| SOCI 110-01 |
Social Analysis
Instructor: Yalcin Ozkan
Course Description:
Selected topics in the empirical study of the ways in which people's character and life choices are affected by variations in the organization of their society and of the activities by which social arrangements varying in their adequacy to human needs are perpetuated or changed.
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09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 103 |
| SOCI 230-01 |
Sociology of Money
Instructor: Yalcin Ozkan
Course Description:
Is money a self-propelling medium of exchange, solely about mundane financial calculations, transactions, and interests? Do we only use it to quantify various qualities into a standard metric to exchange them? What happens when money penetrates what is typically considered priceless, such as our norms, emotions, intimate relations, bodies, or nature? In today's world, it is common for various economic, legal, and social institutions to place financial values on things as profound as human life, death, blood, organs, justice, sexual or romantic partnerships, and wildlife. Does this exercise flatten, commodify, corrode, and corrupt, as many scholars, legalists, activists think it does? Or, does it operate interdependently with our moral principles, cultural practices, interpersonal relationships? Then, how can those supposed corrosive commodification practices, in reality, turn into meaningful relations within which our lives, values, and ties are construed, maintained, and shaped? This conference invites its participants to grapple with these fundamental problems and more. Drawing on neoclassical economic theory to its Marxist critics, critical socio-legal scholarship to moral philosophy, cultural studies to economic sociology, we'll delve deep into the social life of money. Thus, we'll examine money not merely as a financial instrument but with the social and cultural processes mediating its significance from within.
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12:30 PM-01:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 103 |
| SOCI 230-02 |
Health Justice and Societal Change
Instructor: Marcellus Taylor
Course Description:
Health justice is the process of creating equity in our public health system by working alongside community members to envision an environment that promotes health rather than destroys it. ( The Network for Public Health Law). Health injustice has contributed to the margination of historically disinvested communities. Throughout the history of the United States health advocates, neighborhood coalitions and other community change organizations have engaged in meaningful resistance to the systematic barriers that derail an environment where all individuals can reach their highest potential of health. This course examines the sociological factors that have contributed to the development of historical and present health injustices in the United States, while also exploring modern advocacy efforts to achieve health equity.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 317 |
| SOCI 230-03 |
Family Matters in Italian Films & Literature
Instructor: Mattia Mossali
Course Description:
Cross-listed with FMST 310-01, ITAL 323-01 and WGSS 301-03. Taught in English. How have concepts of love, marriage, and family evolved over time? How have these ideas responded-or failed to respond-to the profound transformations within Italian and Western society, particularly in the context of capitalism and globalization? Have they adapted to reflect new values and societal shifts? This course begins with an analysis of Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961), a film that critically engages with the patriarchal structures embedded in Italian society, and Antonioni's tetralogy (1960-64), exploring through a transnational perspective how contemporary Italian filmmakers and writers have questioned and deconstructed the notions of "traditional" love and family, along with their associated values. We will critically examine the themes of incommunicability and failure within family dynamics (Ferrante), particularly in the context of pervasive capitalism, finance, and the rise of social networks (Genovese). Emphasizing a challenge to conventional heteronormative paradigms, the course will pay special attention to representations of same-sex families and their portrayal in visual media (Ozpeteck). Through critical readings in history, sociology, and psychoanalysis, we will lay the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the literary texts and films studied throughout the semester, with a focus on how gender, sexuality, and social structures intersect to shape contemporary notions of love, marriage, and family.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
BOSLER 314 |
| SOCI 230-04 |
Contested Campus
Instructor: Neil Weissman
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EDST 391-02 and LAWP 290-02. The course will focus on two current issues challenging higher education: access and free speech. Regarding the first, we will examine who attends college and why, socio-economic diversity in higher education, and the debate over affirmative action including successor approaches following the Supreme Court decision on the issue. For the second, we will investigate policies around free speech and its limits (if any) on campus, speech codes, cancel culture, the status of protest on campus, and whether colleges have an obligation to be neutral. The course will draw materials relating to a range of institutions, including Dickinson. Students will have an opportunity to write final research essays on a campus issue of their own choosing.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 303 |
| SOCI 236-01 |
Inequalities in the U.S.
Instructor: Lawrence Eppard
Course Description:
This course takes a critical look at the layers of American society that shape, construct, and inhibit the basic pursuit for equality of opportunity. Students will be asked to examine how the three most fundamental elements of social stratification (race, class, gender) function both separately and in tandem to organize systems of inequality. The course uses theoretical and practical applications of stratification to evaluate how social constructions of difference influence the institutions and social policy. Additionally, class discussions will also consider how the forces of racism, sexism, and classism impact the attainment of basic needs, such as wages, health care and housing. Offered every year.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 211 |
| SOCI 240-01 |
Qualitative Methods
Instructor: Helene Lee
Course Description:
This course introduces students to the theory and methods of social science research, beginning with an examination of the philosophies underlying various research methodologies. The course then focuses on ethnographic field methods, introducing students to the techniques of participant observation, structured and informal interviewing, oral histories, sociometrics, and content analysis. Students will design their own field projects. Prerequisite: 110.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 112 |
| SOCI 270-01 |
Social Movements, Protest and Conflict
Instructor: Erik Love
Course Description:
The study of protest politics and social movements is the study of collective agency. Social movements arise when people act together to promote or resist social change. Movements represent not only grievances on a particular set of issues, but also frustration with more established political forms of making claims in societies. In this course, we will engage with some of the large theoretical debates in the study of social movements, reading both empirical treatments of particular movements and theoretical treatments of key issues. The featured case studies will include civil rights, feminism, ecology, the antinuclear movement, the New Right and the alternative globalization movement. We will be particularly concerned with the social and political context of protest, focusing on basic questions, such as: under what circumstances do social movements emerge? How do dissidents choose political tactics and strategies? And how do movements affect social and political change?
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 103 |
| SOCI 313-01 |
Structural Racism in American Transportation
Instructor: Erik Love
Course Description:
Transportation systems-bridges, highways, busses, railways, and more-have developed in the United States in ways that reflect social, cultural, and political histories. The stated goals for improvements or reforms to these systems have aligned with national priorities: enhancing the United States's economic and national standing by enabling safe and efficient transportation of people, goods, and services. These systems have contributed to structural inequalities by systematically excluding certain groups while advancing the interests of other groups. Transportation infrastructure, in short, has been built in ways that reflect the often racist priorities of American elites. This course explores case studies illustrating this pattern. Because improving equality in access to transportation has been a central concern of civil rights advocates for decades, organizations that work on transportation issues are active in nearly every city in the United States. By looking directly at ongoing advocacy strategies and tactics, students learn about interventions in local, regional, and state-level policymaking.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 311 |
| SOCI 331-01 |
Contemporary Sociological Theory
Instructor: Yalcin Ozkan
Course Description:
This course will examine alternative ways of understanding the human being, society, and culture as they have been presented in contemporary sociological theory (1925-present). It will focus on the theoretical logic of accounting for simple and complex forms of social life, interactions between social processes and individual and group identities, major and minor changes in society and culture, and the linkages between intimate and large-scale human experience. Prerequisite: 110 and one additional course in sociology, or permission of instructor. Offered every spring.
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10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 103 |
| SOCI 405-01 |
Senior Thesis
Instructor: Helene Lee
Course Description:
Permission of Instructor Required. Independent study, in consultation with a specially constituted faculty committee, of a problem area chosen by the student. The student should, in addition to pursuing his/her own interests, also seek to demonstrate how various perspectives within sociology and, where relevant, other disciplines bear on the topic chosen. Permission of the instructor required.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, R
DENNY 315 |