What is Latinx futurism? Most of the imagined futures we are exposed to in the United States have been crafted by white authors. From Isaac Asimov’s science fiction novels about robots to high-production value blockbusters. An alternative cannon, Afrofuturism, has begun to blaze a path for understanding why the political, racial, and cultural position of those doing the imagining matters. In do so, Afrofuturism aims to inspire us to think carefully about how we deal with the pressing social issues of our time and have offered a new lens for thinking about the future. This discussion-based seminar takes this as a departure point and works towards including Latinx futurism in this frame. This seminar is an introduction to a way of thinking sociologically about technology, science, and society from the perspective of Latinx and Latin American communities. In their reading and writing assignments students will explore a broad array of topics, from the origins of postcolonial states, Zapotec science, and borderlands epistemology.
SOCIOL 101-7 Gender, Classification, and Globalization
In this course, we will explore the relationship between gender and globalization. We will study how gender and sexuality are produced as global social categories. The course will survey liberal approaches to gender and sexuality categories as sites for international human rights claims-making. It will then turn to postcolonial and transnational feminist critiques of taken-for-granted social groupings, such as “woman” and, more recently, “gay” and “transgender,” that are assumed to be globally relevant. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional “born this way” narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate and therefore universal. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, give us tools to critically reflect on our own gender and sexuality identities and practices.
Sociology is a field of study that examines how people and groups interact, navigate, and make decisions within the structure and constraints of their social world. Often these social processes go unobserved or unacknowledged, and sociologists treat it as their job to shed analytical light on how people experience and participate in society. Through sociological analysis, we can answer questions like: How did Evanston become largely segregated by race? Why is it illegal for people to sell their kidneys? Is suicide contagious? Why would someone pay for Instagram followers?
Sociology is a huge field of study, and includes and enormous variety of topics and methods. Each week, we will focus on a specific area of sociological study (Culture, Gender, Race, Family, Money, Deviance, etc.) with the goal of offering you a general overview of the types of questions sociologists ask and how they answer them. By the end of the quarter, you will be able to think sociologically about your own world, and hopefully develop a budding interest in one or more of the areas we discuss in class.
Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, history, anthropology, political science, critical studies, and psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law's role primarily in the American context (but with some attention to international law and global human rights efforts). The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control; law's role in social change; and law's capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions and organizational structures.
Our climate is rapidly changing. Rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity, higher temperatures, more droughts, melting glaciers, wilder weather patterns, and mounting environmental disasters mean that climate change is increasingly visible in our daily lives. What role does human society play in these changes, and what consequences does society suffer as these changes occur? This course is an introduction to environmental sociology during which we will employ an intersectional, sociological perspective to look beyond the scientific basis for environmental problems to understand the social roots of environmental issues. We will cover a variety of topics in environmental sociology, including new directions in sustainable development and how actors such as corporations, the media, and social movements impact public opinion and environmental issues. Further, we will critically examine the gendered, racial, and socioeconomic production of disparate environmental risks.
Gender structures our daily lives in fundamental ways, yet we are often unaware of its effects. For example, why do we associate blue with boys and pink with girls? Why do most administrative forms only have two categories (i.e. Male and Female)? Why do male doctors, on average, have higher incomes than female doctors? The course introduces students to the sociological analysis of gender as a central component of social organization and social inequality in the US context. We start by reviewing key sociological concepts that are important to the study of gender. Next, we explore the causes and consequences of gender inequalities in important social institutions such as the family, the education system, and the labor market. We conclude by considering gender inequality in an international comparative context to understand crosscutting similarities and differences between the US and both high- and low-income contexts. This allows us to explore the role social norms and policies play in perpetuating and/or mitigating gender inequalities.
