Admission & Financial Aid

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Regulations & Requirements

Regulations & Requirements

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Amherst College Courses

Amherst College Courses

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Anthropology and Sociology

Professors Gewertz, Goheen‡, Himmelstein (Chair), and Lembo; Associate Professors C. Dole‡, Fong, and Schmalzbauer; Assistant Professors Chowdhury and Holleman; Five College Assistant Professor Klarich; Visiting Assistant Professor A. Hall; Visiting Assistant Professor and Center for Humanistic Inquiry Fellow Scaramelli.

The Anthropology and Sociology program is committed to familiarizing students with the systematic analysis of culture and social life. While anthropology once tended to focus on pre-industrial peoples and sociology on peoples in industrial societies, both disciplines are now thoroughly involved in understanding the contemporary, globalizing world—albeit through the use of somewhat distinctive methodologies. Moreover, both disciplines share a common theoretical and epistemological history such that insights garnered from one are relevant to the other.

Major Program. Students will major in either Anthropology or Sociology (though a combined major is, under special circumstances, possible). Anthropology majors will normally take ANTH 112 and 323 or 332, and at least one Sociology course. In addition, majors will take at least four additional Anthropology electives. Sociology majors will normally take SOCI 315, and 316 and at least one Anthropology course. In addition, majors will take at least five additional Sociology electives. Courses especially suited for students with little background in sociology include SOCI 112, 225, 226, 230, 234, 237, and 260. Candidates for degrees with Departmental Honors will include ANTH/SOCI 498 and 499 in addition to the other major requirements.

Majors fulfill the department’s comprehensive examination by getting a grade of B or better in the relevant theory course (ANTH 323 or SOCI 315). Those who fail to do so will write a paper on a topic in theory set by the Department.

*On leave 2016-17.

‡On leave spring semester 2016-17.

Anthropology

112 Sociocultural Anthropology

An examination of theory and method in sociocultural anthropology as applied in the analysis of specific societies. The course will focus on case studies of societies from different ethnographic areas.

Fall semester. Professor Fong. (Fall 2016, Limited to 80 students due to classroom constraints.)

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2024

114 The Evolution of Human Nature

(See BIOL 114)

200 Anthropology and China

(Offered as ANTH 200 and ASLC 200) How are the experiences and perspectives of various kinds of people in various kinds of situations in contemporary China different from those of their counterparts in other places and times, and in what ways are they similar?  What accounts for these similarities and differences?  How can anthropology help us understand China? What can the study of China contribute to our understandings of the issues, processes, and systems that anthropologists study worldwide?  This course will help students answer these questions by reading, discussing, and writing about books and articles about China.

Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2016-17. Professor Fong.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2015

201 Anthropology and Science Fiction

How can anthropology help us understand the cultural assumptions, empirical knowledge, and causal and interpretive theories underlying science fiction and help science fiction draw on more valid and plausible assumptions, knowledge, and theories? How can science fiction writers' efforts to develop hypotheses about what events, people, and processes might be like under different conditions help anthropologists develop hypotheses in the real world? This class will help students think about these questions by reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing anthropological and science fiction texts that relate to each other in enlightening ways. 

Limited to 19 students.  Spring semester.  Professor Fong.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2022, Fall 2023

204 Living with Animals

This course explores the cultural, social, and political relationships between humans and other animals. Drawing from cross-cultural anthropological work, starting from histories of domestication, we will consider the participation of animals in different contemporary societies: as spirits, workers, food, commodities, symbols, domestic pets, unwanted pests, wildlife, friendly companions, and scientific objects. In general, we will interrogate the varied ways in which animals are central to human societies and cultures. We will bring these cross-cultural explorations home to explore, as researchers and writers, the social and cultural lives of animals around us--from art museums to pet shelters and organic farms--and to address pressing questions about animal agency, rights, and representation.

