The aim of this course is to deepen students' understanding of the dynamics of class-gender relations through a critical reading of language-oriented ethnography. Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to formulate original research questions addressing the core topics of the course.
The main question addressed in this course is how gender and class are related and how gender and class identities are produced and reproduced through linguistic praxis. Research by social scientists and sociolinguists has convincingly shown that gender and class are intimately linked. Many of these studies, however, present categories of gender and class and the relations between them as relatively stable. To do justice to radical social, economic, and cultural changes in contemporary societies, this course wants to discuss research that complicates the more traditional, static, views on gender-class relations. It will do so by looking at how social actors destabilize hegemonic ideologies of class and gender and how these processes of destabilization are driven by forces of globalization, and the increasing mediatization and commodification of cultural objects associated with specific class and gender identities.
10 ECTS
dr. Vincent A. de Rooij (see Blackboard for contact info)
Monday 2 - 5 PM; Spinhuis, Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185, Room 001 (entrance: Korte Spinhuissteeg, see this map for directions)
Class attendance is obligatory. If you must miss class for any reason, notify the instructor in advance by e-mail or telephone. Missing more than two meetings may result in exclusion from the course.
Students are expected to actively participate in discussing the assigned weekly readings. Students are encouraged to bring to class and present observations, newspaper clippings, or other materials bearing on the topics discussed.
Assignments are due at 5 PM on the Friday prior to the Monday meeting. The coursework will consist of brief reviews (appr. 200 words) of required
readings or data collection assignments. Please do not submit your work by e-mail but post it on the general discussion board on Blackboard. And please do not send the assignment as an attached Word (or other format) file but, instead, paste your review in the body of your post to the board. In the review, give a very brief summary of the main argument of the reading(s), and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.
In each of the weekly meetings, 2 or 3 students will be asked to present the main points of their reviews. The reviews will be graded, and the
average grade for the reviews will make up 30% of the final grade. Late assignments will have 1 point deducted for each day past the deadline.
The final paper makes up the remaining
70% of the final grade (for more info on the final paper, see the next section).
The final paper (5000 words max., not including bibliography and appendices) makes up 70% of the final grade. The deadline
for the final paper is 10 January 2011, 17:00 hrs.
Late submissions will have 1 point deducted for each day past the deadline.
For the final paper, you have to read appr. 600 pp. that are not part of the required readings.
Before submitting your paper, make sure to insert page numbering. Tables,
figures, and photos in the text should be numbered (Table|Figure|Photo 1,2,.,.)
and have a descriptive caption. Also, check your spelling and bibliographic
references. The paper should have a title page containing the title of the
paper, your name and student number, the name of the course and the name of the
course instructor, and, finally, the date of submission. For in-text citations
and the list of bibliographic references at the end of the paper, use your
preferred style but make sure to apply it in a rigorous and consistent manner.
The final paper has to be submitted through Blackboard and will be checked for traces of plagiarism by Ephorus. If
you are found guilty of plagiarism, you will receive a failing grade (or no
grade at all), and you may be subject to further disciplinary action.
Plagiarism is a form of theft, deception, and fraud. It may be committed
knowingly and deliberately but in many cases is the tragic result of sloppiness,
time pressure, or simply of not knowing what plagiarism is and why it is wrong.
Please consult this UvA page on plagiarism and fraud and read one or more of the following webpages that explain what plagiarism
is, why it is wrong, and how to avoid it.
