| SOCI 110-01 |
Social Analysis
Instructor: Marcellus Taylor
Course Description:
Selected topics in the empirical study of the ways in which people's character and life choices are affected by variations in the organization of their society and of the activities by which social arrangements varying in their adequacy to human needs are perpetuated or changed.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 211 |
| SOCI 225-01 |
Race and Ethnicity
Instructor: Erik Love
Course Description:
This course explores the historical and contemporary significance of race and ethnicity in the United States. Students will examine how racial inequality has become a pervasive aspect of U.S. society and why it continues to impact our life chances. We will address race and ethnicity as socio-historical concepts and consider how these social fictions (in collusion with gender, class, and sexuality) produce very real material conditions in everyday life. We will develop a theoretical vocabulary for discussing racial stratification by examining concepts such as prejudice, discrimination, systemic/institutional racism, racial formations, and racial hegemony. We will then look closely at colorblind racism, and examine how this dominant ideology naturalizes social inequality. With this framework in place, students will investigate racial stratification in relation to schools, the labor market, the criminal justice system, neighborhood segregation, immigration, etc. Finally, we will discuss strategies of anti-racism that seek to eliminate enduring racial hierarchies. Offered every two years.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 304 |
| SOCI 227-01 |
Political Economy of Gender
Instructor: Ebru Kongar
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ECON 230-01 and WGSS 202-01. Political Economy of Gender adopts a gender-aware perspective to examine how people secure their livelihoods through labor market and nonmarket work. The course examines the nature of labor market inequalities by gender, race, ethnicity and other social categories, how they are integrated with non-market activities, their wellbeing effects, their role in the macroeconomy, and the impact of macroeconomic policies on these work inequalities. These questions are examined from the perspective of feminist economics that has emerged since the early 1990s as a heterodox economics discourse, critical of both mainstream and gender-blind heterodox economics. While we will pay special attention to the US economy, our starting point is that there is one world economy with connections between the global South and the North, in spite of the structural differences between (and within) these regions.For ECON 230: ECON 111 (ECON 112 recommended); For SOCI 227: SOCI 110 or ECON 111; For WGSS 202: none (ECON 111 recommended). This course is cross-listed as ECON 230 & WGSS 202.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
ALTHSE 110 |
| SOCI 230-01 |
City, Suburb, Inequality Place
Instructor: Amy Steinbugler
Course Description:
Permission of instructor required.
In the United States, where we live has a profound effect on our life chances. It shapes the schools we attend, the safety of our families, and our exposure to environmental hazards. It also influences the composition of our social networks and the resources those networks confer. This course explores the significance of place, especially neighborhoods, in the reproduction of racial and social class inequalities. Specific issues include: race and residential segregation, suburbanization, social capital, education, sexual communities, gentrification, and 'stop and frisk' policies.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 311 |
| SOCI 230-03 |
Capital Punishment
Instructor: Kathryn Heard
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LAWP 290-01, PHIL 261-01 and POSC 290-01. Permission of instructor required.
This course examines the historical and contemporary practices of capital punishment in the United States. Indeed, the United States is one of the few constitutional democracies that retains the punishment of death for criminal wrong-doing, despite the efforts made by some Supreme Court Justices to abolish the "machinery of death" in the American legal system and the pressure placed on federal and state governments by foreign nations to formally abolish its use. This course considers: Why does the state claim the authority to kill its citizens and how does it justify this authority? How has capital punishment in the United States changed over time, such that the modern promise of a "painless death" endeavors to legitimate its continuation? How do race, gender, class, religion, disability, and location impact who is subjected to the death penalty and for what crimes? What ethical arguments can be made for and against the use of capital punishment as a criminal sentence, from the perspectives of the condemned as well as the victim? Is it even possible to execute an individual in a manner that is just? These questions and more will be taken up as we move through a rich combination of political philosophy, legal cases, and works of socio-legal analysis.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 313 |
| SOCI 230-04 |
Introduction to Sustainable and Resilient Communities
Instructor: Neil Leary
Course Description:
Cross-listed with SUST 200-01.Permission of Instructor Required.
