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How far does it make sense to say, as Harry Burns put it in When Harry Met Sally, “that men and women can’t be friends”? What presumptions of female and male friendships underlie such a claim? Does it even make sense to talk of a distinctive difference between male and female friendships? Beginning with tracts on friendship from the Western philosophical tradition, and then weaving between sociological analyses and representations of friendship in literature and film, we will explore in this course how gender inflects friendship as we live it. Assignments include two 6-8 page papers and a short summary of readings due each week.