Caste: Globalization, Sexuality and Race

Be it sati or enforced widowhood; arranged or love marriage; national leaders; globally mobile corporate executives and knowledge professionals such as academics and doctors; or the obsession with "fair" skin, caste shapes possibilities and perceptions for billions. In this class we combine a historical understanding of the social caste structure with the insights made by those who have worked to annihilate caste. We will re-visit history with the analytic tools provided by the concepts of compulsory endogamy, "surplus woman," "brahmanical patriarchy," and "castelessness": we will build an understanding of the enduring yet invisible "sexual-caste" complex. As we will see, caste has always relied on sexual difference, sexual ritual, sexual control, and sexual theater.
Course Attributes: BU BA; BU IS; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM; AS SC; EN H

Caste: Globalization, Sexuality and Race

HISTORY 3663

Section 01