What are the goals and characteristics of sustainable and resilient communities? What strategies are pursued to make communities more sustainable? More resilient? How are communities responding to and preparing for climate change? What are the intersections between sustainable and resilient communities with inequality, social justice, racism, food security, human health, environmental health, consumerism, economic growth and global climate change? We will explore these and other questions in the context of communities in the United States.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
KAUF 178 |
| SOCI 230-05 |
Mental Illness and Madness: Sociological Understandings
Instructor: Dan Schubert
Course Description:
Mental illness and madness are usually thought of as characteristics of individuals, but in this course we examine them sociologically. Our discussions will be grounded in a deep literature on the topic, including readings from Durkheim, Foucault, Szasz, Goffman, Fanon, Fromm, and others, and likely book-ended with the novels Faces in the Water by Janet Frame and Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy. As sociologists we'll talk about madness in relationship to gender, race, and class, including a discussion of mass shootings and the mental health causes offered for white male shooters. In short, we wont examine what mental illness and madness are so much as well ask what role they play in society. Crazy, right?
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09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
ALTHSE 109 |
| SOCI 236-01 |
Inequalities in the U.S.
Instructor: Amy Steinbugler
Course Description:
This course takes a critical look at the layers of American society that shape, construct, and inhibit the basic pursuit for equality of opportunity. Students will be asked to examine how the three most fundamental elements of social stratification (race, class, gender) function both separately and in tandem to organize systems of inequality. The course uses theoretical and practical applications of stratification to evaluate how social constructions of difference influence the institutions and social policy. Additionally, class discussions will also consider how the forces of racism, sexism, and classism impact the attainment of basic needs, such as wages, health care and housing. Offered every year.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 104 |
| SOCI 237-01 |
Global Inequality
Instructor: Helene Lee
Course Description:
Exploring the relationship between globalization and inequality, this course examines the complex forces driving the integration of ideas, people, societies and economies worldwide. This inquiry into global disparities will consider the complexities of growth, poverty reduction, and the roles of international organizations. Among the global issues under scrutiny, will be environmental degradation; debt forgiveness; land distribution; sweatshops, labor practices and standards; slavery in the global economy; and the vulnerability of the world's children. Under specific investigation will be the social construction and processes of marginalization, disenfranchisement and the effects of globalization that have reinforced the division between the world's rich and poor. Offered every year.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 103 |
| SOCI 240-01 |
Qualitative Methods
Instructor: Helene Lee
Course Description:
This course introduces students to the theory and methods of social science research, beginning with an examination of the philosophies underlying various research methodologies. The course then focuses on ethnographic field methods, introducing students to the techniques of participant observation, structured and informal interviewing, oral histories, sociometrics, and content analysis. Students will design their own field projects. Prerequisite: 110.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
BOSLER 315 |
| SOCI 272-01 |
Islam and the West
Instructor: Erik Love
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEST 272-01. This course examines the contemporary relationship between the Islamic world and the Western world. In recent years, many interpretations of this relationship have developed, with some claiming a clash of civilizations is underway. The course critically engages the rapidly growing literature on this topic, while providing an introduction to the sociology of religion, an examination of so-called Western values and their Islamic counterparts, an analysis of key moments in recent history, and finally a survey of minority Muslim communities in the West. This course is cross-listed as MEST 272. Offered every year.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 304 |
| SOCI 331-01 |
Contemporary Sociological Theory
Instructor: Dan Schubert
Course Description:
This course will examine alternative ways of understanding the human being, society, and culture as they have been presented in contemporary sociological theory (1925-present). It will focus on the theoretical logic of accounting for simple and complex forms of social life, interactions between social processes and individual and group identities, major and minor changes in society and culture, and the linkages between intimate and large-scale human experience. Prerequisite: 110 and one additional course in sociology, or permission of instructor. Offered every spring.
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11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 303 |
| SOCI 405-01 |
Senior Thesis
Instructor: Dan Schubert
Course Description:
Permission of instructor required. Independent study, in consultation with a specially constituted faculty committee, of a problem area chosen by the student. The student should, in addition to pursuing his/her own interests, also seek to demonstrate how various perspectives within sociology and, where relevant, other disciplines bear on the topic chosen. Permission of the instructor required.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 204 |