How do sociologists do their work? How do they make discoveries and draw conclusions about the social world around us? This course is an introduction to sociological research methods. We will learn how to design a research study - everything from choosing a topic and formulating a research question to developing a research plan. We will explore a range of research methods from surveys, interviewing, observational methods and content analysis to "big" data approaches. We will also think about the strengths and weaknesses of various sociological methods and what these methods can contribute to our understanding of the social world. We will also debate and discuss the role of the researcher in the research process along with thinking about ethical concerns and IRB protections for research subjects. We will also critically examine how social science research is presented to us in our everyday lives (including news reporting, political polls and social media postings). The goal of this course is for students to be able to design an appropriate methods plan to investigate a sociological research question they are interested in, but also to become more critical when learning about the latest social science study from media and social media outlets.
We all interact with organizations. You are interacting with an organization right now. Much of everyday life, whether it is school, work, shopping, or eating occurs within the context of organizations. The goal of this course is to teach you to think analytically about the organizations you interact with. We will examine why organizations are the way they are, how scholar's understandings of organizations have changed over time, and how scholars today think about organizations.
This course provides an overview of how human populations change through mortality, fertility, and migration. This year, we will give special attention to how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted mortality, fertility, and migration in the US and globally. Students will learn key concepts from the field of demography and be introduced to cutting-edge demographic research related to health disparities in the United States, the impact of HIV/AIDS on family life and longevity in Africa, migration patterns within and from Latin America, the reasons behind sex-selective abortions in Asia, and the implications of the current low birthrates in Europe.
This course is a critical sociological look at education in the United States with a focus on contemporary debates and issues. The course will cover how sociologists have both theoretically and empirically looked at schooling practices, what students learn, and how schools fit into the larger society including how the educational system in the U.S. interacts with political, economic, familial, and cultural institutions. We will also spend much time examining how educational experiences and opportunities are shaped by multiple social statuses including gender, socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity. We will focus on K-12 and higher education including the transition to higher education. Throughout all of these issues and topics, we will consider how schools both challenge and support existing systems of inequality.
This class will investigate how gender shapes politics and policy, and how these in turn shape gender, in the United States and other countries, situated in global context. Gender is conceptualized as a set of relations, identities and cultural schema, always constituted with other dimensions of power, difference and inequality (e.g., race, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship status). We will analyze the gendered character of citizenship, political participation and representation, social rights and economic rights. We aim to understand gendered politics and policy from both "top down" and "bottom up" perspectives. What do states do, via institutions of political participation and representation, citizenship rights and policies, to shape gender relations? How do gender relations influence the nature of policy and citizenship? How has feminism emerged as a radical challenge to the androcentrism and restricted character of the democratic public sphere? And how has anti-feminism come to be a significant dimension of politics? We expand on conventional conceptions of political participation and citizenship rights to include the grassroots democratic activism that gave birth to modern women's movements. We explore how women's political efforts have given rise to the creation of alternative visions of democracy, social provision and economic participation, as well as reshaping formal politics and policies. And, finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of an election to examine some of the gendered aspects of the political landscape in the contemporary United States.
The course readings feature different types of materials – original documents, scholarly books and articles, a textbook, policy reports, popular non-fiction work on aspects of gender, policy, politics and society. These are supplemented by films and online resources.
This course explores the economic and social changes that have constituted "development," and that have radically transformed human society. The course focuses on both the historical experience of Europe and the contemporary experience of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the historical discussion, we explore the birth of the "nation state" as the basic organizing unit of the international system; the transition from agrarian to industrial economic systems; and the expansion of European colonialism across the globe. In our discussion of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we consider the legacies of colonialism for development; the ways in which countries have attempted to promote economic development and industrialization; and issues of inequality and human welfare in an increasingly globally connected world.
What is the scientific status of our ideas about race? How are medical and legal ideas invoked in determinations about people's gender identities? Overall, how do developments in the life sciences affect our understandings of who we are, how we differ, and how social inequalities are created, perpetuated, and challenged? This seminar explores how scientific claims and technological developments help transform cultural understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. Conversely, we will consider how cultural beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality influence scientific knowledge and medical practice. We 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.