Limited to 30 students.  Spring semester.  Keiter Fellow Scaramelli.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018

205 Latin American Nations

This course focuses on the history and anthropology of Latin American countries, examining them as postcolonial entities. We will study the rich history and complex politics of Latin America, with an emphasis on the last century, to understand what constitutes “nation” and how that notion has shifted with the increase in mobility and global connectivity. Throughout the course we will challenge dominant ideas of “Latin America” to understand the diversity of lived experiences, asking: What is a nation? How did Latin American nations emerge? How do race, gender, indigeneity, and other concepts and practices intersect with the concept of nation? How have social movements, neoliberalism and militarization affected nations? What role has the U.S. played in shaping Latin America? Is nation still a useful or viable concept when thinking about Latin America? What does it mean to be “Latin American” or “Peruvian” or “Mexican” or “Brazilian” today?

Limited to 30 students.   Spring semester.  Visiting Professor Hall.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2019, Spring 2020

210 Anthropology of Sexuality

(See SWAG 210)

220 Collecting the Past: Art and Artifacts of the Ancient Americas

Early European explorers, modern travelers, collectors, curators, and archaeologists have contributed to the development of ancient Latin American collections in museums across the globe. This course traces the history of these collecting practices and uses recent case studies to demonstrate how museums negotiate—successfully and unsuccessfully—the competing interests of scholars, donors, local communities, and international law. Students will learn how archaeologists study a variety of artifact types within museum collections and will have the opportunity to conduct independent research projects using pre-Columbian pottery and textile collections from the Mead Museum at Amherst College.

Limited to 18 students. Spring semester. Five College Professor Klarich.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2019

224 Archaeological Method, Theory and Practice

This course focuses on the theoretical foundations of archaeological research, the variety of methods available to analyze material culture, the interpretation of results, and ethical considerations of practicing archaeology in the United States and abroad.  Course provides students with a solid foundation for evaluating and contextualizing current methodological and theoretical trends within archaeology.  Case studies illustrate the diversity of archaeological thought, interdisciplinary approaches to studying material culture, and innovative directions in the field of anthropological archaeology.  Discussions of practice will address the roles and responsibilities of archaeologists in heritage management, museum development, and community outreach.

Omitted 2016-17. Five College Professor Klarich.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2018

235 Environmental Anthropology

This course deals with the relationships, ones of mutual transformation, between humans and their natural environments.  Drawing from archeological studies of past societies and from sociocultural studies of contemporary ones, we will consider how humans have engaged with their natural worlds throughout history, probe non-Western environmental epistemologies, examine discourses and processes of sustainability and collapse, explore the cultural (re)creation of nature, and consider the larger political and economic projects, including capitalist markets and property rights, in which much of current environmentalism is embedded.  Most generally, the course will reveal the diverse ways in which people have shaped and been shaped by their physical worlds and how anthropology can clarify pressing, contemporary environmental issues.

Limited to 30 students.  Fall semester.  Keiter Fellow Scaramelli.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017

241 Visual Anthropology

(Offered as ANTH 241 and FAMS 378.) This course will explore and evaluate various visual genres, including photography, ethnographic film and museum presentation as modes of anthropological analysis--as media of communication facilitating cross-cultural understanding. Among the topics to be examined are the ethics of observation, the politics of artifact collection and display, the dilemma of representing non-Western “others” through Western media, and the challenge of interpreting indigenously produced visual depictions of “self” and “other.”

Limited to 30 students. Spring semester. Professor Gewertz.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

245 Medical Anthropology

The aim of this course is to introduce the ways that medical anthropologists understand illness, suffering, and healing as taking shape amidst a complex interplay of biological, psychological, social, political-economic, and environmental processes.  The course is designed to engage a broad range of medical anthropology topics, theoretical approaches, and research techniques by examining case studies concerned with such issues as chronic illness and social suffering, ritual and religious forms of healing, illness and inequality, medicalization, the global AIDS crisis, the social life of new medical technologies, and the politics of global health and humanitarian intervention.  A basic premise of the course is that an understanding of illness, health, and the body requires an understanding of the contexts in which they are experienced, contexts contingently shaped by interwoven processes of local, national, and global significance.  Particular emphasis will thus be placed on ethnographic approaches to the lived context in which illness and other forms of suffering are experienced, narrated, and addressed.  Our focus will be comparative, treating illness, suffering, and healing in a range of societies and settings--from Haiti to China, from urban Brazil to rural Nepal, from the townships of South Africa to genetic labs in the United States.

