Week 1
Tuesday, August 28 - Introduction: Why Study Romance?
No reading due.
Thursday, August 30 - The Modernity of Romance
Rebhun, Linda-Anne. 1999. "For Love and for Money: Romance in Urbanizing Northeast Brazil." City & Society 11 (1-2): 145-164.
Lewinson, Anne. 2006. "Love in the City: Navigating Multiple Relationships in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania." City & Society 18 (1): 90-115.
Week 2
Tuesday, September 4 - Courtship and Companionship
Hirsch, Jennifer. 2003. A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Chapters 1 - 3; pages: xv-111.
Thursday, September 6 - Mediated Courtship
Hirsch, Jennifer. 2003. A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Chapters 6 and 7; pages: 180-230.
Cowboy del Amor. 2005. Director: Michele Ohayon. USA. 86 minutes. United States.
* All films are streaming from Collab / Kaltura Media / Site Library
Week 3
Tuesday, September 11 - The Tangled History of Marriage
Coontz, Stephanie. 2006. Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Penguin Books.
PDF includes required chapters, “Something Borrowed,” “Playing the Bishop, Capturing the Queen,” “From Yoke Mates to Soul Mates,” and “The Era of Ozzie and Harriet.”
Thursday, September 13 - Reading Romance
Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
Read: Introduction, Chapters 2 and 3; pages: 1-18, 46-118.
Week 4
Tuesday, September 18 - Consuming Ideology
Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.
Read: Chapters 4, 5, and 6; pages: 119-208.
Thursday, September 20 - Private Lives
Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Read: Preface - Chapter 3; pages: xi - 85.
Friday, September 21, 5pm
Thesis paragraph for your first short paper is due. See instructions here.
Week 5
Tuesday, September 25 - Public Changes
Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Read: Chapters 4, 5, and the Conclusion; pages: 86-139, 217-236.
Thursday, September 27 - Paid Intimacies
Albert, Alexis. 2001. Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women. New York: Random House.
Read: Introduction, "The Opening," and Chapter 3 "Breadwinners;" pg: 3-33; 68-94.
PDF will be uploaded soon.
Friday, September 28 - First short paper due
Needs to be uploaded by 5pm to dropbox.
Week 6
Tuesday, October 2 - Fantasies and Labor
The Great Happiness Space. 2006. Director: Jake Clennell, dir. 76 minutes. United Kingdom.
Thursday, October 4 - Methodologies
Humphreys, Laud. 1975 [1970]. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Read: Chapter 1, "Public Settings for "Private" Encounters," and Chapter 2, "Methods: The Sociologist as Voyeur;" pages: 1-44.
Week 7
Tuesday, October 9 - Fall Reading Days
No new reading due
Thursday, October 11 - Observers
Behar, Ruth. 1996. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press.
Read: Chapter 1, "The Vulnerable Observer." pg: 1-33.
Alexy, Allison. “What Can Be Said?” from, Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan. Book manuscript chapter draft.
Week 8
Tuesday, October 16 - Affective Economies
Adrian, Bonnie. 2003. Framing the Bride: Globalizing Beauty and Romance in Taiwan's Bridal Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Introduction "Framings," and Chapter 6 "Romance in the Photo Studio." pages: 1-22; 180-203.
Wedding Through Camera Eyes. 2002. Kijung Lee, dir. 45 minutes. South Korea.
Thursday, October 18 - Forever?
Epstein, Edward Jay. 1982. "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" The Atlantic Monthly 249(2): 23-34.
Savage, Dan. 2005. The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family. New York: Plume.
Read: Chapter 1, "Road Trip," and Chapter 8, "Borrowed;" pages 3-17; 139-160.
Week 9
Tuesday, October 23 - Materiality
Zelizer, Viviana. 2000. "The Purchase of Intimacy." Law and Social Inquiry 25(3): 817-848.
Simpson, Bob. 1997. "On Gifts, Payments and Disputes: Divorce and Changing Family Structures in Contemporary Britain." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 3: 731-746.
Thursday, October 25 -
Bernstein, Elizabeth. 2007. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Friday, October 26, 5pm
Thesis paragraph for your second short paper is due. See instructions here.
Week 10
Tuesday, October 30 - Love Abroad
*No class meeting because of the hurricane. Please use this time to read ahead and write your second short paper.