| Date | Subject | Assignment | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 September | Introduction | --- | --- |
| 13 September | no class | ||
| 20 September | Contextualizing G&L studies I | review of one of the readings |
Holmes & Meyerhoff 2003 |
| 27 September | Contextualizing G&L studies II | review of one of the readings | Bucholtz 2003 McConnell-Ginet 2003 Romaine 2003 |
| 4 October | The meaning & relevance of class in G&L studies today I | present topic & research question for final paper review of Bourdieu or Besnier | Besnier 2009 Bourdieu 1977 Macaulay 2005 |
| 11 October | The meaning & relevance of class in G&L studies today II |
annotated bibliography for final paper
review of one of the readings |
Fox 2007 Hall 2005 Yang 2010 |
| 18 October | More on theory and method in G&L studies | review of one of the readings | Eckert 2008 |
| 25 October | no class |
reading ahead or reading up on the topic of your paper |
|
| 1 November | Modernity and globalization |
review
of one of the readings |
Besnier 2007 Inoue 2002 Leap 2003 |
| 8 November | no class | reading ahead / working on final paper | |
| 15 November | Masculinity/ies in G&L studies | review of one of the readings | Kiesling 2001 Sidnell 2003 Trechter 2003 |
| 22 November | Transgenderism | review
of one of the readings |
Besnier 2003 Hall 2003 |
| 29 November | no class | reading ahead / working on final paper |
|
| 6 December | First draft due date | present first draft final paper | |
| 13 December | Gendering among children and adolescents | review of one of the readings |
Bucholtz 2007 Eckert 2003 Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1995 Goodwin 2003 |
| 20 December | Subjects raised by students | review of one of the readings | articles (appr. 120 pp.) to be selected by students |
| 10 January, 17:00 hrs | Final
paper due date |
||
Besnier, Niko. 2003. Crossing genders, mixing languages: The linguistic construction of transgenderism in Tonga. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 279-301
Besnier, Niko. 2007. Language and gender research at the intersection of the global and the local. Gender and Language 1(1): 67-78.
Besnier, Niko. 2009. Modernity, cosmopolitanism, and the emergence of middle classes in Tonga. The Contemporary Pacific 21(2): 215-262.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information 16(6):645-668.
Bucholtz, Mary. 2003. Theories of discourse as theories of gender: Discourse analysis in language and gender studies. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 43-68.
Bucholtz, Mary. 2007. Shop talk: Branding, consumption, and gender in American middle-class youth interaction. In Bonnie S. McElhinny (ed.), Words, worlds, and material girls: Language, gender, globalization. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. 371-402.
Eckert, Penelope. 2003. Language and gender in adolescence. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 381-400.
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12: 453-476.
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1992. Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 461-488.
Eckert, Penelope, and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1995. Constructing meaning, constructing selves: Snapshots of language, gender, and class from Belten High. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.), Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. New York: Routledge. 469-507.
Fox, Aaron A. 2004. Real country: Music and language in working-class culture. Durham: Duke University Press. [Ch. 7: “The women take care of that”: Engendering working-class culture, Pp 249-271, 342-344 [notes], 349-356 [bibliography]]
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 2003. The relevance of ethnicity, class, and gender in children's peer negotiations. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 229-251.
Hall, Kira. 2003. Exceptional speakers: Contested and problematized gender identities. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 353-380.
Hall, Kira. 2005. Intertextual sexuality: Parodies of class, identity, and desire in liminal Delhi. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1): 125–144.
Holmes, Janet, and Miriam Meyerhoff. 2003. Different voices, different views: An introduction to current research in language and gender. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 1-17.
Inoue, Miyako. 2002. Gender, language, and modernity: Towards an effective history of Japanese women's language. American Ethnologist 29(2): 392-422.
Kiesling, Scott Fabius. 2001. Stances of Whiteness and hegemony in fraternity men’s discourse. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11:1, 101-115.
Kiesling, Scott Fabius. 2003. Prestige, cultural models, and other ways of talking about underlying norms and gender. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 509-527.
Leap, William. 2003. Language and gendered modernity. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 401-422.
Macaulay, Ronald K.S. 2005. Talk that counts: Age, gender, and social class differences in discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Ch. 4: Social Class, Pp. 35-39, 207-220 [bibliography]
McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 2003. "What's in a name?": Social labeling and gender practices. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 69-97.
McElhinny, Bonnie. 2003. Theorizing gender in sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropology. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 21-42.
Philips, Susan. 2003. The power of gender ideologies in discourse. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 252-276.
Romaine, Suzanne. 2003. Variation in language and gender. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 98-118.
Sidnell, Jack. 2003. Constructing and managing male exclusivity in talk-in-interaction. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 327-352.
Trechter, Sara. 2003. A marked man: The contexts of gender and ethnicity. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 423-443.
Weatherall, Anne, and Cindy Gallois. 2003. Gender and identity: Representation and social action. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.), The handbook of language and gender. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 487-508.
Yang, Jie. 2010. The crisis of masculinity: Class, gender, and kindly power in post-Mao China. American Ethnologist 37(3): 550 - 562.
page updated: 3 September, 2010, 14 October, 2010 (typos corrected), 21 October (correction in Course Schedule: 'Inoue 2001' changed to 'Inoue 2002')