Limited to 30 students. Fall semester.  Professor C. Dole.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2023, Spring 2025

251 Anthropology of Natural Wealth

From diamonds and bananas to coca and coal, natural wealth as commodities have shaped the way we think of global connections from early colonial encounters to the present. They are signs of the legacies of colonial exploitation as well as the seemingly infinite reach of global capital. Yet, anthropology of the politics around these commodities--that is, a critical understanding of the places of their production, extraction and exchange, along with the people whose lives are intimately tied to these processes--has also brought to the fore the provocative and often unpredictable ways in which the politics of natural resources has generated new forms of resistances, cultural practices and social worlds. They are pivots around which nations are being imagined, states are being legitimated, and nature itself is being re-defined. This course will examine anthropological literature on the politics and practices around natural wealth. Drawing on examples from varied cultural contexts, such as the petroleum boom in Nigeria, the occult practices of tin miners in Colombia, coffee-drinking in American households, or the coal mining communities in South Africa, among others, this course aims to understand the social and political lives of natural resources and how they help us to conceptually approach colonialism, capitalism and globalization.

Limited to 30 students.  Fall semester.  Professor Chowdhury.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2023

253 Muslim Lives in South Asia

(Offered as ANTH 253 and ASLC 270 [SA].)  This course is a survey of foundational and contemporary writing on Muslim cultures across South Asia. The approach here is anthropological, in the sense that the course focuses on material that situates Islamic thought in the making of everyday practices, imaginations, and ideologies of a very large and varied group of people. While India hosts the second largest population of Muslims in the world, Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively, are two of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation-states. This course will aim to capture some of the richness of the textual and vernacular traditions that constitute what is known as South Asian Islam and the lived experiences of Muslims. Without relegating Muslims to a minority status and therefore targets of communal violence, or approaching Islam in South Asia only at the level of the syncretic, this course aims to understand the interface of traveling texts and indigenous traditions that is integral to the making of its diverse Muslim cultures. In doing so, the course will by necessity discuss topics of subjectivity, law, gender, community, secularism, and modernity that continue to raise important theoretical questions within the discipline of anthropology.

Some prior knowledge of Islam or Muslim societies may be helpful.  Limited to 25 students.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Chowdhury.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2015

255 Modernity's Media in South Asia

(Offered as ANTH 255 and ASLC 255)  This course on modernity and media starts from the premise that modernity today is a global experience. Most societies possess the means to produce their own versions of the modern, Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge have argued. In this course, we will collectively study popular culture in South Asia--a staggeringly complex cultural entity--with an eye towards understanding changing forms of subjectivity, enjoyment, agency, and bodily experience. These are all areas that have been shaped by the experience of modernity. While rethinking the predominantly European notion of the modern, we will study how mass media and public culture in South Asia help us reflect on processes of nationalism, globalization, inequality, and economic liberalization. We will discuss film, advertising, public space, and popular art to make sense of the region’s postcolonial public life.

Limited to 25 students.  Spring semester.  Professor Chowdhury.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2017

288 Comparative Education

This class will examine how and why education differs in different countries and communities. Students will learn how to compare how and why various kinds of people experience and make decisions about education. We will look at various levels of education, including preschool, kindergarten, primary school, middle school, high school, and college. 

Limited to 19 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Fall semester.  Professor Fong.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018

310 Culture, Affect, and Psychiatry

This seminar draws on readings from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies to examine mental health and illness as a set of subjective experiences, social processes, and objects of knowledge and intervention. The course invites students to think through the complex relationships between categories of psychiatric knowledge, techniques of clinical practice, and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness. The course will take up such questions as:  Does mental illness vary across social, cultural, and historical contexts?  How does the language of psychopathology, and the clinical setting of its use, affect people’s experience of psychological and emotional suffering?  What novel forms of care, as well as neglect, have emerged with the “pharmaceuticalization” of psychiatry?  How does contemporary psychiatry articulate a distinctive relationship between affect and power?  These questions, among others, will be examined through richly contextualized ethnographic and historical writings, literary accounts, clinical studies, and films.  The course will emphasize a comparative approach, as it explores the ways that anthropologists have struggled to examine mental illness and mental health in a cross-cultural perspective.