SOCIOL 376-0 Neoliberalism, Postcolonial Theory, and Human Rights
International human rights frameworks have been promoted as a central mechanisms through which transnational activists and international organizations pursue justice globally. In this course, we will examine whether human rights paradigms live up to this promise. Readings will consider the geopolitical and economic context in which human rights frameworks are forged, both in terms of neoliberal economic relations and postcolonialism. We will examine the history of human rights documents and how discussions of human rights frameworks have changed over the last century. We will also examine contemporary efforts to expand human rights frameworks to “new” rights, including those based on gender and sexuality rights.
This is the first class in a two-quarter sequence in which students will complete a senior thesis in sociology. In this fall quarter, students will identify and motivate a sociological research question and create a research design and empirical strategy that will answer that question. Students will also complete a research proposal and begin data collection. Finally, students will connect with a faculty advisor in the Department of Sociology. The faculty advisor will provide each student with intellectual input throughout the research and writing process. They will also serve as the primary reader of the thesis when it is complete.
SOCIOL 400-0 Introduction to Statistics and Statistical Software
This course is designed to teach you 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. Required Math Prefresher **BEFORE** the quarter starts - contact instructor for details and schedule.
SOCIOL 406-1 Classical Theory in Sociological Analysis
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.
Race and racism are global formations rooted in colonialism and imperialism, and constitutive of modernity, liberalism, and capitalism. This class will focus on the development and contemporary manifestations of racial categories, racist structures, racial inequalities, and anti-racist social movements across multiple national and continental contexts. The course asks what is “race,” and how does it function in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, the U.S. and Oceania. And since racial concepts are not stable across time or place, how is “race” transformed by transnational migration and global cultural exchange. In exploring these ideas, the course also pays attention to intersecting formations of class, gender, ethnicity, region, etc. The goal of the course is to destabilize the concept of race by looking at its transformations across time and place, and to understand manifestations of racism and struggles against it across a range of geopolitical contexts.
This class bridges the constructivism/science divide. It discusses theoretical and methodological tools for conducting scientific constructivist research.
This course is motivated by the assumption that knowledge and technology have become central to the social, cultural, political, and material organization of modern societies. The fundamental goal of the course is to develop intellectual tools to understand not merely the social organization of knowledge, science, and technology but also the technoscientific dimensions of social life. Although much of the course content concerns science and technology, the theoretical and analytical frameworks developed in this course are intended to apply to any domain involving knowledge, expertise, technologies, or formalized techniques. How might sociology as a field of study benefit from closer engagement both with epistemic concerns and with the material aspects of our technosocial world? We will examine: why we believe what we believe (the politics of knowledge production, circulation, and reception); the impact and uptake of technologies and the assessment of technological risks; the character of life in expert-driven “knowledge societies”; the resolution of conflicts around knowledge and technology (and the use of knowledge and technology in conflict resolution); the encounters between and across different knowledge systems, ways of knowing, and epistemic cultures, both locally and globally; the use of technologies to tell us “who we are” and “where we belong”; the social and technological reproduction of inequalities, including those related to social class, race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, location in global hierarchies, etc.; the relations between activists and experts, and the tensions between expertise and democracy; the roles of social movements when intervening in debates about knowledge, science, and technology, as well as the use of knowledge and technology by social movements; and the nature of governance in technologically sophisticated societies—including the character of collective decision-making about knowledge and technology, as well as the uses of knowledge and technology to arrive at such decisions. A lot (but not all) of the course content focuses on the United States, though we will try whenever possible to place developments in a global context and we will benefit from comparative and postcolonial approaches to STS. While much of the scholarship we will consider is broadly sociological, some of it is drawn from other fields, and part of the goal of the course is to suggest the interdisciplinary character of STS. Students from other disciplines are welcome.
Introduction to the department, faculty, and adjunct faculty. Faculty discuss their research and teaching interests. Mandatory two-quarter weekly seminar for first-year study.
This course guides second-year Ph.D. students in the Sociology department in preparing a draft of their second-year paper. A series of exercises leads in incremental steps to a full draft, and feedback is provided from the professor as well as from other students.