Thursday, November 1 - Love Abroad
Brennan, Denise. 2004. What's Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic. Durham: Duke University Press
Read: Introduction and Chapter 3, "Performing Love;" pages 1-9; 91-115.
Friday, Novemeber 2 - Second short paper due
Needs to be uploaded by 5pm to dropbox.
For graduate students - One page description of final paper
Week 11
Tuesday, November 6 - Touristic Romance
Bowman, Glenn. 1989. "Fucking Tourists: Sexual Relations and Tourism in Jerusalem's Old City." Critique of Anthropology, (9): 77-93.
Heading South [Vers Le Sud]. 2005. Laurent Cantet, dir. 108 minutes. France.
Thursday, November 8 - Citizenship
Constable, Nicole. 2003. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Read: Chapter 1, "Making Introductions," and Chapter 5, "Political Economy and the Cultural Logics of Desire;" pages: 13-30; 116-144.
Green Card. 1990. Peter Wier, dir. 103 minutes. USA.
*optional* Faier, Lieba. 2007. "Filipina Migrants in Rural Japan and their Professions of Love." American Ethnologist, 34(1): 148-162.
Week 12
Tuesday, November 13 - Risks and Endings
Smith, Daniel Jordan. 2010. “Gender Inequality, Infidelity, and the Social Risks of Modern Marriage in Nigeria.” In, The Secret: Love, Marriage, and HIV. Jennifer Hirsch, Holly Wardlow, Daniel Jordan Smith, Harriet Phinney, Shanti Parikh, and Constance Nathanson, eds. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Pages: 84-107.
Sentenced to Marriage. 2004. Anat Zuria, Dir. 65 minutes. Israel.
Thursday, November 15 - No class meeting
I will be attending the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Use this time to work ahead for the next session, which has more reading than usual.
Friday, November 16 - Four possible final paper topics due
Needs to be uploaded by 5pm to dropbox.
For graduate students - Substantial outline and rough draft of final paper due
Week 13
Tuesday, November 20 - Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson
Gordon-Reed, Annette. 1997. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American controversy. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press. PDF includes required chapters “Author’s Note,” “Preface,” “Introduction,” “Thomas Jefferson,” and “Sally Hemings.” Pages vii-5, and 105-209.
See also this Hemings Family Tree, found in Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello.
Listen to this 7 minute review of Henry Wiencek’s new book “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and his slaves.”
*optional* Chase-Riboud, Barbara. 1979. Sally Hemings: A novel. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. PDF includes chapters including: Chapter 1 “Albemarle County 1830,” Chapter 2 “Monticello 1815,” Chapter 12 “Paris, December 1787,” Chapter 13 “Paris, March 1788,” Chapter 15 “Paris, April 1788,” Chapter 17 “Paris, April 1879.”
Thursday, November 22 - Thanksgiving break
No class meeting
Week 14
Tuesday, November 27 - Pain
Illouz, Eva. 2012. Why Love Hurts. Cambridge: Polity Books.
Read: “Introduction: The Misery of Love,” Chapter 2 “The Great Transformation of Love or the Emergence of Marriage Markets,” and Chapter 3 “Commitment Phobia and the New Architecture of Romantic Choice,” pages 1-108.
Thursday, November 29 - Acceptable Subjectivities
Illouz, Eva. 2012. Why Love Hurts. Cambridge: Polity Books.
Read: Chapter 4 “The Demand for Recognition: Love and the Vulnerability of the Self,” Chapter 6 “From Romantic Fantasy to Disappointment”, and Chapter 7 “Epilogue,” pages 109-155, 198-148.
For graduate students - Defining success paragraph due by midnight
Friday, November 30 - Rough Draft of Final Paper due
Needs to be uploaded by 5pm to dropbox
Friday, November 30, 11:30-1:30 - Graduate student presentations, location TBA
Week 15
Tuesday, December 4 - Postmodernism
Illouz, Eva. 1998. "The Lost Innocence of Love: Romance as a Postmodern Condition." Theory Culture & Society, 15: 161-186.
Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family. 2004. Susan Kaplan, dir. 95 minutes. United States.
Wednesday, December 5 - Peer Review comments due
Must be uploaded to your dropbox file and emailed to each author by 5pm
Thursday, December 6 - Final Reflections and Future Questions
No additional reading due.
Final papers are due at 5pm on Friday, December 14th.