2023-2024 Academic Year

Fall 2023

SOCI 110 Social Analysis
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.

SOCI 230 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, LAWP 290-02 and PHIL 261-02.Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, “Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order.” These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault’s work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

PHIL 261 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, LAWP 290-02 and SOCI 230-01.Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, “Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order.” These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault’s work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

LAWP 290 Foucault
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, PHIL 261-02 and SOCI 230-01.Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, “Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order.” These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault’s work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

SOCI 330 Classical Sociological Theory
Cross-listed with EDST 391-02.

EDST 391 Classical Sociological Theory
Cross-listed with SOCI 330-01.This course will examine alternative ways of understanding the human being, society, and culture as they have been presented in classical sociological theory (through 1925). 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 fall.

EDST 391 Foucault
Cross-listed with LAWP 290-02, PHIL 261-02 and SOCI 230-01.Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, “Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order.” These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault’s work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.

Spring 2024

SOCI 230 Socio Theories of Education
Cross-listed with EDST 391-04. The fields of sociology and educational studies have considerable overlap, and in this class we will examine a variety of ways in which education has been theorized within sociology. The range of theories we will consider include the functionalism of Durkheim, feminist theories ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft to Kat Banyard, the Marxist theories of Antonio Gramsci and Paul Willis, the liberatory theory of Paulo Friere, Black liberation theories ranging from Du Bois to today's April Baker-Bell, and the poststructuralist theories of Bourdieu and others. Reading original works, we will seek to understand the various arguments that suggest that education as a social institution contributes to social cohesion and equality on the one hand, or racialized inequalities, gendered inequalities, and classed inequalities on the other. Finally, we will read Joanne Golann's empirical study of the ways in which, contrary to popular belief, charter schools tend to reinforce rather than break down cultural divides between various races and classes. Along the way we will discuss various historical moments when efforts were made to change the ways in which education is delivered, experienced, and funded.

SOCI 331 Contemp Sociological Theory
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.

EDST 391 Socio Theories of Education
Cross-listed with SOCI 230-01.