Catalogue 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Sociology Department
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Chair: Leonard Nevarez;
Professors: Pinar Baturb, Diane Harriford, William Hoynes (and Dean of the Faculty), Seungsook Moon, Leonard Nevarez;
Associate Professors: Carlos Alamo (and Dean of the College), Light Carruyoa, Eréndira Rueda;
Assistant Professors: Abigail Coplin, Catherine Tana;
Visiting Assistant Professor: John Andrews;
Adjunct Associate Professor: Ruth Thompson-Miller;
Adjunct Assistant Professor: Darlene Deporto.
a On leave 2022/23, first semester
b On leave 2022/23, second semester
Advisers: The department.
Major
Correlate Sequence in Sociology
Sociology: I. Introductory
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SOCI 110 - Gender, Social Problems and Social Change
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 110 and WFQS 110 ) This course introduces students to a variety of social problems using insights from political science, sociology, and gender studies. We begin with an exploration of the sociological perspective, and how social problems are defined as such. We then examine the general issues of inequalities based on economic and employment status, racial and ethnic identity, and gender and sexual orientation. We apply these categories of analysis to problems facing the educational system and the criminal justice system. As we examine specific issues, we discuss political processes, social movements, and individual actions that people have used to address these problems.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
This class is taught at the Taconic Correctional Facility for Women to a combined class of Vassar and Taconic students.
One 3-hour period.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 111 - Social Change in South Korea Through Film Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 111 ) This course explores cultural consequences of the dramatic transformation of South Korea, in four decades, from a war-torn agrarian society to a major industrial and post-industrial society with dynamic urban centers. Despite its small territory (equivalent to the size of the state of Indiana) and relatively small population (50 million people), South Korea became one of the major economic powerhouses in the world. Such rapid economic change has been followed by its rise to a major center of the global popular cultural production. Using the medium of film, this course examines multifaceted meanings of social change, generated by the Korean War, industrialization, urbanization, and the recent process of democratization, for lives of ordinary men and women. Seungsook Moon.
Two 75-minute periods.
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SOCI 112 - The House is on Fire!: Climate Change, Society and Environment Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course focuses on the challenges of global climate change in the 21st century. Our central aim is to examine the foundations of the discourse on society, and environment in order to explore two questions: how do social thinkers approach the construction of the future, and how has this construction informed the present debates on societal challenges and the environment in the age of climate change? Thus, we examine how social thought informs different articulations of policy, the limits of praxis, and its contemporary construction of alternative futures. Our focus is on the policy making process as influenced by the commodities, production and consumption, and risks related to the climate change. Pinar Batur.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 151 - Introductory Sociology Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
An introduction to major concepts and various approaches necessary for cultivating sociological imagination.
Although the content of each section varies; this course may not be repeated for credit.
Topic One: Classical traditions for contemporary social issues. This section explores the significance and relevance of foundational thinkers of sociology to the understanding and analysis of contemporary social issues and problems. Examples include consumerism, teenage suicide, Occupy Wall Street, and race/ethnicity in colleges; housing, education, immigration, and childhood. Lastly, this course also examines the works of marginalized social thinkers within the classical tradition and considers why they have been silenced, erased and how they can help us to better understand many contemporary social issues. Carlos Alamo, Seungsook Moon, Eréndira Rueda.
Topic Two: Cooked! Food and Society. The flavor of this class will come from the impact of the classical debates on the current discourse of sociology, specifically debates on social problems and interpretations of our everyday life. To examine diverse and contentious voices, we will explore theoretical works with a focus on past, present and future of theory and how it reflects the transformation of society, and ask how can we propose a critical debate for our future to realize theory’s promise? Our special focus will be the challenges of food production and consumption in the 21st century. Pinar Batur.
Topic Three: Just Add Water!: Water and Society. The flow of this class will be from the impact of the classical debates on the current discourse of sociology, specifically the debate on social problems and the interpretations of our everyday life. To examine diverse and contentious voices, we will explore theoretical works with a focus on past, present and future of theory and how it reflects the transformation of society, and ask how can we propose a critical debate for our future to realize theory’s promise? Our special focus will be the challenges of water consumption and distribution in the 21st century. Pinar Batur.
Topic Four: Other Voices: Sociology from the Margins. Ideas about society that we value usually come from the European, the heterosexual, the male or the fully-abled. In this course we will examine sociological ideas from those who may be overlooked, excluded, othered, minimized or dismissed. This may include Ibn Khaldun, David Walker, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mother Jones, Marcus Garvey, Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Horace Cayton and Malcolm X. Diane Harriford.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Topic Five: Race/Class/Gender. An introduction to key questions, ideas, and methods used by sociologists to make sense of human interaction and the social world. We use classical and contemporary texts to uncover and examine the forces and structures outside of the individual that shape and are shaped by us. Sociology has a long history of concern with inequality; this course pays special attention to how inequalities are structured, experienced, maintained and challenged along the lines of race, class, gender and their intersections. Light Carruyo.
Topic Six: Sociology of Everyday Life. This section introduces sociology as a perspective that highlights the connections between individuals and the broader social contexts in which they live. We focus a sociological eye on the activities and routines of daily life, seeking to illuminate the social foundations of everyday behavior that we often take for granted. Reading both classical and contemporary texts, we build a sociological imagination and apply sociological theory as we focus our inquiry on issues such as the persistence of inequality, changing patterns of family life, new workplace dynamics, and the power of social networks. William Hoynes, Leonard Nevarez.
