DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

This seminar explores the relationship between humans and non-human species from a sociological viewpoint.  Topics include: the history of animal-human relations; the moral status of animals; how gender, class, and race-ethnicity impact our dealings with animals; zoos and shelters; the relationship between violence toward animals and toward people; animal rights movements; animal therapy; and the question of whether animals are part of society.

This course examines the experiences of young people today and how the experience of being a young person varies greatly by socio-economic status, gender, and race/ethnicity. We will also spend time looking at how life stages associated with youth (such as tween, teenager, and emerging adulthood) have evolved and why the road to adulthood is often longer today. We will also think about how the media shapes societal views of young people and how young people use social media. Finally, we will consider how the lives of young people today (Millenials) compare to earlier generations (including Baby Boomers and Generation X) and we will look at intergenerational interactions at home, in school, and in the workplace.

Chicago has played a prominent role in the literary and social imagination. This course will explore (1) how community is created, imagined and remembered in Chicago, (2) how Chicago has shaped our thinking about what it means to live in a modern city, and (3) the significance of place for people's identity.  The course will include some basic concepts and strategies for analyzing urban life and we will compare sociological, historical and fictional approaches. Students will also learn several methods used by sociologists to collect evidence. In addition to introducing students to a fascinating city and some core sociological ideas, my goal is for students to learn to think and read more critically, and to communicate your ideas more effectively, both as speakers and writers. 

This course examines causes and consequences of inequality in American society. Lectures emphasize the mechanisms through which inequality develops and comes to be seen as legitimate, natural, and desirable. We will also examine the economic, social, and political consequences of rising inequality.

The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality primarily in the contemporary US context.  We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that will guide the rest of the course including the social construction of gender, how people “do gender,” gender binaries and borders, intersectionality, and sexualities.  Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in key social institutions (e.g family; education; the labor market). We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand cross-cutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts.  This will also allow us to highlight of role social policies in the social construction of gender and in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities.

Logic and methods of social research, qualitative and quantitative analysis of social data, and ethical, political, and policy issues in social research. Foundation for further work in social research.

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.

This course will explore feminist perspectives on science and technology, also known as Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) or Feminist Technoscience. How does gender shape the production of scientific knowledge? How have feminist scholars found ways to interrogate claims about the biological basis of sex and commitments to sex as a binary (female/male) form of difference? How can we rethink our belief in technologies as neutral and value-free? How is scientific knowledge and practice also shaped by histories of colonialism, the contemporary dynamics of race, sexuality, disability, and the queer turn in the social sciences and humanities? The rich interdisciplinary field of Feminist Technoscience opens up new ways to think about the “objectivity” of science, its political underpinnings, and its effects in the world.

The course is organized around five units: (1) gendering the biology of sex; (2) feminist biology as an alternative science; (3) intersectional perspectives on science and technology; (4) recent work in feminist technoscience; and (5) governing sex and science.

At a time when borders between nations are so heavily defended, how do we understand the flow of people across those divides? This course considers the recent sociological literature on immigration, with a particular emphasis on the transnational movement of Latin Americans. We will examine how sociological scholarship has incorporated changing understandings of Latinx migration, based on consideration of immigrants’ demographics and motivations for relocating, the factors in sending and receiving countries that foster or hinder migration, the processes of incorporation (or rejection) of immigrants in their destinations, and immigrants’ ability to maintain close ties with their countries of origin while simultaneously participating in the social life of their new locations. Finally, we will discuss these various issues in the broader context of shifting U.S. immigration policies and politics.

In this course, we will explore a diverse set of subcultures that collectively make up the pluralistic fabric of American society. In no way could we possibly explore the numerous and rich diversity of these subcultures so of necessity we will focus on a selected subset of them. These will include subcultures based on youth and age, sexuality, interest and leisure, and ethnicity. You will have the option of selecting a specific subculture of interest to you to study in detail. We will ask a set of sociological questions that are pertinent to all subcultures that will make up the weekly themes of the course. These themes range from identity to language, symbols, beliefs and ideology, ritual practices, types of organization, inequalities of resources, status & stigma, and power and politics.

