Global Arc

This is a class about using the tools of machine learning to study social data. The power of machine learning tools is their applicability around a wide range of tasks. There are huge opportunities for applying these tools to learn and make decisions about real people but there are also important challenges. This course aims to (1) show social scientists and digital humanities scholars the potential of machine learning to help them learn about humans, make policy and help people while also (2) showing computer scientists how a social science research design perspective can improve their work and give them new outlets for their skills.

This course provides an overview of contemporary Chinese society. Chinese society is best understood through a number of different intrinsically-linked and mutually-interdependent aspects. For this reason, we will explore its history, cultural practices, government, economy, and family structure.

A review of the stages of communism, including reform and dismantling. Comparisons of social classes and ethnic groups under the old system and their readiness for recent changes. Treatment of workers, farmers, intellectuals, officials, and new entrepreneurs. Comparative approach to China, Russia, and other countries formed from the Soviet Union. Two ninety-minute classes.

A study of selected topics of current interest in the sociology of Latin America. The specific subject matter will vary from year to year, reflecting the changing interests of both faculty and students. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An examination of gender as an integral component of socioeconomic development in advanced and less-developed countries, with a focus on the United States and selected areas of Latin America. Special attention will be given to processes of industrial restructuring on a global scale that have increased the participation of women in the formal labor force. An understanding of the relationship between gender inequality and social order will be a central object of inquiry. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Sexuality is fundamental to the organization of society -- both in the U.S. and across the world. Though sexuality carries important personal significance, the understanding of why and how it influences our lives is inextricably woven into a complex, global fabric. The aim of this course is to unravel this fabric and reveal the deeply globalized nature of sexuality in the modern era and how this shapes understandings of sexuality, the sexual identities available to us, and how the state regulates it -- especially from a global, comparative perspective.

This course investigates poverty in America in historical and contemporary perspective. We will explore central aspects of poverty, including low-wage work and joblessness, housing and neighborhoods, crime and punishment, and survival and protest. Along the way, we will examine the cause and consequences of poverty; study the lived experience of severe deprivation and material hardship; evaluate large-scale anti-poverty programs with an eye toward what worked and what didn¿t; and engage with normative debates about the right to housing, living wages, just punishment, and other matters pertaining to American life below the poverty line.

A survey of past and present perspectives on the origin, development and social consequences of capitalism, covering various aspects including classical political economy and sociology theories, long-term cycles, revolutions, state actors, the welfare state, imperialism, international trade, international finance, labor relations, consumerism, ecology, neoliberalism and the future of capitalism.

In this course, students will develop a broad understanding of how Japanese society functions today by focusing on several key institutions and social domains: politics, the economy, education, employment, family, media, and the larger population. This understanding of contemporary Japanese society (1980s-present) will come through reading of Japan scholars in a range of fields, reading recent media portrayals of Japan, attending lectures designed to supplement and extend the readings, engaging in classroom discussion based on student-generated questions, and writing a research paper on a topic of student's choice.

This course seeks to expose students to the recent social science literature on contemporary immigration of black individuals from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa to the United States. In addition to gaining an understanding of the degree of diversity that exists within the black immigrant population, students will explore the long-term effects of contemporary black immigration on American society, with a particular focus on understanding the roles of race, selective migration, and culture in explaining disparate social outcomes between U.S.-born and foreign-born blacks in the United States.