Topic Seven: Cells, Cyborgs, and Science Wars. How has the evolution of technology changed the organization of society and our understanding of identity? Do new forms of science and technology break down existing inequalities, reinforce them, or produce new forms of inequity? Is science “objective” or “socially constructed” and “politically interested”? This class awakens students’ sociological imagination by examining major sociological thinkers, perspectives, and concepts through the lens of science and technology. By using the theories of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, de Beauvoir, Bourdieu, Foucault, and other scholars to analyze contemporary scientific controversies around the globe, this course presses students to view social theory as tool for critical thinking. Contemporary topics may include debates surrounding genetic testing and manipulation, artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies, GM crops, climate science, the globalization of drug development, reproductive cell markets, the rise of robotics in manufacturing, and issues tied to pollution and environmental degradation. Abigail Coplin.
Topic Eight: Killing the Black Body. In 2016, a study revealed, In the United States, 3 out of 5 black families know of someone that has been treated unfairly by the police. In this class, we explore the historical violence committed against black bodies from the killing of Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin. We examine the killing of black bodies utilizing major theorist in the field of sociology including Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Mills, and others. Topics explored include: gender and violence, race and violence, violence as a form of social control, and blackness as a mark of criminality. We examine the long-term psychological consequences of violence against black bodies for families, communities of color, and the larger society. Ruth Thompson-Miller.
Topic Nine: Mind, Body, Soul. We tend to think of the mind, body, and soul as personal and individual, best understood through the lenses of psychology, biology, and religion. And yet, our minds, bodies, and souls are fundamentally social and cultural in so far as they are molded by institutions such as the family, church, media, economy, and state – and indeed re-shaped increasingly by technologies of medicine, communication, security, and surveillance. In this introductory course, we engage sociological perspectives to analyze: how we become self-aware, conscious subjects; how our bodies produce and consume, and how they come to bear inscriptions of class, race, gender, and sexuality; and finally how our identities and most deeply held beliefs develop and change over time. As we read classic sociological texts alongside more contemporary thinkers and popular culture, we consider topics such as the performance of online selves; genres of dystopia; food culture and politics; gender and sports; race and genetic testing; and social movements including #metoo and Black Lives Matter. In addition to classic texts by Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, DuBois, and Freud we also read works by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Octavia Butler, Barbara Ehrenreich, Judith Lorber, and Alondra Nelson among others. John Andrews.
Topic Ten: Privilege, Power, and Social Mobility. The objective of this course is to help students cultivate their sociological imagination, shifting their analytical perspective from individuals to societies, from “biographies” to “histories.” This course pairs classical and contemporary theory to explore issues of privilege, power, and social mobility. How is privilege reproduced? How is poverty an inter-generational trap? How does belief in meritocracy obfuscate structural inequalities? What would an equitable system look like? Throughout this course, students engage with classical/contemporary theorists, such as: Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Dubois, C. Wright Mills, Pierre Bourdieu, and Herbert Marcuse. Students also apply sociological theory to analyze current debates and issues. For example, during the week on privilege and education, students bring into conversation Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital,” Shamus’s Privilege, and Anthony Jack’s The Privileged Poor. Catherine Tan.
Topic Eleven: Classical Theories in International Contexts. If Karl Marx walked into a Foxconn factory building iPhones in central China, what would he think? Does Foucault’s theory of biopolitics help us understand post-Chernobyl Ukraine? How would Durkheim explain the nationalist and populist movements spreading around the world? What is dramaturgical analysis and does it help us understand the dynamics of sex work in Vietnam? This class awakens students’ sociological imagination by examining major sociological thinkers, perspectives, and concepts through an international lens. By using the theories of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Goffman, Bourdieu, Foucault, and other scholars to analyze contemporary sociological problems and phenomena around the globe, this course cultivates students’ understanding of social theory as a tool for critical thinking. It presses students to take a comparative perspective in their analyses, ponder how ideas flow and practices throughout the globe, and probe whether theories developed in one context can be translated to others. Abigail Coplin.
Topic Twelve: Global and Transnational Perspective. This course invites you to insights, delights, challenges, and limits of sociological perspectives by reading both “classical” and contemporary texts in the discipline of sociology. Using these readings as an intellectual tool necessary for thinking about, talking about, and analyzing our globalized and transnational societies and world, the course examines the following issues that are mundane but compelling: 1) student loans and the financialization of capitalism, 2) mobile phones and the making and remaking of the individual self, 3) social media and democracy, 4) celebrities as quasi-aristocrats, & 5) tyranny of convenience and climate change/crisis. In your reading, writing, and participation in class discussion, you are encouraged to see the forest of our own social worlds both locally and globally, as well as individual trees in them. Seungsook Moon.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 185 - Latina Writers and the Sociological Imagination Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
How does the pressure to brand ourselves and the competitive “pursuit of attention” in social media shape our relationship to autobiography, including our own? As a starting point this six-week intensive explores short autobiographical works by three contemporary Latina writers: Jennine Capó Crucet (including the author’s lecture at Vassar in April), Virginia Grise and Valeria Luiselli. Students develop a project that that interrogates the circulation of life narratives, as well as the tensions and possibilities woven into our investment in self-representation and our desire to think structurally. Students each choose additional material to consider as part of their projects, which can be individual or collaborative. Light Carruyo.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
One 75-minute period.
