The aim of this course is to show you how theorizing the body can help you understand the social world. Bodies are flashpoints for multiple sociological tensions, such as the relationship between desire and discipline, the “natural” and the social, constraint and liberation. Attention to the body and embodiment can help us understand intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ability, and how those intersections are performed, exploited, commercialized, and represented. How are these axes of power made durable? How might they transform? Throughout the course, we will read contemporary sociological literature related to the body, especially work concerned with gender/sexuality, race, medicine and science, sports, and social movements. In studying the body and embodiment, we will also draw from interdisciplinary literatures, especially disabilities studies, as well as feminist and queer theory. By the end of the course, you should have the tools to identify how bodies are part of the social world and how closer attention to bodies can improve our understanding of power, inequality, and resistance.

Class Format:

Two 90-minute lectures per week