Sociology

The meaning of freedom and citizenship is a central theme in this examination of the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped the lives of African Americans since the end of the Civil War. Topics include Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights and black power movements.

Credits: 4

Now more than ever, the world and workplace depends on our collective ability to collaborate across differences. What does collaboration mean and look like as the 21st century advances? Students learn about the benefits and challenges of democratic engagement across fields of study, including organizational leadership, theory of change, civic engagement, community organizing, conflict mediation, and cultural and emotional intelligence.

Credits: 2

An examination of the rich philosophies of Tibetan Buddhism, drawing on Nagarjuna and the Indian background, developing the tantric tradition through its philosophic assumptions and arguments. (offered Summer, in India)

Credits: 4

What does Latin American hip-hop have to do with social change? How do murga dances in Argentina and Uruguay or “theatre of the oppressed” performances in Brazil challenge “social authoritarianism”? Why are Greenpeace campaigns so successful in raising awareness about the Amazon? Why are carnivals in Oruro, Bolivia, or in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, still so lively and engaging? This course explores the relationship between activism and “culture” in different Latin American countries.

Credits: 3

Examines the art and science of contemplative practices in order to cultivate self-knowledge, critical awareness, emotional resilience, and social engagement. Students must be willing to personally explore such practices as meditation and incorporate them into their lives throughout the semester. This experiential approach complements an academic investigation and discussion of contemplative practices in the sciences and humanities.

Credits: 3

An introduction to sociological thinking and to key concepts in sociology. Attention is given to social life, inequality, movements, action, change, institutions, and contemporary social issues.

Credits: 3

An overview of biological, psychological, and sociological approaches to understanding human sexual behavior. Topics include values in sexuality, sexuality through the life span, sexual dysfunction and therapy, sex and disability, sexual preferences, atypical sexualities, and sex and the law.

Credits: 3

Students examine sociological perspectives on the law and how it operates to exert social control, define social norms, and propel social progress. Moving from theory to practical analysis, the course focuses on the ways in which the law reinforces inequality and affects social change. Additionally, student explore how cultural shifts and social movements can influence the law.

Credits: 3

Students explore the social construction of the genre of outsider art through an examination of institutional discourses and practices. Emphasis is placed on how the work of marginalized people comes to be viewed as artistically legitimate. Works of asylum art, folk art, prison art, and other genres are analyzed in relationship to creativity, local cultural tradition, and mental illness.

Credits: 3

An examination of the state of race relations in the United States and other industrialized nations. Topics include racial and ethnic stratification, systems of oppression, mechanisms for integration, pluralism, assimilation, and racial politics.

Credits: 3

An introduction to the development of consumer society and consumer culture, with emphasis on the city as a landscape of consumption. Topics include commodification, materialism, large-scale changes in cities and industries, the street as a site for identity, neighborhoods as contest spaces, and the environmental and social consequences of consumerism.

Credits: 3

Introduces microsociology from a social-interactionist perspective. Concepts covered include self; social construction of reality and the symbolic environments; culture and subculture; and identity, social location, and socialization. The interconnectedness of selves and societies is explored by examining the ways in which (a) social arrangements shape individuals and (b) individuals shape the social order of which they are a part.

Credits: 3

After examining the historical development of the profession of social work, this course introduces the profession’s values, ethics, and practice principles. Students examine major intervention methods of practice and explore the social service delivery networks comprising the social welfare system in professional settings. The course format includes volunteer service and visits to social service sites.

Credits: 4

An examination of the impact of feminist thinking on the visual and performing arts. Emphasis is placed on the historical absence of women in art worlds and the creation of work that critiques dominant modes of cultural production. A plurality of feminisms and attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality inform investigations of craft, performance, and collaboration.

Credits: 4

This professional orientation for sociology majors includes sessions with each member of the sociology faculty on such topics as professional presentation and communication skills, preparation for graduate school, and faculty research.