Course Format: INT
Sociology: II. Intermediate
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SOCI 207 - Commercialized Childhoods Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 207 ) This course examines features of childhoods in the U.S. at different times and across different social contexts. The primary aims of the course are 1) to examine how we’ve come to the contemporary understanding of American childhood as a distinctive life phase and cultural construct, by reference to historical and cross-cultural examples, and 2) to recognize the diversity of childhoods that exist and the economic, geographical, political, and cultural factors that shape those experiences. Specific themes in the course examine the challenges of studying children; the social construction of childhood (how childhoods are constructed by a number of social forces, economic interests, technological determinants, cultural phenomena, discourses, etc.); processes of contemporary globalization and commodification of childhoods (children’s roles as consumers, as producers, and debates about children’s rights); as well as the intersecting dynamics of age, social class, race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in particular experiences of childhood. Erendira Rueda.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 210 - Domestic Violence Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as WFQS 210 ) This course provides a general overview of the prevalence and dynamics of domestic violence in the United States and its effects on battered women. We examine the role of the Battered Women’s Movement in both the development of societal awareness about domestic violence and in the initiation of legal sanctions against it. We also explore and discuss, both from a historical and present day perspective, ways in which our culture covertly and overtly condones the abuse of women by their intimate partners. Darlene DePorto.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 214 - Transnational Perspectives on Women and Work Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 214 and WFQS 214 ) This class is a theoretical and empirical exploration of women’s paid and unpaid labor. We examine how women’s experiences as workers — across space, place, and time — interact with larger economic structures, historical moments, and narratives about womanhood. We pay particular attention to the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship intersect and shape not only women’s relationships to work and family, but to other women workers (at times very differently geopolitically situated). We are attentive to the construction of women workers, the work itself, and the meanings women give to production, reproduction, and the global economy. Light Carruyo.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 216 - Food, Culture, and Globalization
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 216 ) This course focuses on the political economy and the cultural politics of transnational production, distribution, and consumption of food in the world to understand the complex nature of cultural globalization and its effects on the national, ethnic, and class identities of women and men. Approaching food as material cultural commodities moving across national boundaries, this course examines the following questions. How has food in routine diet been invested with a broad range of meanings and thereby served to define and maintain collective identities of people and social relationships linked to the consumption of food? In what ways and to what extent does eating food satisfy not only basic appetite and epicurean desire, but also social needs for status and belonging? How have powerful corporate interests shaped the health and well being of a large number of people across national boundaries? What roles do symbols and social values play in the public and corporate discourse of health, nutrition, and cultural identities. Seungsook Moon.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 220 - Post-Human Sociology
1 unit(s)
In recent decades the terms “post-human” and posthumanism” have circulated in many disciplines, connoting a range of different intellectual projects including: criticism of the nature/culture divide; response to technological developments in genetics, computing, robotics, and other fields; disentangling the presupposed superiority of “the human” from colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems. Far from rejecting the category of the human or advocating something “after” the human (as “post-” might suggest), posthumanism is rather a mode of inquiry that deepens our understanding of human communication, meaning-making, and society by decentering the human while expanding the scope of our analysis of human interaction to include non-human animals, networked technology and AI, the built environment, or even the Earth itself. In this course, we explore a range of case studies to ask questions such as: What might post-human sociology entail (in terms of content, theory, or method)? What are the strengths and limitations of such an approach in social science? How might decentering the human change the political stakes of sociology as well as movements for social justice, equality, and human dignity? Along the way we examine topics such as companion species and nuisance species; genetic engineering; robotics and artificial intelligence; algorithms and internet bots among others. In addition to classic texts by Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, we also read works by Jane Bennett, Kate Crawford, Kathryn Harden, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Colin Jerolmack, Frank Pasquale, Kalinidi Vora and others. John Andrews.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 229 - Black Intellectual History
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 229 ) This course provides an overview of black intellectual thought and an introduction to critical race theory. It offers approaches to the ways in which black thinkers from a variety of nations and periods from the nineteenth century up to black modernity engage their intellectual traditions. How have their perceptions been shaped by a variety of places? How have their traditions, histories and cultures theorized race? Critics may include Aimé Césaire, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Frantz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ida B. Wells, and Patricia Williams. Diane Harriford.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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SOCI 232 - Accessing the Ivory Tower
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 232 ) Since 2000, there has been a 30% increase in the number of students enrolled in colleges and universities. Over 17 million undergraduates are enrolled in an array of degree-granting institutions across the U.S., with enrollments projected to increase another 14% by 2026. But who goes to college? Focusing on the experiences of historically underrepresented students, this course examines the history of higher education’s expansion and the lived experiences of students navigating higher education. Course content that examines the expansion of access to higher education focuses on important developments at the federal, state, and institutional levels. The course covers topics such as the GI Bill®, the 1965 HEA, the formation of the community college system, key court cases that have increased access, state-level legislation (e.g., states that allow undocumented students to apply as residents of the state or make them eligible for state financial aid), and institutional policies concerning admission and financial aid. Course content that focuses on student experiences in higher education explores patterns of racial and socioeconomic stratification within higher education by accounting for students’ varying degrees of college preparedness, choice of college and course of study, campus experiences, persistence to a degree, and post-graduate trajectories. This course aims to uncover how various forms of stratification shape personal relationships with peers, faculty, and administration while in college (e.g., student-faculty relationships, peer interactions, dating, networking, satisfaction with their overall college experience, and the accessibility of higher ed administration). Eréndira Rueda.