Limited to 25 students.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor C. Dole.

317 Researching China

(Offered as ANTH 317 and ASLC 317 [C].)  This course teaches students how to design research projects and analyze data about people in China. Students will read about and discuss previous findings from the instructor’s longitudinal project about Chinese only-children and their families, and findings from comparable projects in China and elsewhere. Course assignments will be tailored to the interests, skills, and academic background of each student, so first-year students, sophomores, and students with no Chinese language skills are welcome and just as likely to succeed as juniors, seniors, and students with Chinese language skills. Each student will work only on assignments suitable for his/her current skills and interests, but also read the work of other students with different skills, interests, and disciplinary knowledge and participate in discussions of their work, so all students will learn about the many different kinds of skills and research methods that can help them gain a better understanding of China. 

Limited to 20 students.  Spring semester.  Professor Fong.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2017, Spring 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023

318 Chinese Childrearing

(Offered as ANTH 318 and ASLC 318 [C].)  This course examines Chinese childrearing, focusing primarily on childrearing in mainland China. We will look at differences as well as similarities between childrearing in Chinese families of different socioeconomic status within China, as well as between childrearing in mainland China and in childrearing in Chinese and non-Chinese families worldwide.  We will also look at dominant discourses within and outside of China about the nature of Chinese childrearing and ask about relationships between those discourses and the experiences of Chinese families. Students will work together to conduct original research about childrearing in China, drawing on data from the instructor’s research projects. Course assignments will be tailored to the interests, skills, and academic background of each student, so first-years,  sophomores, and students with no Chinese language skills are welcome and just as likely to succeed as juniors, seniors, and students with Chinese language skills.

Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Fong.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2015, Spring 2018, Fall 2020, Spring 2023, Fall 2024

323 History of Anthropological Theory

A general survey of writings that have played a leading role in shaping the modern fields of cultural and social anthropology. Beginning with a discussion of the impact of Darwin and the discoveries at Brixham Cave on mid-nineteenth century anthropology, the course surveys the theories of the late-nineteenth-century cultural evolutionists. It then turns to the role played by Franz Boas and his students and others in the advent and later development of cultural anthropology in the U.S. Readings of Durkheim and Mauss will provide the foundation for a discussion of the development of British social anthropology, French structuralism, and Bourdieu’s theory of social practice. The course will conclude with a discussion of recent controversies concerning the work of a key theorist in the anthropological tradition.

Fall semester.  Professor Gewertz.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2025

324 Cultures of Money

This course explores money as an ethnographic object.  It focuses on anthropological writing about the everyday uses of money from “exotic” fields to places much closer to “home,"  from colonial encounters to household budgeting and the world of finance, for example. Anthropology has long been interested in the diverse ways in which people attach meanings, desires, and value to the idea that is money. If modern money is a universally recognized object of value, what can the histories and cultures of its circulation say about the making of the contemporary world? The course answers the question by approaching money not simply as equal and interchangeable as it is generally understood, but full of cultural significance.  Together we will see how money is a powerful medium through which one can understand important social and cultural phenomena, such as morality, violence, faith, gender, power, and resistance.

Limited to 25 students.  Fall semester.  Professor Chowdhury.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018

331 Anthropology and the Middle East

(Offered as ANTH 331 and ASLC 341 [WA].)  In an era where “terrorism” has eclipsed the nuclear fears of the Cold War and become associated with a radicalism that is portrayed as at once militant, anti-Western, and bound to a particular region (the Middle East) and religion (Islam), the task of this seminar--to examine the everyday realities of people living throughout the Middle East--has become all the more critical.  Beginning with an historical eye toward the ways that the “West” has discovered, translated, and written about the “Orient,” this seminar will use anthropological readings, documentary film, and literary accounts to consider a range of perspectives on the region commonly referred to as the Middle East.  Rather than attempting a survey of the entire region, the course will take a thematic approach and explore such topics as:  Islam and secularism, colonialism and postcoloniality, gender and political mobilization, media and globalization, and the politics and ethics of nation building.  As an anthropology course, the class will take up these themes through richly contextualized accounts of life within the region.  While it is recognized that the Middle East is incredibly heterogeneous, particular attention will be given to the influence and role of Islam.  By the end of the seminar, students will have gained a broad understanding of some of the most pressing issues faced within the area, while at the same time grappling with advanced theoretical readings.  No previous knowledge of the Middle East is assumed.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor C. Dole.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2019

332 Topics in Contemporary Anthropology

This seminar will examine contemporary issues in anthropology. Topics will vary from year to year but might, for instance, include anthropological and ethnographic engagements with postcolonialism, the politics of development, neoliberalism and “anti-globalization” activism, militarism, poverty and the politics of survival, institutions of confinement and care, as well as the writing of grants as a prerequisite for the writing of culture in ethnographies.

Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Chowdhury.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

335 Gender: An Anthropological Perspective

(Offered as ANTH 225 and SWAG 335.)  This seminar provides an analysis of male-female relationships from a cross-cultural perspective, focusing upon the ways in which cultural factors modify and exaggerate the biological differences between men and women. Consideration will be given to the positions of men and women in the evolution of society, and in different contemporary social, political, and economic systems, including those of the industrialized nations.

Limited to 20 students.  Spring semester.  Professor Gewertz. 

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018

339 The Anthropology of Food

Because food is necessary to sustain biological life, its production and provision occupy humans everywhere. Due to this essential importance, food also operates to create and symbolize collective life. This seminar will examine the social and cultural significance of food. Topics to be discussed include: the evolution of human food systems, the social and cultural relationships between food production and human reproduction, the development of women’s association with the domestic sphere, the meaning and experience of eating disorders, and the connection among ethnic cuisines, nationalist movements and social classes.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor Gewertz. 

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2024

343 Economic Anthropology and Social Theory

This course will look at the relationship between economy and society through a critical examination of Marx with particular emphasis on pre-capitalist economies. The more recent work of French structural Marxists and neo-Marxists, and the substantivist-formalist debate in economic anthropology will also be discussed. The course will develop an anthropological perspective by looking at such “economic facts” as production, exchange systems, land tenure, marriage transactions, big men and chiefs, state formation, peasant economy, and social change in the modern world.

Limited to 25 students. First-year and sophomore students must have consent of the instructor. Fall semester. Professor Goheen.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016

431 Istanbul

(See HIST 494)

490, 490H Special Topics

Independent Reading Courses. A half course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors

Spring semester.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023

Anthropology Courses

330 Writing about China

(Offered as ANTH 330 and ASLC 330) This course teaches students how to write academic papers about China. We will pay attention both to specific elements of writing, such as how to use academic language and citations clearly and appropriately, and to broader issues such as those of how to support claims with evidence; how to use findings from data to engage with arguments presented in the previous scholarship; how to explain why writing about issues concerning a particular Chinese population can expand understandings of similar issues worldwide; how to help readers who may not know much about Chinese language or society understand the meaning and significance of Chinese terms, concepts, and assumptions that may be different from comparable terms, concepts, and assumptions in the English language and Western scholarship; and how to find gaps in the existing scholarship and fill these gaps with findings from interview and survey data from the instructor's longitudinal study of Chinese families. Students who have taken at least one statistics course can work with English-language survey data; students with Chinese language skills can work with Chinese-language interview data; students who have taken or are currently taking at least one other course about anthropology, sociology, and/or economics can work with relevant English-language scholarly literature in the field(s) in which they have previously or are currently taking classes, and students with more than one of these qualifications can either focus on one kind of work or combine or alternate between them, in accordance with their preferences. Students will collaborate on projects, complementing and learning from each other.  Assignments will be tailored to the interests, skills, and academic background of each student, so first-year students, sophomores, and students with no Chinese language skills or statistical analysis skills are welcome and just as likely to succeed as juniors, seniors, and students with Chinese language or statistical analysis skills.

Admission with consent of the instructor.  Limited to 20 students.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Fong.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2014

Sociology

112 Self and Society: An Introduction to Sociology

The course introduces students to what C. Wright Mills referred to as the “sociological imagination.” Through accounts both classic and contemporary, students will learn to interrogate in a systematic way both their own lives and the lives of those around them, understanding how they are shaped in significant ways by groups, communities, institutions, and social structures, even as they remain authors of their own actions and determiners of their own fate. In this sense, the dynamics of what sociologists call “power” and “agency” are woven into every aspect of the course.  Inequalities--most notably, race, class, and gender—will figure importantly as we explore important topics such as higher education, gendered expectations of parenting, mass incarceration and structural racism, cultural transformations accompanying neoliberal capitalism, and present-day opportunities for social mobility.

