Making Gender

In this collection of new and previously published essays, Sherry Ortner draws on her more than two decades of work in feminist anthropology to offer a major reconsideration of culture and gender. Making Gender is rich in theoretical insights and ethnographic examples, offering a stimulating synthesis of the field by one of its founders and foremost theorists.

"A tour-de-force journey through both the work of an outstanding anthropologist and the history of a field." -Rayna Rapp, editor of Toward an Anthropology of Women

"[An] engaging book. . . . Sherry B. Ortner is well known among anthropologists for having her finger on the pulse of the discipline. . . . [Making Gender is] a fine example of the way anthropology helps us to think about ourselves." -Tanya Luhrmann, The New York Times Book Review

"To have [Ortner's] brilliant writings gathered together in one volume, along with an introduction that is sure to move even further our understanding of gender, is a gift to all of us." -Nancy J. Chodorow, author of The Reproduction of Mothering

"Even those familiar with Ortner's more widely read essays will want to reread these next to her more recent writing to understand some of the important changes in feminist anthropology in the last twenty years." -Louise Lamphere, coeditor of Woman, Culture, and Society

Sherry B. Ortner is professor of anthropology at Columbia University. Her books include High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism and Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (coedited with Nicholas B. Dirks and Geoff Eley). She received a MacArthur Award in 1990 for her work in anthropology.