Two 75-minute periods.
No offered 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 237 - Urban Sociology
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 237 ) Since the late 19th century, sociology has contributed to the historic formation and evolving agenda of urban studies. This course introduces classical sociological studies of the urban, from German sociologists like Georg Simmel to the so-called Chicago school of sociology, and their elaboration and challenge by later generations of sociologists. In many ways, traditional sociological concepts of neighborhood, stratification, deviance, and urbanism inform contemporary research on unanticipated urban phenomena, like gentrification and megacities. Elsewhere, sociologists have shaped multidisciplinary inquiries into public space, political economy, and place. We survey these disciplinary developments with added focus on the global forces and urban change visible in Poughkeepsie and the larger New York metropolitan area. Leonard Nevarez.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 239 - Feeling the Present: Affect and Emotion in Contemporary Social Life Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Contrary to the Enlightenment vision of a society comprised of rational, self-contained individuals, feelings, moods, and affects in fact play a primary role in contemporary social life, affecting most everything from consumer behavior to political beliefs to the health of the economy. This course examines not only how feelings and moods are profoundly collective but also why and how these collective emotions have come to matter in contemporary culture, politics, and economy. In analysis of current and classic scholarship in the sociology of emotions, affect studies, and psychoanalysis - as well as film and popular culture - we attend to the ways in which anxiety, depression, hope, fear, rage, and other moods figure into everyday life, work, social movements, and other key sites. We consider topics including: mental health and the pharmaceutical industry; neoliberalism and financialization; the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements; Trumpism and resurgent nationalisms globally; and emotion and social media among other topics addressed. Readings include work by Sara Ahmed, Zygmunt Bauman, Lauren Berlant, Ann Cvetkovitch, Jennifer Doyle, Sigmund Freud, Arlie Hochschild, Jack Katz, Pankaj Mishra, Fred Moten, José Munoz, Amber Musser, Sianne Ngai, and Kathleen Stewart. John Andrews.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 240 - The International Social Life of Science and Technology Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 240 ) Technological development is not “simply a matter of advances in science and technology, but a product of complex entanglements among knowledge, technical capability, politics, and culture” (Jasanoff 2005, 290). This class examines the co-production of science, politics, and society by analyzing controversies tied to science, technology, and medicine in different international contexts. Using these international cases, we examine how science and technology shape—and are shaped by—structures of inequality, social identities, state’s governance strategies, and society’s counter-movements against the state. We also use this diverse array of global examples to introduce the major theoretical frameworks used by science and technology studies scholars. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the socio-politics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, genetic manipulation and testing, nuclear energy and meltdown, environmental disaster, reproductive technologies, the population policy construction, genetically modified crops, the globalized pharmaceutical industry, and information and communication technologies. Abby Coplin.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 241 - Reality and Impact: Systemic Racism Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
In the United States, as well as throughout much of the world today, people designated as “white” are the socially dominant racialized group. The highly organized system of racial oppression which maintains their privileged position is systemic racism. This course explores systemic racism as a central and enduring social structure around which the United States and other modern societies are organized and evolve. It analyzes the origin, nature, and consequences of systemic racism. Topics explored include: the sociological perspective as a way of understanding how systemic racism is organized and maintained, the meaning of “race” and “whiteness” as social facts and ideological constructions, the foundation of systemic racism in key social institutions of society, police and vigilante violence as a mechanism of racial control, welfare racism, everyday white racism, white supremacist social thought and organizations, and anti-racist movements opposed to white racial hegemony. Ruth Thompson-Miller.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 245 - Making Waves: Topics in Feminist Activism
1 1 unit(s)
Prerequisite(s): WFQS 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 247 - Modern Social Theory: Classical Traditions Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 247 ) This course examines underlying assumptions and central concepts and arguments of European and American thinkers who contributed to the making of distinctly sociological perspectives. Readings include selections from Karl Marx, Emile Durheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, W.E.B. Du Bois and Erving Goffman. Thematic topics will vary from year to year. Diane Harriford.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 252 - Health Inequalities and Activism
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 252 ) When comparing the 36 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends twice the average on healthcare. However, the US ranks 28 in life expectancy, 33 in infant mortality, and last in obesity. In other words, Americans spend more on healthcare but live shorter and unhealthier lives. When examining US healthcare up close, there are significant disparities between sub-populations. For example, socioeconomic status (SES) is inversely associated with risk of disease, which means that having higher SES correlates with lower risk of disease. In the first half of this course, students investigate how race, gender, socio-economic status, and their intersections impact health disparities and inequalities. In the second half of this course, students examine collective responses to health inequalities and representation. Catherine Tan.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 253 - Children of Immigration