Credits: 1

An exploration of different sociological renderings of birth and death in contemporary societies. Understanding the concepts from a sociological perspective offers an opportunity to explore the intersections of race, class, gender, spirituality, and age. This course also focuses on recent biomedical technological innovations and their implications for birth and death representations. Students conduct an independent field trip and do extensive reading and writing.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500 Or GND1200

How do groups mobilize to act for social change and against injustice? This course focuses on contemporary movements that emerge within and outside the United States, e.g., in Latin America. Case studies focus on human rights, feminism, environmentalism, landless rural workers, indigenous peoples, and global justice movements, with a particular focus on how these movements emerge, (re)create their identities, and frame injustice. The class analyzes how 21st-century movements are both global and local.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Provides an overview of the counseling professions. Covers history, theories, methodologies, origins, and ethics within a variety of counseling professions including guidance and vocational, human services, grief, marriage and family, and social work. Skill building will include autoethnography, listening practices, meditation, empathy, and observation. Guest lectures by practitioners from a variety of professions.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500 Or SOC3002

Investigates the meanings, production, distribution, and consumption of food by human beings. Special attention is paid to social solidarity—the racial, ethnic, and gender relations of food preparation and celebration. Social stratification is examined to understand social inequality in relation to food, particularly in terms of labor and hunger.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500 Or GND1200

Food—its production, consumption, and representation—is used as a lens to understand politics, culture, sociality, identities, geographies, and economies. Taking the geographical area of Pisciotta, Italy, as a starting point and ultimately as an ethnographic case study, this course engages students in the local and regional landscape. From visits to the local weekly market to field trips to the local mozzarella or olive oil producers, students interpret how food, as a way of life, has shaped the village.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Food, its production, consumption, and representation are used as a lens to understand politics, culture, sociality, identities, geographies, and economies. Some of the themes examined are salient in contemporary debates within social and cultural studies.

Credits: 4

History of social welfare policy, justice, and social work advocacy. Focus on the elderly, health care, mental health, and child welfare. Application of policy and cost benefit analysis, and systems thinking. Specialized areas include issues related to ability, age, class, ethnicity, gender identity and gender expression, marital status, national origin, race, religion or spirituality, sex, and sexual orientation.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500 Or SOC3002

Contemporary sociological studies of the body consider how bodies become social entities through membership in communities and how these bodies are valued according to their gender, social class, religion, and racial, ethnic, and national status. This course attends to bodies, engaging with a growing corpus of material on embodiment, embodied experiences, body regulation, bodywork, representations of bodies, and cultural exposures of the body.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500

How is scientific and medical knowledge researched and developed? What is the relationship between science and medicine? What are the hidden premises or values that lie within different scientific and medical approaches? How is scientific and medical knowledge culturally represented? Additional topics include alternative medicine, epidemiology, and everyday lived experience of medicine and the relation to social inequality.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

What is teaching like? Would you make a good teacher? Designed to familiarize students with the profession of teaching, this course helps students consider whether they want to pursue a teaching career. In addition to addressing the motivation, training, and status of teachers, the course also provides an overview of educational policies and professional organizations. A child-observation component is included.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

The “Bro Code” is an everyday term that describes an unspoken set of social guidelines among men, influencing their friendships, interactions and behavior.  In this course, students will delve into the world of the “Bro Code,” masculinity, manhood, sexuality and gender through a critical sociological lens, uncovering the ways seemingly trivial social norms can reproduce larger social structures and inequalities.  

Credits: 4

Focuses on what is meant by organizations, how organizations are shaped by their environment, and how organizations affect societies and individual lives. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and schools are among the organizations covered.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Brings a sociological perspective to environmental issues, both past and present, by asking: Who is civilized? Who is savage? What is nature? By addressing questions of how human societies, animals, and land have shaped each other, students better understand the root causes and consequences of today’s environmental crisis. Topics include world hunger, water, and environmental equity for all.

Credits: 4

Students and faculty, humans and animals, subjects and objects collaborate in this rigorous seminar on the “animal problem,” as it is particularly important to urban environments and urban dwellers (human and nonhuman animals). What are nonhuman animals? How do people account for their animal nature while reconciling their cultural aspirations? What are human primary desires with respect to nonhuman animals?

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

An introduction to the study of cities in the U.S. and other countries. Using a “social problems” approach, the development of urban communities and the associated issues are explored. Topics include gentrification, poverty, housing, and public transportation. This course is designed to further develop students’ writing ability and capacity for critical thinking, research, and analysis.

Credits: 4

This course examines fashion, as both clothing and aesthetic category, focusing on how style connects to power and resistance in contemporary and historical contexts. Students explore clothing as a social product, marker of self, and its symbolic meanings in relationship to class, gender, race, age and other social identities. Examples include goth, athleisure, streetwear, business casual, bohemian.