Limited to 35 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Fall semester. Professor Lembo.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

225 Reproducing Social Order: Prisons, Schools, and the Military

This course examines U.S. prisons, schools, and the military as institutions of social reproduction, in historical and comparative perspective. This lens allows for exploration of broad questions regarding the role of the state in society and persistent contradictions of democracy and opportunity vs. coercion and constraint. Specific questions on which the course centers are: How do social inequalities—including, for example, inequalities based on race, ethnicity, citizenship, class, and gender—condition the relationship between individuals, institutions, the market, and the state? How does privatization affect the mission, activity, and future of these institutions? What role do prisons, schools, and the military play in reproducing social inequality on the national and international stage? Readings will consist of sociological perspectives on such questions as well as historical accounts documenting contests over these institutions and their functions.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2016

226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality

Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.

Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.

Limited to 25 students.  Fall semester.  Professor Holleman.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2024

230 Economy, Society and Change in East Asia

(Offered as SOCI 230 and ASLC 230.)  East Asia has been booming, economically—first Japan, then Korea and Taiwan, and now China. In this course, we will study both what made the economic boom in these countries possible and what social issues have arisen in each country because of the particular social system that arose through its process of economic development. In particular, we will consider patterns of social inequality. In the case of Japan and Korea, we will focus on understanding important inequality patterns that arose during the economic development in the 1970s and 1980s and their enduring effect on current society, such as youth unemployment and gender inequality. As for China, we will study how the rapid economic development generated social inequalities (such as glaring income inequality and urban-rural inequality) different from those observed in Japan and Korea. Through the readings and class discussions, students will learn about the lives of people who live in these East Asian societies: How are the societies organized? What are the critical social issues in these countries? How are these societies both similar and different?

Limited to 20 students.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Mun.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016

234 Social Class

This course will consider various ways that class matters in the United States. Historical accounts will be used in conjunction with sociological theories to discuss the formation of classes, including the formation of discourses and myths of class, in American society. Class will then serve as a lens to examine the origins and characteristics of social stratification and inequality in the U.S. The bulk of the course will focus on more contemporary issues of class formation, class structure, class relations, and class culture, paying particular attention to how social class is actually lived out in American culture. Emphasis will be placed on the role class plays in the formation of identity and the ways class cultures give coherence to daily life. In this regard, the following will figure importantly in the course: the formation of upper class culture and the role it plays in the reproduction of power and privilege; the formation of working class culture and the role it plays in leading people to both accept and challenge class power and privilege; the formation of the professional middle class and the importance that status anxiety carries for those who compose it. Wherever possible, attention will be paid to the intersection of class relations and practices with those of other social characteristics, such as race, gender and ethnicity. The course will use sociological and anthropological studies, literature, autobiographies, and films, among other kinds of accounts, to discuss these issues.

Limited to 30 students. Spring semester. Professor Lembo.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2010, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017

237 Gender and Work

(Offered as SOCI 237 and SWAG 237.)  How has the rise of working women complicated modern workplaces and the idea of work? One challenge is how to value women’s work fairly. One index of this challenge is that in workplaces across the world, women earn significantly less than men and are underrepresented in high status positions. What explains such gender gaps in the workplace? Taking an empirical, social-science perspective, this course will discuss three main aspects of gender and work. First, we will cover major theories of gender inequality, such as psychological stereotyping, social exclusion, structural barriers, and gendered socialization. Second, in learning about the sociological mechanisms of inequality in the workplace, we will expand our discussion to women’s work in the family and examine how the conflicts individuals face when trying to have both career and family influence women’s lives. Finally, we will discuss the mixed results of public policies proposed to reduce gender inequality and work-family incompatibilities and the possible reasons for those mixed results.