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 253 ) Immigration to the U.S. since the 1970s has been characterized by a marked and unprecedented increase in the diversity of new immigrants. Unlike the great migrations from Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, most of the immigrants who have arrived in the U.S. in the last four decades have come from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. New immigration patterns have had a significant impact on the racial and ethnic composition and stratification of the American population, as well as the meaning of American identity itself. Immigrants and their families are also being transformed in the process, as they come into contact with various institutional contexts that can facilitate, block, and challenge the process of incorporation into the U.S. This course examines the impact of these new immigration patterns by focusing on the 16.4 million children in the U.S. who have at least one immigrant parent. Since 1990, children of immigrants - those born in the U.S. as well as those who are immigrants themselves - have doubled and have come to represent 23% of the population of minors in the U.S. In this course we study how children of immigrants are reshaping America, and how America is reshaping them, by examining key topics such as the impact of immigration on family structures, gender roles, language maintenance, academic achievement, and identity, as well as the impact that immigration reforms have had on access to higher education, employment, and political participation. This course provides an overview of the experiences of a population that is now a significant proportion of the U.S. population, yet one that is filled with contradictions, tensions and fissures and defies simple generalizations.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 254 - Research Methods Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Examines dilemmas of social inquiry. On what basis are sociological generalizations drawn? What are the ethics of social research? Course includes a critical analysis of research studies as well as an introduction to and practical experience with participant observation, interviewing, questionnaire construction, sampling, experimentation, and available data. Abigail Coplin.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 255 - Medical Sociology Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 255 ) The objective of this course is to introduce students to the central themes and topics of medical sociology, such as: the social model of illness, the profession of medicine, medicalization, clinical gaze, experiences of illness, contested illness, diagnosis, politics of prevention, cultural health capital, and social production of health disparities. How does something become “medical”? What does it mean to be ill? How does illness impact a person’s relationships and sense of self? How might a diagnosis work to stigmatize or validate? The significance of being ill (or of possessing a diagnosis) extends beyond the medical model of health—beyond clinical understandings of causation, treatment, and prevention. Disorders and diseases are socially and culturally dynamic. During this course, students investigate the broader social context in which issues of health and illness are embedded. They also address the social structures that shape the field of medicine and how different groups of people engage with and within this field. Finally, the course examines communities that have formed around illness (such as support groups) and considers how these groups shape identity, empower, and generate knowledge. Catherine Tan.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 256 - Mass Media and Society
1 unit(s)
This course explores media as a social force, an institution, and an industry. We examine what it means to be “mediated,” including how media affects our culture, our choices, and our responses to our media filtered lives. We consider the economics of the media industry, media organization and professional socialization, and media’s influence on the political world and the global media industry. Third, we examine how media represent the social world, i.e., the role of ideology, and how meanings are produced, stereotypes maintained, and inequalities preserved. We reflect on the roles, responsibilities, and interpretive potential of artists, media producers, and media consumers. Fourth, we investigate the nature and consequences of media technology. We end the course with a series of panel presentations in which students present their semester projects.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 257 - Reorienting America: Asians in American History and Society
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 257 and ASIA 257 ) Based on sociological theory of class, gender, race/ethnicity, this course examines complexities of historical, economic, political, and cultural positions of Asian Americans beyond the popular image of “model minorities.” Topics include the global economy and Asian immigration, politics of ethnicity and pan-ethnicity, educational achievement and social mobility, affirmative action, and representation in mass media. Seungsook Moon.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 259 - Social Stratification
1 unit(s)
In this course we examine how social prestige and power are unequally distributed in societies of the past and present. We discuss how control of property and the means of production contribute to a system of inequality. We also analyze the role of commodities in a consumerist society and the relationship of consumption to stratification. We also discuss the concepts of class formation, class consciousness, and class struggle. Additionally, we examine how race and gender serve to contribute to stratification. Diane Harriford.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 261 - “The Nuclear Cage”: Environmental Theory and Nuclear Power
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 261 and INTL 261 ) The central aim of this course is to explore debates about the interaction between beings, including humans, animals, plants, and the earth within the context of advanced capitalism by concentrating on the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of nuclear power. The first question concerning the class is how does Environmental Theory approach nuclear power and its impact on the environment. The second question deals with how this construction interacts with other forms of debate regarding nuclear power, especially concentrating on the relation between science, market and the state in dealing with nature, and how citizens formulate and articulate their understanding of nuclear power through social movements. Pinar Batur.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 263 - Criminology Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
The course consists of a consideration of the nature and scope of criminology as well as an historical treatment of the theories of crime causation and the relation of theory to research and the treatment of the criminal. Ruth Thompson-Miller.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 266 - Racism, Waste and Resistance Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 266 ) The 21st century will be defined in the dramatic consequences of the current events and movements regarding our waste: global climate change, pollution, resource depletion, contamination and extinction. One of the most striking and consistent observations is that racism plays a major role in placing waste in close proximity to those racially distinct, economically exploited and politically oppressed. This class examines the destructive global dynamics of environmental racism and resistance, as struggles against it. Pinar Batur.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 271 - Critical Approaches to Media and Popular Culture
1 unit(s)
