Gender and Archaeology

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In this course, students will explore the potential for studying and reconstructing a prehistory of people through archaeology. We will consider the historical and theoretical foundations of creating an engendered past, the methodological and practical aspects of "doing" engendered archaeology, and the intersection between political feminism, archaeological knowledge production, and the politics of an engendered archaeology. Topics for consideration include feminist perspectives on science, anthropology, and archaeology; concepts of gender in prehistory and the present; women's and men's relations to craft production, state formation, and space; and the complex relationship between feminism, archaeology, and the politics of women and men in archaeology and the archaeological past. Under the broad theoretical, political and historical umbrella of feminism, archaeologists today are negotiating their own paths toward an engendered past from multiple directions, and this course will explore the diversity of these approaches toward creating a prehistory of people.