Limited to 20 students.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Mun.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015

243 Drugs and Society

This course examines the use and control of mood-altering drugs in the United States today.  Specifically, we look at two important sets of issues: first, the increasing use of prescription drugs to deal with a growing range of human moods and thoughts; second, the ongoing “war” against drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.   By juxtaposing these two, we will reflect on the contradictions of drug use and drug control in America.  On the one hand, we take a more punitive approach to the control of currently illegal drugs like marijuana than any other western society. On the other hand, we use and encourage the use of prescriptions like antidepressants more than any other western society.  


Limited to 35 students.  Spring semester.  Professor Himmelstein.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020

260 Latino Migration:  Labor, Lifestyle and Legality

(See AMST 260)

265 Unequal Childhoods:  Race, Class and Gender in the United States

(Offered as SOCI 265 and AMST 265.)  This class explores the ways in which race, class, gender and immigration status shape children’s lives. We begin by conceptualizing childhood as a social construct whose meaning has changed over time and that varies across context; for class privileged individuals, for example, childhood or adolescence may extend into the third decade of life, whereas for “others,” poverty and/or family responsibilities and community struggles may mean it scarcely exists at all. The bulk of the course draws from ethnographic scholarship focused on the relationship between childhood and inequality in key institutional contexts including school, family and the legal system. Through ethnography, we will critically examine the ways in which inequalities among and between groups of children shape their daily life experiences, aspirations and opportunities, and what this means for overall trends of inequality in the United States.

Limited to 35 students.  Fall semester.  Professor Schmalzbauer.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2019, Spring 2023

302 Globalization, Inequality and Social Change

(See AMST 302)

305 Gender, Migration and Power:  Latinos in the Americas

(See AMST 305)

315 Foundations of Sociological Theory

Sociology emerged as part of the intellectual response to the French and Industrial Revolutions. In various ways, the classic sociological thinkers sought to make sense of these changes and the kind of society that resulted from them. We shall begin by examining the social and intellectual context in which sociology developed and then turn to a close reading of the works of five important social thinkers: Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, and Freud. We shall attempt to identify the theoretical perspective of each thinker by posing several basic questions: According to each social thinker, what is the general nature of society, the individual, and the relationship between the two? What holds societies together?  What pulls them apart?  How does social change occur? What are the distinguishing features of modern Western society in particular? What distinctive dilemmas do individuals face in modern society? What are the prospects for human freedom and happiness? Although the five thinkers differ strikingly from each other, we shall also determine the extent to which they share a common “sociological consciousness.” Required of sociology majors.

Limited to 30 students. Fall semester. Professor Himmelstein.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2025

316 Social Research

This course introduces students to the range of methods that sociologists use to understand humans as social beings. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of these methods. Students will design and execute an original research project. The course emphasizes the general logic of social inquiry and research design rather than narrowly defined techniques and statistical proofs. Required of sociology majors.

Limited to 15 students. Spring semester. Professor Himmelstein.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

324 Financial Crises and the Future of Democracy

Austerity measures promoted as a response to the deep global economic recession beginning in 2007 have resulted in protests around the globe. However, these are only the most recent series of measures that fall under the aegis of neoliberal reform. With much of the world’s population under 30 years old, neoliberalism has been a constant fact of life for many. This course looks at the historic rise and consequences of the neoliberal economic model as well as alternatives implemented by breakaway governments in the global South. We will study how the past 40 years of financialization, related debt crises, economic shock therapy and growing inequality fit into broader economic history and help explain current developments. We also will explore the challenge to neoliberalism posed by movements for greater economic democracy and equality from Rome and Cairo to Quito and New York.

Requisite: SOCI 112.  Limited to 20 students.  Admission with consent of the instructor.  Omitted 2016-17. Professors Holleman and Mun.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015

326 Immigration and the New Latino Second Generation

(See AMST 326)

334 Contours of a Colorblind Culture

(Offered as SOCI 334 and BLST 336 [US].) The passage of civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965 was a defining moment in American race relations. By comparison to what preceded it, the post-civil rights era amounted to a great social transformation, leading many to assert ours is now a “colorblind” culture. This course will use the idea of colorblind culture to examine the changing role of race and racism in the contemporary United States. We will examine specific claims that United States culture is, or is not, colorblind, while exploring the social structural, institutional, and broader cultural factors that shape present-day race relations.