From television and cinema to hip hop stars and YouTube stars to billboard ads and pop up ads, popular media is a ubiquitous facet of social and cultural life. It is also one that often seems so natural or trivial as not to warrant serious sociological analysis. The goal of this course is to introduce students to classic perspectives on popular culture and media, and to evaluate their relevance in both historical and contemporary contexts. We attend not only to the content of pop culture but also to the political economy of mass media and its relationship to other social institutions of the family, education, health care, and government. In doing so, we consider a broad range of genres including sitcoms, reality television, disaster films, professional sports, video games, podcasts, karaoke, mash-ups, and selfies as well as and the role of various axes of social difference such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Through writing, discussion, podcasts, and presentations, students practice developing and supporting arguments regarding the role of popular culture in our lives. John Andrews.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 273 - The New Economy
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 273 ) The new economy is, in one sense, a very old concern of sociology. Since the discipline’s 19th-c. origins, sociologists have asked how changes in material production and economic relations alter the ways that people live, work, understand their lives, and relate to one another. However, current interests in the new economy center upon something new: a flexible, “just in time” mode of industry and consumerism made possible by information technologies and related organizational innovations. The logic of this new economy, as well as its consequences for society, are the subject of this course. Topics include the evolving role of technology in economic globalization; the precarity of today’s workplaces and labor markets; the question of the “creative class”; digital divides in technology access, education, and lifestyles; and the cutting edges of consumerism. Leonard Nevarez.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 285 - Reality and Impact: Systemic Racism Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
In the United States, as well as throughout much of the world today, people designated as “white” are the socially dominant racialized group. The highly organized system of racial oppression which maintains their privileged position is systemic racism. This course explores systemic racism as a central and enduring social structure around which the United States and other modern societies are organized and evolve. It analyzes the origin, nature, and consequences of systemic racism. Topics explored include: the sociological perspective as a way of understanding how systemic racism is organized and maintained, the meaning of “race” and “whiteness” as social facts and ideological constructions, the foundation of systemic racism in key social institutions of society, police and vigilante violence as a mechanism of racial control, welfare racism, everyday white racism, white supremacist social thought and organizations, and anti-racist movements opposed to white racial hegemony. Ruth Thompson-Miller.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research.
May be elected during the college year or during the summer. The Department.
Special permission.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 291 - Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive
0.5 unit(s)
As a student in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive, you engage with the work of The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. CRRJ conducts research and supports policy initiatives on anti-civil rights violence in the United States and other miscarriages of justice during the period 1930-1970. The CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Archive is a repository that contains cases on racially motivated homicides in the former Confederate states.
This course asks you to participate in an academic seminar for the Fall semester and conduct case research contributing to the CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Archive in the Spring semester.
SOCI 291 – Fall Semester
1) The academic seminar contextualizes the state of Alabama in terms of legal, historical, and theoretical material to help support and contextualize the work of the CRRJ case research. You visit Northeastern University School of Law to familiarize the students with the archive, receive their cases, audit law classes and talk with law students.
SOCI 292 - Spring Semester
2) You investigate CRRJ racially motivated murders of African Americans in the state of Alabama from 1930-1970. CRRJ Northeastern Law students have completed the preliminary findings and you are asked to continue case research. You have access to some law school classes, with the permission of the instructor during the break times that you are on campus and you present your findings to members of the faculty at Vassar or at Northeastern Law School.
3) You identify living relatives of the victim and coordinate interviews with them to supplement your understanding of the underlying events. Moreover, you initiate a relationship with the family and other parties of interest to explore the prospects of designing and implementing a restorative justice initiative for those who were impacted by the homicide.
4) You travel to both Northeastern University School of Law for three site visits during your Fall, Winter and Spring breaks and once to Alabama for research purposes, meeting with families and/or coordinating restorative justice efforts.
Your work helps CRRJ finalize its research on pending cases and helps situate CRRJ as an exemplar of the burgeoning potential of archival research which helps move restorative justice forward.
Prerequisite(s): Prior participation in an Introduction to Sociology, Africana Studies or American Studies course or permission of the instructor; Interest in social justice, law or journalism; An ability to work independently as well as in a group.
291-SOCI 292 .
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 292 - Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive
1 unit(s)
As a student in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive, you engage with the work of The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. CRRJ conducts research and supports policy initiatives on racial violence and other miscarriages of justice during the period 1930-1970 in the United States. You investigate cases of racially motivated violence against African Americans between 1930-1970 in the 12 states of the Confederacy. CRRJ Northeastern Law students complete the preliminary research of identifying the cases and you are asked to uncover the specifics of each case. To do this case research you are expected to gather some historical data on the case location, be instructed in basic archival research and work closely with law students on any other projects that may have some relationship to your project. You orally present your findings to members of the faculty at Northeastern Law School. You also identify living relatives of the victim of the violence and coordinate interviews with them to supplement your understanding of the events. Moreover, you initiate a relationship with the family and other parties of interest to explore the prospects of designing and implementing a restorative justice initiative for those who were impacted by the homicide Finally, you have access to some law school classes, with the permission of the instructor, during times you are on Northeastern’s campus. We are on Northeastern’s campus for four days in the beginning of the semester, one week during spring break. You will not miss any classes at Vassar. Your work during the Spring 2022 school year will help CRRJ finalize its research on pending cases and help situate CRRJ as an exemplar of the burgeoning potential of archival research to move restorative justice forward.
