Global Arc

This course examines exchange relations in a variety of high-risk and criminal fields, to develop an understanding of how participants navigate their worlds. The weekly readings and lectures will focus on the various ways in which relationships, identities, reputation, and trust, are defined, established, and negotiated, and how this establishes order in the professional and social lives of those involved in high-risk transactions. Readings will be from ethnographic and biographical works on street gangs, drug dealers and traffickers, sex workers, organized crime operations, sports bookies, organ and human traffickers, and others.

This course surveys the history and dynamics of rock music using key concepts and perspectives from sociology. It is divided into three sections. Creating looks at the social worlds within which rock music is produced and disseminated, and the components which contribute to its form. Here we look at two case studies: the emergence of rock n roll in the 1950s and the development of punk in the 1970s. Consuming examines rock fandom as individual identity, as part of youth subcultures, and the uses of music in everyday life. Finally, Communing examines local rock music scenes and aspects of live performance.

This course focuses on the many ways gender differences are created, diminished, and reinforced in society. Students will learn how sexuality and gender categories are socially constructed concepts that vary across the life course (childhood, adolescence, adulthood) and different social settings (media and public discourse, schools, work, family, other countries, the policy arena, and the scientific academy). A variety of theoretical perspectives will be examined including sociobiological, micro- and social-psychological, and social-structural. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

What is gender? Does it still matter in the 21st century? If so, how and why does it matter? And how does this vary around the world? This course will examine how gender shapes our identities (e.g. how we learn gender), how it shapes our interactions with others (e.g. within romantic relationships), and how it shapes and is shaped by institutions (e.g. the media, the workplace and college). We will look not only at how our gender privileges us, but also how we are both subject to and participate in producing gender inequality in our everyday lives. U.S and cross cultural readings and screenings will be used for the class.

An introduction to the sociological study of race and ethnicity which begins by encouraging students to exercise some critical distance from the core concepts of race and ethnicity. Topics will include comparative racism, immigration, the experiences of the second generation, whiteness, the culture of poverty debate, slums and ghettos, and the debate over the "underclass." Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Three main questions will be considered: (1) How "natural" is the family institution? (2) How essential is it? and (3) How well is it working in current American society? Comparative perspective on the analysis of childhood and society, marriage and divorce, and main contemporary trends. Proposed alternatives to the family and future developments. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course provides an introduction to microsociology, also called social psychology. The purpose of this course is to help you build an understanding of the relationship between the social and cultural context on the one hand and individuals' self-understanding, experience and behavior, on the other. You will become familiar with the sociological analysis of seemingly personal phenomena including identity, perception and attention, memory, emotion and the body. We will take a distinctly sociological (rather than psychological) approach, examining how cultural contexts and institutional settings shape and pattern subjectivity.

This course will examine a wide range of issues regarding immigration, citizenship and identity from a global perspective, though with an emphasis on the United States. We will explore the basic sociological, political and cultural concepts of formal and informal citizenship, migration, immigration, ethnicity, and race, emphasizing how they are used and their relation with one another in various contexts. Much of the course will focus on how migration has shaped lasting ethnic differences.

Equal parts art, programming, and statistical reasoning, data visualization is critical for anyone who seeks to analyze data. Data analysis skills have become essential for those pursuing careers in policy evaluation, business consulting, and research in fields like public health, social science, or education. This course introduces students to the powerful R programming language and the basics of creating data-analysis graphics in R. We use real datasets to explore topics ranging from networks (like trade between counties) to geographical data (like the spatial distribution of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan).

An introduction to the social, political, and economic organization of modern Mexico. The course traces the evolution of Mexico's fundamental institutions from their birth after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, through their flowering during the 1950s and 1960s, to changes in the neoliberal era of the 1980s and 1990s. The course ends with a consideration of Mexico's current position as a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.