Requisite: SOCI 112 or equivalent. Open to juniors and seniors. Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Lembo.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2023

337 Dilemmas of Diversity: The Case of Higher Education

In this course, we will focus on the diversification of higher education. We will pay particular attention to efforts made by selective liberal arts colleges and universities to open their doors to students disadvantaged by barriers of racial discrimination and excluded by the means of class privilege. We will critically interrogate the concept of diversity and its implementation, paying attention to both successes and problems. Among these problems is the gap between a diversity promised and a diversity delivered.

We will employ sociological theories and concepts to explore this gap, the dilemmas it presents, and the cultural strategies that have emerged in response to them. Situating contemporary efforts of selective colleges and universities to diversify in historical context, we will pay particular attention to broader transformation of racial and class discourse in the United States in the post civil rights era, including federal efforts to address discrimination, Supreme Court decisions regarding race-based admissions policy, changes in corporate personnel policies, the rise of “colorblind” rhetoric, growing economic inequality, and the expansion of neoliberal policies and practices in higher education today. Drawing on this context, we will assess the strengths and weakness of diversity initiatives that have been put into place, the patterns of cultural change occurring on campuses, and the role social difference can play in constructing alternatives to inclusive communities as we presently envision them.

Students will be encouraged to work collaboratively and will employ a variety of methods to document systematically the current state of diversity on their respective campuses.

Requisite: SOCI 112 or equivalent. Limited to 15 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Fall semester. Professor Lembo.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2024

341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change:  Environmental Movements and Ideas

Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.

Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Holleman.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018

347 Sociology from the Margins

In this course we will examine texts that challenge the conventional wisdom of sociology, thereby enabling us to see foundational concerns of the discipline in new ways. These texts--some by sociologists, some not--will be used to explore such things as changing modes of social power, the cultural unconscious, commodity culture, normality and its transgressions, media technology and the social imaginary, as well as social identity and the self in ways unanticipated by mainstream sociological thought. Historical transitions from Fordism to flexible accumulation, the modern to the postmodern, the colonial to the postcolonial, the national to the transnational, and from the real to the virtual will figure importantly in course discussion.

Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2016-17. Professor Lembo.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014

350 Asian Capitalism: Historical and Contemporary Views

(Offered as SOCI 350 and ASLC 350.) Asian economic development has challenged many Western observers; one reason has to do with the fact that Asian economies rely on institutional arrangements that do not exist in Western economies. In this course, we will look at distinctive institutional arrangements in Asia and discuss how those arrangements emerged. We will also discuss on-going debates concerning the character of Asian capitalism. Specifically we will look at the history of capitalism in Asia, what capitalism in Asia looks like today, how capitalism in Asia is perceived before and after the Asian financial crisis, and how the perception of Asian capitalism has changed since the most recent financial crisis originating in the United States. This course will require weekly class meetings (2 hours) and small-group meetings prior to weekly class meetings.

Not open to first-year students. Recommended requisite: One previous course in Sociology. Enrollment requires attendance at the first class meeting. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2016-17. Professor Mun.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015

353 Organizations and Inequality

This course examines organizational mechanisms of social inequality. For sociologists, life chances of individuals and groups are fundamentally determined by the socio-economic contexts in which they are embedded. In order to better understand the contexts, organizations scholars attend to organizational and institutional structures, such as the rise and decline of corporations, changes in industrial relations, and the relationship between law and organizations. In this course, we will identify important institutional and organizational structures of economic life and discuss how the structures shape life chances, inequalities, and opportunities. Specifically, we will study (1) structural bias against marginalized groups in work organizations, (2) inter-group power dynamics in workplaces, (3) corporate responses to state regulatory actions such as Affirmative Action, and (4) implications of the recent rise of self-regulation in the corporate world on social inequality. This course will require weekly class meetings (two and one-half hours) and small-group meetings prior to weekly class meetings. 

Not open to first-year students.  Limited to 20 students. Enrollment requires attendance at the first class meeting.  Omitted 2016-17.  Professor Mun.

 

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2016

390, 490 Special Topics

Independent Reading Courses. A full course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors

Spring semester.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Related Courses

BLST-315 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa (Course not offered this year.)