The fight for gender equality has become a matter of urgent public discourse. Yet changes to gender roles and relationships are as old as humanity itself. The purpose of this course is to provide students with the ability to “read” gender constructs from our deep prehistoric past to the present day. To do so, we use the tools of archaeology to study the material traces left by the communities that inhabited our planet in the past.

By deciphering a wide array of datasets and zooming into salient case studies, this course illuminates the astonishing variability of human gender dynamics. Students will gain an in-depth understanding of how gender works in both past and present societies. Achieving this through the prism of archaeology allows us to better grasp the myriad forms that gender organization can take and their change through time, and the deep social and economic forces that still shape it today.

Register for Anthrarc 388, Gender & Archaeology.

Fall 2020, Tuesday and Thursday, 2:30-4

Dr. Giulia Saltini Semerari, giulias@umich.edu