DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

This freshman seminar is designed to expose incoming students to the basic approaches that historians, political scientists, and sociologists use to understanding historical memory. In particular, we examine how reputations are constructed by the public and by historians, and how scandals (including contemporary ones) come to be understood. Our primary focus for this course will be American examples, but the historical range will be broad, covering 1700-present. Given the controversy recently uncovered at Northwestern about the involvement of our founder, John Evans in the Sand Creek Massacre, the most significant genocide of native peoples on United States soil, we will discuss how the university should recall Evans' deeds.

Sociology emerges from the hunch that there are forces at work beyond our control (and often beyond our awareness) that influence how we think, feel, and act. Sociologists have turned this philosophical speculation into a systematic approach to building and testing theories. Sociological explanations center on the structure and dynamics of social groups (families, friendship networks, organizations, etc.) as enabling and constraining human behavior. In this course, you will learn to think like a sociologist - to use your "sociological imagination" to examine the social nature of a number of issues and behaviors, many of which may at first appear to be the results of strictly individual motives and personal choices. You will get a broad overview of the theories and methods used in sociology and how these are applied across a wide range of important phenomena, including gender, race, inequality, and education.

Introduction to the role of law in American society. Relationship of law, inequality, and social change. Changes in legal institutions: the courts, the legal profession, and legal services for the poor. Taught with LEGAL ST 206; may not receive credit for both courses.

Instructor varies. See Caesar for current description.

Overview of the interactions between societies and the natural environment. Examines both key environmental problems, like climate change and oil spills, and possible solutions, and the roles played by different social structures and groups in shaping both issues.

Learn different sociological theories about cities and social life and about research that supports or revises those theories. Topics include physical ecology of cities, political economy of cities, social life among social groups, and the question of community, deviance and social control, and planning for the future.

Sociological perspectives developed by classic theorists. Elucidation and testing of sociological principles in contemporary research. Primarily for sociology majors. Open to others with consent of instructor.

Instructor varies. See Caesar for current description.

In many ways, capitalism has been global from the start. With its earliest development in the destructive fires of colonialism and transatlantic slavery, capitalism's very development depended not only upon technological advancement, but upon international trade and finance and both forced and voluntary labor migration across national borders. Yet, since World War II, we have seen a noteworthy transformation in the nature of global capitalism. The rise of multi-lateral trade agreements and increasing power of global institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary fund are just two examples. This course will examine what we traditionally refer to as "globalization" as a historical and multi-scalar phenomenon, one developing in the context of neoliberalism; i.e. the cocktail of deregulation, privatization, and austerity currently stressing social and political norms across the globe. Paying particular attention to the way debt and austerity are used to uphold the power relations established in the long and disparate colonial histories of Asia, Africa, and Latin/North America, students should come away from this course understanding global capitalism as something that has changed at various points in time rather than something that emerged over the latter half of the twentieth century.

How does U.S. society, politics and law construct the notion of "race?" How do social, political and legal forces produce outcomes differentiated by race? This class will draw from sociology, political science, psychology, history and legal scholarship to situate the role of race in contemporary U.S. politics, policy and law. We will look at how race continues to structure life experiences, social outcomes, opinions and political affiliations. We will review and critique various conceptualizations of race and racism in the literature. Finally, we will investigate contemporary political and policy issues. For each issue we will ask, how does race function in politics and policy? And, how does the law shape or respond to race and racial difference? The class is designed to give students a deeper understanding of the relationship between race, inequality and the law. Students will learn to apply theories of race and racism to contemporary political and legal issues.

In this course, we will draw upon literature in the social sciences and humanities to consider the central role that science (broadly conceived) has played both in categorizing people based upon sexual desires, practices, and identity, and in challenging how we have come to understand those very categories. We then consider how debates over how to define sexuality intersect with struggles for LGBT rights as well as alternative approaches to improving the lives of those who may not fit neatly within established categories. Key topics will include: the pathologization and de-pathologization of homosexuality; same-sex marriage; fixed vs. fluid sexual desire; efforts to change sexual orientation; and the relevance of disputes over the nature of sexuality to trans people's claims to legal recognition, among others.

This course is designed to teach students the basics of single variable calculus, probability, set theory, random variables, and hypothesis testing. The course prepares students for the next class in the statistics sequence. The fundamental math used in this course will be covered in a review course prior to the start of the quarter. By the end of the course, students will understand the intuition behind statistical analysis, have practice applying the statistical techniques covered, and be familiar with different types of statistical anlysis.

The recent popularity of discussions of "inequality" has pushed what has long been a sociological topic of research into the public arena. "Stratification" is the more general and descriptive precursor to analyses of inequality. Stratification refers to the fact that people (or groups or institutions) are arrayed along some (usually hierarchical) continuum of value, whereas inequality focuses on the size and consequences of gaps between groups. This course will explore the descriptive facts of stratification as well as the normative and political debates that motivate discussions of inequality. Race and gender are key bases of stratification. Class, or socioeconomic status, is both a grounds for stratification as well as a measure of stratification itself (i.e., it is a continuum across which people are arrayed). In this course, we will discuss the theoretical and empirical approaches to studying stratification; consider stratification in comparative perspective; explore five key domains in which stratification is produced, reproduced and manifested: families, schools (2 weeks), the labor market, and neighborhoods (2 weeks); and consider the political responses and debates regarding stratification. All of these topics will pay particular attention to race, gender, and class as key mechanisms of stratification.

This course surveys some of the increasing literature on neoliberalism, the movement throughout the world to reduce the role of the state and give greater rein to market forces. The focus is on the U.S., but a few weeks are spent on neoliberalism in other countries.

This graduate seminar will provide an overview of central topics in microsociology: an approach that is also known as sociological social psychology. Rather than focusing on organizations, institutions, and populations, microsociology addresses the dynamics of interaction, the relationships between personality and social structure, the production of culture, the dynamics of social identity, the sociology of emotions, and the experimental analysis of inequality and trust. The class incorporates various methodological traditions, including ethnography, interviews, survey research, and experimentation, and draws on the writings of such important theorists contributing to a microsociology approach including Sigmund Freud, George Simmel, George Herbert Mead, George Homans, and Erving Goffman.

Introduction to the department, faculty, and adjunct faculty. Faculty discuss their research and teaching interests. Mandatory two-quarter weekly seminar for first-year students.