Credits: 4

Introduction to the main ideas in the field of political sociology. Primary focus includes the study of power and its social implications. Key topics include the use and legitimation of violence, democracy from above and below, policy development processes and outcomes, corruption, citizenship, and revolutions. Historical and contemporary cases locally and globally will be covered.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or POL1570

Forms of social movement, action, and advocacy, which are critical to social transformation and social justice, are examined. Essential components, such as fundraising, training, publicity, and movement building, are included, along with coverage of effective forms of social activism and advocacy. The course integrates theory and research with practical applications.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Introduction to the sociology of memory, focusing on the United States and Latin America. Topics include memory and the nation, memory and race, memory, gender, and sexuality, the politics of memory, memory tourism, memorials, museums, and memory in art and popular culture.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or PSY1530 Or ANT1500 Or HIS1200 Or HIS1600

Students become acquainted with methods that social scientists in general and sociologists in particular use for different types of research. Goals include learning to identify, understand, and evaluate diverse research strategies; distinguish between qualitative and quantitative methods, the types of knowledge they produce, and the strengths and the weaknesses of each; and think critically about objectivity, researcher standpoint, and research ethics

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Given the ethnic complexity of society, major social institutions—including education, criminal justice, health care, social services, and business—face many challenges. This course explores the past, present, and future of race and ethnicity in American society, and how immigration, culture, religion, education, and income play parts in prejudice, discrimination, and racial inequalities.

Credits: 4

From the Manson family to Scientology, this course takes a deep dive into the world of fringe religious groups. We will learn how sociologists approach these marginal groups by examining their beliefs and behaviors, the power of their leaders and organizations, as well as their alignment with and resistance to the dominant culture.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The inequalities in status and class are examined. Literary, philosophical, and sociological works are used to explore the nature and morality of inequality and to provide composite pictures of the different social classes.

Credits: 4

Conflict can signal either a disruption in an organization’s operations or an opportunity for change and growth. This course examines the causes, processes, costs, and benefits of social conflict, and methods for conflict resolution. Using sociological theory and research, the relationship of social issues to organizational and institutional conflict is also addressed. Students are given a broad perspective on making conflict an asset organizationally and interpersonally, including 25 hours of coursework needed for conflict-mediation certification. Provides the foundation for an apprenticeship with a conflict-mediation or dispute-resolution center.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

People’s everyday lives are monitored on multiple levels through mechanisms they take for granted. Surveillance systems and technologies provide knowledge about people through identification, monitoring, and analysis of individuals, groups, data, or systems. These systems are examined as social entities that organize and shape cultural values and norms. Issues of identity, security, fear, control, and vulnerability are also explored.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Students explore the relationship between art and society through an investigation of cultural objects and practices, and within the context of individual and collective identity. Emphasis is placed on the social production, consumption, and distribution of art, the role of art institutions, and the relationship between art and social change.

Credits: 4

An examination of the special relationship of education to other American institutions. Topics include the declining support for public education, attempts to privatize public education (vouchers), and race and class issues in public and private education.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Incorporates service learning and examines immigration and the U.S. school system. Combining hands-on work within local schools with academic readings that address children of immigrants in schools, this course emphasizes applied sociology. Throughout the course, students analyze how school structures, peer networks, relationships with teachers, and familial interactions influence the incorporation and educational trajectories of first- and second-generation immigrants.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Public health has the goal of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society. This course focuses on a specific public health topic that might unexpectedly become significant or an interdisciplinary topic that integrates sociological considerations in relation to the goals of public health (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, abortion, synthetic biology, DNA testing).