Requirements:
1. An interest in social justice, law or journalism
2. An ability to work independently
3. A high level of emotional maturity and stability Diane Harriford.
Two 60-minute periods.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 294 - Liquid Urbanscape in Climate Crisis
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 294 ) The cities define our possibilities of co-existence in the age of climate change. The risks that we imagine and the policies that we debate and adapt affect our tomorrow. This intensive argues that climate change is now and the need to imagine the future is more important than ever. Pinar Batur.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 295 - Critical Reading of South Korea Film Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 295 ) Approaching film as a complex audiovisual text that represents social change in South Korea, this intensive course interprets a collection of films selected by participating students and the instructor throughout the semester. Seungsook Moon.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research.
May be elected during the college year or during the summer. The Department.
Special permission.
Unscheduled.
Course Format: OTH
Sociology: III. Advanced
-
SOCI 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
Students electing the Senior Thesis will complete a sociological study involving research, original analysis, and a final written product of 40 - 50 pages that develops a clear and sustained argument. The Senior Thesis is a year-long process that is worth half a unit in the fall (SOCI 300) and half a unit in the spring (SOCI 301). Senior Thesis students are expected to submit an initial one page statement of intent in the spring of the junior year, highlighting their academic preparation (such as prior coursework or research experience) for their specific thesis topic. The Department.
Yearlong course 300-SOCI 301 .
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Students electing the Senior Thesis will complete a sociological study involving research, original analysis, and a final written product of 40 - 50 pages that develops a clear and sustained argument. The Senior Thesis is a year-long process that is worth half a unit in the fall (SOCI 300) and half a unit in the spring (SOCI 301). Senior Thesis students are expected to submit an initial one page statement of intent in the spring of the junior year, highlighting their academic preparation (such as prior coursework or research experience) for their specific thesis topic. The Department.
Yearlong course SOCI 300 -301.
Course Format: INT -
SOCI 312 - Corporate Power Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This seminar investigates how corporations exert power over society outside of their place in the market. We review the evolution of the corporation, from the late nineteenth century concern over “big business” to the present day of global finance, and examine competing theories and methodologies with which social researchers have explained the power of business. Topics and literatures include corporate citizenship and philanthropy, capitalist networks and organizations, the cult of the “charismatic CEO,” and the faultlines of financial capitalism revealed by the Occupy movement. Leonard Nevarez.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 321 - Feminism, Knowledge, Practice Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as WFQS 321 ) How has feminist insight into issues of race, power/knowledge, intersecting inequalities, and human agency changed the way we understand the social world? What is the relationship between theory and practice? What counts as theory? How does theory inform research, pedagogy, and social relationships? Drawing on theoretical, empirical, and experimental texts we explore how feminist knowledge is created, circulated, and debated. Light Carruyo.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 347 - Asian Sociotechnical Imaginaries Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 347 and STS 347 ) Technological development is not “simply a matter of advances in science and technology, but a product of complex entanglements among knowledge, technical capability, politics, and culture” (Jasanoff 2005, 290). Thinking of science and technology in Asia in particular brings to mind images of unparalleled development, the futuristic, the optimistic, the dystopian, and disaster simultaneously.
This seminar examines key topics at the intersection of science, society, and the state in contemporary Asia. We will analyze questions like how are cutting edge technologies employed in governance in different Asian states? How has science been used to craft imaginaries of the self and the nation in Asia? Are the dynamics of technological development in Asia unique, and how do they shape Asian nation’s position on the global stage? By delving in-depth into different international cases from across the Asian continent, we examine how science and technology shape—and are shaped by—structures of inequality, social identities, states’ governance strategies, and society’s counter-movements against the state. Weekly topics include, but are not limited to, pandemic management and public health, genetic nationalism, biopolitics, coercive environmentalism, contending with nuclear disaster, models of technological innovation, surveillance capitalism, scientism in policy making, internet politics, and human-robot co-existence. National contexts include China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Singapore, India, and Indonesia. Abigail Coplin.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 365 - Class, Culture, and Power Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course examines central debates in the sociology of culture, with a particular focus on the complex intersection between the domain of culture and questions of class and power. We explore the terrain between Marxist Sociology and Cultural Studies, examining culture as an arena where power relations are constructed, reproduced, and contested. Topics include: the meaning and significance of cultural capital, the power of ideology, expertise and the production of knowledge, education and class reproduction, gender and class relations, race and class, working class cultures, racism and populism, and debates about the forms and meanings of resistance. William Hoynes.
Prerequisite(s): SOCI 151 or permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 368 - Toxic Futures: From Social Theory to Environmental Theory
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 368 and INTL 368 ) The central aim of this class is to examine the foundations of the discourse on society and nature in social theory and environmental theory to explore two questions. The first question is how does social theory approach the construction of the future, and the second question is how has this construction informed the present debates on the impact of industrialization, urbanization, state-building and collective movements on the environment? In this context, the class focuses on how social theory informs different articulations of Environmental Thought and its political and epistemological fragmentation and the limits of praxis, as well as its contemporary construction of alternative futures. Pinar Batur.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 369 - Masculinities: Global Perspectives Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 369 and WFQS 369 ) From a sociological perspective, gender is not only an individual identity, but also a social structure of inequality (or stratification) that shapes the workings of major institutions in society as well as personal experiences. This seminar examines meanings, rituals, and quotidian experiences of masculinities in various societies in order to illuminate their normative making and remaking as a binary and hierarchical category of gender and explore alternatives to this construction of gender. Drawing upon cross-cultural and comparative case studies, this course focuses on the following institutional sites critical to the politics of masculinities: marriage and the family, the military, business corporations, popular culture and sexuality, medicine and the body, and religion. Seungsook Moon.
