Reproduction: Politics and Anthropology (FEMGEN 135W)

3 credits · Undergraduate

Reproductive politics seem to pop up everywhere currently, from rhetoric about "childless cat ladies" in the U.S, to turmoil regarding abortion bans, fertility rates, maternal mortality, and obstetric violence in innumerable countries. How might we decipher better the ways reproduction expresses sociopolitical registers - public/private, individual/societal, present/future, body/machine - which reveal age-old frustrations and engender new questions? This course puts reproduction, as a mode of thinking about the body, kin, gender, and futures, at the center of social theory. Students will be invited to delve deeply into innovative approaches and be asked to grapple in new ways with exciting texts pertaining to the politics of reproduction.