Each student selects a particular subculture of interest to you to focus on throughout the course and become “the  class expert” on that subculture. Your presentation, along with additional readings and resources leads to a final paper.

This course explores the modern American urban street gang. It looks at the long sociological tradition of theory and research on such gangs, much of it conducted right here in Chicago. It looks at the structure and activities of such gangs and the response of local community institutions including the police, and national urban and criminal justice policy with respect to street gangs.

How and when did the identities that we know today as “straight” or “heterosexual” come into existence? And how have those identities differed across time and space? Drawing on the academic literature and representations in film and other popular media, we will examine the “invention of heterosexuality” and its transformation and diversification over the course of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. By paying attention to multiple definitions of heterosexuality—including those that coexist within a single historical moment and location—we will problematize the notion that heterosexuality can be simply conceived as a single, unitary sexual identity. Among other topics, we will discuss the increasingly blurring boundaries between heterosexuality and other sexual identities; heteroflexibility, sexual fluidity, and other challenges to conventional definitions of heterosexuality; the power associated with heterosexuality, masculinity, and femininity; the effects of sexual inequality; contemporary problems and issues, including hookup culture and definitions of sexual consent; and imagined futures of the notions of sexual identity and sexual orientation.

How do scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality? Conversely, how do cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice? This class will take up a series of controversies from the recent past and present to explore the dynamic interplay between expert findings, social identities, and political arguments.

Technology is an integral part of society: from the wheel, to the cotton gin, to the modern computer. Technology is everywhere and humans have always used technology to shape society and vice versa. How do people relate to technology? How has our culture been affected by technology? How has technology itself been shaped by societal norms, and values? This course gives an overview of the growing and important field of the Sociology of Technology.
In this course we will explore the different ways that technology has affected our society through a sociological lens. We will examine how physical material combines with culture to create the distinct aspects of our society. Students may not receive credit for this course and for Sociology 392 'Technology, Work, Love, and Life in 2020.

Against the backdrop of Cartesian reservations about the possibility of a "science" of the social world, this course examines several of the major justifications that social thinkers have offered, historically, for constructing such a science.  In the process, the course also considers the different conceptions of the social world that have been part of these justifications. The principal thinkers examined are Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

This course introduces graduate students to the sociology of culture (understanding social influence on cultural formations) and cultural sociology (understanding cultural influences on social processes). Although the course has no prerequisites, some acquaintance with Weber, Durkheim, and Marx will be helpful.  Classes will be roughly half discussion, half lecture.  Students must come to class prepared to discuss the readings and their applications, and teams of students will lead each discussion.

The seminar provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical debates focusing on states as institutions engaged in coercion and competition; regulation and redistribution; the classification, stratification and production of citizens/subjects; production and reproduction.  We discuss the emergence, development and futures of states and empires, and their (usually uncertain) boundaries. Sociology 476 is a seminar in which students are active participants in discussions of readings.

This graduate seminar asks the following questions: What do we learn about society by studying sexuality? What do we learn about sexuality by studying society? We will focus on sociological approaches to studying sexuality and link sexuality studies to broader sociological questions about culture, social interaction, social inequality, globalization, social movements, science, health, political economy, and public policy. We will explore various theoretical and methodological approaches that have been used in sociological studies of sexuality—including those that guide sexuality-related analyses of meanings and identities, practices and behaviors, politics, power, relationships, population movement, collective identities and social movements, globalization, place and space, and morality and social control.

This graduate seminar engages critical texts in the fields of black feminist theory, black queer studies, and queer of color critique.  Our emphasis is on treating these fields as neither separate nor mutually constitutive, but instead as engaged in a long-standing rich dialogue.  We will read by work scholars including Cathy Cohen, Patricia Hill Collins, Mignon Moore, Marcus Hunter, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Evelynn Hammonds.

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