Prerequisite(s): Previous coursework in Sociology or permission of the instructor.
One 3-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 371 - Fake News: Truth and Media in the Post-Fact Society Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MEDS 371 ) The post-fact society, according to journalist Farhad Manjoo, is one in which people increasingly live in “divergent, parallel realities.” It is in the context of the post-fact society that President Donald Trump and his followers are able to decry any news that challenges his actions or worldview as “fake” and to offer up ideologically bolstering “alternative facts” in its place. While sensationalized, exaggerated, or false news is not new (think yellow journalism or tabloids like The National Inquirer), the advent of cable news, the 24-hour news cycle, and the Internet have led to the proliferation of multiple realities of fact, troubling public trust in news media and polarizing Americans politically. Drawing on media studies, the sociology of knowledge, and post-structuralist theory, this course examines the cultures of the new post-fact society including: fake news and alternative facts; news taste-makers such as Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson; algorithmic control of online media; conspiracy theories; and political satire. We consider questions such as: How does news media create and reinforce various political ideologies? Why do people look to news media to confirm or deny preexisting beliefs? Is journalism ever fully objective? If in fact there are multiple Truths, how do we as a society develop public trust and social solidarity? John Andrews.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 374 - Epidemic: Global Responses to Disease Outbreak and Public Health Crises
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 374 ) What is an “epidemic”? How are epidemics given social and cultural meaning? How do epidemics mobilize action? This course takes a global perspective to understand how different countries address disease outbreaks. This course approaches epidemics (and the idea of “epidemic”) as vehicles to understand the social structures and mechanisms that shape the way societies conceptualize and respond to public health crises. Students also consider factors that facilitate the construction of epidemics. For instance, Autism Spectrum Disorder prevalence has increased precipitously over the last twenty years. Autism is estimated to affect 1 in 59 children in the United States and 1 in 38 in South Korea. But is there an autism “epidemic”? What are the factors contributing to this rise? How is the term “epidemic” mobilized? And what does this achieve? How does increasing prevalence change the way societies think about autism? Students engage with sociological and public health scholarship on HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS, Zika, measles, autism, and opioid addiction. Catherine Tan.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 381 - Race and Popular Culture
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 381 and LALS 381 ) This seminar explores the way in which the categories of race, ethnicity, and nation are mutually constitutive with an emphasis on understanding how different social institutions and practices produce meanings about race and racial identities. Through an examination of knowledge production as well as symbolic and expressive practices, we focus on the ways in which contemporary scholars connect cultural texts to social and historical institutions. Appreciating the relationship between cultural texts and institutional frameworks, we unravel the complex ways in which the cultural practices of different social groups reinforce or challenge social relationships and structures. Finally, this seminar considers how contemporary manifestations of globalization impact and transform the linkages between race and culture as institutional and intellectual constructs.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 382 - Social Movements at the Borderlands Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 382 and LALS 382 ) This course explores border politics through the lens of social movements. We begin with an overview of the major paradigms in the study of collective behavior and social movements. This theoretical foundation helps us understand how border communities and migrants mobilize claims for social change across regional contexts. A focus on borderlands allows us to analyze the ways in which spaces shape claims, social mobilization, and identities. We also answer important practical questions about the pursuit of social justice and human rights, and through these practical questions, we address theoretical questions about citizenship and belonging in an era of globalization and increasing inequality. Alejandro Marquez.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 385 - Women, Culture, and Development
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 385 , LALS 385 , and WFQS 385 ) This course examines the ongoing debates within development studies about how integration into the global economy is experienced by women around the world. Drawing on gender studies, cultural studies, and global political economy, we explore the multiple ways in which women struggle to secure well-being, challenge injustice, and live meaningful lives. Light Carruyo.
Not offered in 2022/23.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 386 - Ghetto Schooling Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 386 and LALS 386 ) In twenty-first century America, the majority of students attend segregated schools. Most white students attend schools where 75% of their peers are white, while 80% of Latino students and 74% of black students attend majority non-white schools. In this course we will examine the events that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the 60-year struggle to make good on the promises of that ruling. The course will be divided into three parts. In part one, we will study the Brown decision as an integral element in the fight against Jim Crow laws and trace the legal history of desegregation efforts. In part two, we will focus on desegregation policies and programs that enabled the slow move toward desegregation between 1954 and the 1980s. At this point in time, integration efforts reached their peak and 44% of black students in the south attended majority-white schools. Part three of the course will focus on the dismantling of desegregation efforts that were facilitated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1990s. Throughout the course we will consider the consequences of the racial isolation and concentrated poverty that characterizes segregated schooling and consider the implications of this for today’s K-12 student population, which is demographically very different than it was in the 1960s, in part due to new migration streams from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. Over the last 40 years, public schools have experienced a 28% decline in white enrollments, with increases in the number of black and Asian students, and a noteworthy 495% increase in Latino enrollments. Eréndira Rueda.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
SOCI 399 - Senior Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Individual project of reading or research. May be elected during the college year or during the summer. The Department.
Special permission.
Unscheduled.
Course Format: OTH
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