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Focuses on the diversity of families, the challenges they face, their relationship to social institutions and communities, and how they interact with society at large. Students explore how social norms and public policy have benefited or constrained particular familial structures over time and examine how contemporary family formations are shifting normative social structures.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500

Examines the ways in which age is socially constructed, and how social factors influence how bodies develop over time and shape our social order. Studies include various ideologies and inequalities related to aging.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Aging is real. It happens to everyone. But some people age “better” than others. How can we maximize our aging potential? Is aging a disease to be treated or a natural progression of life? To answer these questions, this course critically examines new social, medical, genetic and economic advances relating to aging. We also interrogate systemic institutional inequalities in respect to these technological aging innovations. Our goal is to understand how one ages well in our society.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500

Examines the truth and dispels the myths about Alzheimer’s disease. Topics include how to help AD family members live a worthwhile life, public health concerns about social impact, caregiver burnout and disease costs, stigma, social memory, gender, race and class. Medical-genomic interventions, optimism about delaying onset, finding cures, and the role of various interpretations of the disease are explained.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500

Considers the ways in which children and childhood differ across cultures, what those cultural differences mean, and what childhood means in a larger developmental and cultural sense. Among other topics, students examine children as active social agents, independent of families, and incorporate ideas around children as products, childhood innocence, and children in need of protection.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

An examination of the various causes and consequences of international migration on migrants, their sending communities, and their destination countries. Topics include immigration debates, the social structures and economic and social conditions that facilitate labor migration, undocumented migration, refugee migration and forced migration. New York is an amazing place to explore migration, providing firsthand knowledge about migrant communities.

Credits: 4

Considers experiences and images of men in U.S. society. Recent feminist theory and research concerning men are studied, with attention to the various meanings of masculinity in American culture. This course provides a sociological understanding of gender and society, with attention to race, class, and other aspects of identity that shape men’s lives, including media representations of masculinity.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

A global sociological examination of the contemporary debates and studies concerning the social organization of cultures that transcends national boundaries. This course examines the highly debated concept of globalization by studying transnational social organizations and the distinctive dynamics of global political economy and culture. Topics include colonialism and postcolonialism, social movements and social change, social inequality, labor, human rights, democracy, global capitalism, urbanization, and cultural identity.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Sexuality is grounded in bodily experience, but meanings of both body and experience are socially constructed. This advanced seminar examines contemporary sexual constructions and their cultural and historical roots.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: GND1200 Or SOC2020 Or ANT3750 Or GND2020

The meaning of theory, and the major theoretical perspectives in social science. Primary attention in reading and discussion is given to the works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. These thinkers have been chosen because of their seminal, interdisciplinary contributions to political, economic, sociological, and anthropological theory.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

In preparation for the senior project, sociology majors conduct an in-depth critical review of research and learn how to plan and write a research proposal within a particular area of interest. The goal is to develop critical-thinking skills and the ability to do close reading of primary sources and write in the style of the discipline.

Credits: 4

An advanced seminar in critical race studies specifically designed for juniors and seniors interested in reading theory, history, and research. Focuses on key works that have defined the field and shaped understandings of race in the 21st century, including those of Du Bois, Wacquant, Fanon, hooks, Crenshaw, Davis, Hall, and Said.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Offers an in-depth focus on a specific sociological issue, which varies each semester. Includes research, readings, and writings on a topic related to the particular expertise of the faculty member.

Credits: 4

Using a sociological imagination, we will examine the personality and politics of Generation X, Y and Z as compared to their predecessors. In examining birth and age cohorts, we focus on cultural, economic, and political moments that define generations. Emphasis is placed on identity, education, technology, values and the marketing of generations as distinct.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500

Contemporary issues in bioethics; the study of ethical issues in the field of medical treatment, the life sciences and medical research. Examines moral and philosophical theories of ethics, applies these concepts to current topics, including end of life decisions, reproductive technologies, patient autonomy, human, animal and fetal research and technologies, organ transplantation, and genetic testing and engineering.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 And WRI1110

How meanings of all things extraterrestrial are shaped by culture and what those meanings reveal about humanness. Topics include constructions of difference, conflict, community, knowledge, science, and social change. The culminating question: What does it mean to be human? What counts as reality? What about our humanness have we cultivated or suppressed and in the service of what interests?

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Environmental challenges confronting human and nonhuman life demand adaptive modes of inquiry that accommodate the intricacies, fluidity, and interconnectivity of a global world, while engaging the place-based drivers that influence climate change across localities. Using a comparative approach, students apply accumulated knowledge to working definitions of climate change and identify real-world challenges to sustainability in diverse local environments.

Credits: 6

Public art is used in this course to promote community engagement and cross-cultural interaction. Students use established, recognized methods of collaboration to explore local community issues, concluding with the physical implementation and exhibition of student-led solutions.

Credits: 3