Upcoming Event: Sex and Gender in the Ethnographic Encounter in the Highlands of the American Colonial Philippines

The HAR editors are pleased to draw your attention to an upcoming event: this year’s Gatty Lecture, delivered by Juan Fernandez (Ph.D. candidate, Cornell University), on “Sex and Gender in the Ethnographic Encounter in the Highlands of the American Colonial Philippines.” The lecture will take place on Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 12:30pm EST.

This talk examines three foundational ideas in the history and anthropology of sex and gender in Southeast Asia in the context of the colonial Philippines: the “high” status of women; the image of the man of prowess; and the concept and practice of gender pluralism. Drawing from episodes of the ethnographic encounter between the earliest generation of American anthropological field-workers during the first decade of the twentieth century and their Indigenous interlocutors, the talk aims to rethink the assumptions behind the axioms of the study of gender and sexuality in the region, as well as tracing their roots in the history of anthropology.

Juan Fernandez is a historian of modern Southeast Asia. He received his M.A. from the University of Chicago, and his B.A. from the University of the Philippines at Baguio. He has two forthcoming publications: one is a contribution to an edited volume on Indigenous Studies in the Philippines, and the other is an article in the journal Philippine Studies, entitled “‘From Savages to Soldiers’: The Igorot Body, Militarized Masculinity, and the Logic of Transformation in Dean C. Worcester’s Philippine Photographs.” He will be joining the faculty of the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in Fall 2023 first as an Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellow, and subsequently as assistant professor of history in Fall 2024.

This Gatty Lecture will take place in-person at the Kahin Center at Cornell University, but guests are also welcome to join on Zoom. Online attendees must register in advance at this registration link.

More information can be found on the event page. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.