYTimes 6/21/98; LA Times 7/3/98; The New Yorker 7/6/98.
• sexworker videos by Annie Sprinkle and Carol Leigh

Strategic Response #8: Ex-Patriotism (Paris, France in the imaginary of African-American, queer, and other marginal artists including James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Gertrude Stein)

• Langston Hughes, “Poor Little Black Fellow” (1933), from The Ways of White Folks
• Baldwin, James. 1960. Another Country, NY: Vintage Books, pp. 183-227 [excerpt from Book Two].
• Tyler Stovall, excerpts from Paris-Noir, 1996 [ERES]
• Benigno Sanchez-Eppler and Cindy Patton, “Introduction: With a Passport Out of Eden” in Queer Diasporas, 2000, pp.1-14
• Monique Truong, 2002, The Book of Salt (a fictive account, written from the perspective of the Vietnamese cook hired by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas)
• Viewing: documentary on James Baldwin, the early sections on his youth and time in France

 

Body Modification: modern primitives

• view Ron Athey video, “Hallelujah!”
• Daniel Rosenblatt, 1996. “The Antisocial Skin.” Cultural Anthropology
• Susan Phillips, 2000. “Gallo’s Body: decoration and damnation in the life of a Chicano gang member”

 

Body Size, Fat, Anorexia

• Judith Moore, 2005. Fat Girl.
• Camryn Mannheim. 2000. Wake Up, I’m Fat! Broadway Books.
• Susan Bordo, 1993. Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body.
• Helen Gremillion, 2003. Feeding Anorexia,
• Sussanna Kaysen, 1994. Girl, Interrupted,
• “Girl, Interrupted” (dir. James Mangold, 2000; 127 min)

 

Changes in Ethnic Identity: Jews

• Jonathan Safran Foer, 2002. Everything is Illuminated (a novel)
• Brodkin, Karen. 1998. How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America.
• Seidman, Naomi. 1998. “Fag-Hags and Bu-Jews: Toward a (Jewish) Politics of Vicarious Identity.” In Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism, ed. Biale, Galchinsky, and Heschel. Berkeley: U of California Press, pp. 254-268.
• Gilman, Sander.1996. Smart Jews.

 

Homosexualities & Homophobias: the difference culture makes

• Susan Seizer, 1995. “Paradoxes of Visibility in the Field: Rites of Queer Passage in Anthropology.” Public Culture, V8 N1, pp. 73-100. (Oncourse)
• Donham, Donald. 1997. “Freeing South Africa: The ‘Modernization’ of Male-Male Sexuality in Soweto.” Cultural Anthropology, Vol 13 No 1, Feb 1998:3-21. (Oncourse)
• Mercer, Kobena. 1991. “Skin Head Sex Thing: Racial Difference and the Homoerotic Imaginary.” In How Do I Look? Queer Film and Video.” Seattle: Bay Press, pp. 169-222.

 

Urban Myths of Race and Class

• Elizabeth Chin, Purchasing Power: Consumerism… (2000)
• Ashamalla, Rosemarie.1997.“Why Would You Go Down There? Purity and Defilement in the City of the Angels,” unpublished ms., pp. 1-21 [ERES].
• Wray, Matt and Annalee Newitz, eds. 1997. White Trash Race and Class in America. NY: Routledge. Constance Penley, “Crackers and Whackers,” pp. 89-112; “White Trash Girl,” pp.113-130.
• Berreman, Gerald D. 1972. “Race, Caste, and Other Invidious Distinctions in Social Stratification.” In Anthropology for the Nineties, ed. Johnetta B. Cole, pp. 485-521. (Oncourse)

 

Divorce

 

Adoption

• Herman, Ellen. 2006. “Can kinship be designed and still be normal? The curious case of child adoption.” In Histories of the Normal and the Abnormal, ed. Waltraud Ernst. London: Routledge.
• Savage, Dan. 1999. The Kid.

 

Infertitlity

 

Gay Parenting

• Savage, Dan. 1999. The Kid.
• “daddy & papa,” film by Johnny Symons
• 2005 legal decisions of the California Supreme Court…
• NYTimes articles (ask Prof. Seizer)

 

Immigrants: different generational responses

 

Refugees: coping strategies for the impossible and unforeseen

• Film: “Hotel Rwanda”
• News coverage of Hurricane Katrina

 

Additional General Stigma Theory Readings:

These essays represent some of the best of:

1) Queer theory and the power of being outside the norm:

• Ortner, Sherry. 1998. “Identities: The Hidden Life of Class” Journal of Anthropological Research, V 54, No. 1, pp. 1-17 (Oncourse)
• Warner, Michael. 1999. The Trouble with Normal, Ch. 1&2, pp. 1-80 (Oncourse)
• Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1993, “Queer and Now” in Tendencies, pp. 1-20, Duke U Press (Oncourse)
• Gayle Rubin. 1993. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, , pp. 3-44 (Oncourse)

2) Race theory, specifically on whiteness in the U.S.:

• Wray, Matt and Annalee Newitz, eds. 1997.White Trash: Race and Class in America. NY: Routledge. “Introduction,” pp. 1-12.
• Dyer, Richard. 1995. “Introduction.” White.

3) Theories of the abject:

• Mary Douglas. 1966. Purity and Danger. London: Routledge.
• Julia Kristeva, 1982. Powers of horror: an essay on abjection, (trans. L. S. Roudiez), NY: Columbia U Press.
• Judith Butler, 1993. Bodies That Matter. NY: Routledge
• Niko Besnier. 2004. “The Social Production of Abjection. ”Social Anthropology 12[3], 2004.
• Susan Seizer. 2005. Stigmas of the Tamil Stage. Durham: Duke University Press.