SOC 506: Applied Regression Analysis
Archibald, Mondays 9:00 am-12:00 pm, Max: 10
SOC 513: Perspectives on Mental Health
Keyes, Wednesday 5:00-8:00 pm, Max: 10
(Written permission required from instructor prior to registration)
Content: This course entertains two broad questions within which numerous models, theories, and empirical studies are employed. First, what is the nature and burden of mental illnesses as well as mental health? Second, what are the causes of mental illnesses and mental health? This course employs a biopsychosocial causal model of health. It therefore examines mental health in terms of its proximal (biological), medial (psychological), and its distal (sociological) causes. Moreover, emerging research and perspectives on the integration of levels of causes will be explored. This course is intended to train students to be theoretical and interdisciplinary scholars of mental health.
Particulars:
(1) A journal-style research/review paper.
(2) Professional-style presentation.
(3) Regular, active participation
SOC 520: Political Sociology
Hicks, Friday 1:00 am-4:00 pm, Max: 10
Content: This course is intended as review of principal substantive issues, theoretical perspectives and scholarly summing ups and/or high points for those in the field of political sociology. Some key issues will be State formation and transformation, the State, poverty and inequality, the State and development, IOs, globalization and the State. Key perspectives will be class analytical, neo-pluralist, elite, institutional, and cultural (e.g., new institutional, world polity, cultural-field).
Particulars: Requirements include active class participation; presentations on readings; short essay assignments; term paper. Readings will consist principally of readings made electronically available, but these may be complemented by a few hard copies of articles and by books.
SOC 525: Global Structures and Processes
Boli, Tuesday 1:00-4:00 pm, Max: 12
(Written permission required from instructor prior to registration)
Content: With an emphasis on the development of global society since the 19th century, this course reviews global processes of economic, political, and cultural structuration and change. We will explore major perspectives on global development, including realism/neo-realism, neoliberalism, world-system theory, global governance analysis, globalization theory, and world-polity theory. Topics include the global economy, world culture, global social movements, decolonization and state formation, international organizations, global problems, and anti-globalization movements and ideologies. Empirical investigations, case studies, and original global-level data will be prominent.
Particulars: Requirements include active class participation; presentations on readings; short-essay assignments; term paper. Possible books include, among others, Baldwin, Neorealism and Neoliberalism; Chase-Dunn, Global Formation; Boli and Thomas, Constructing World Culture; Robertson, Globalization; Lechner and Boli, World Culture; Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism; Brecher et al., Globalization From Below; Starr, Naming the Enemy.
SOC 540: Basic Theoretical Problems
Lechner, Wednesday 1:30-4:30 pm, Max: 10
Content: This course examines basic theoretical problems in sociology through an analysis of the work of classical theorists and some of their contemporary successors. These include questions about how to explain social action and social order, how to account for the rise of modernity, how to explain variation in forms of solidarity and inequality, and how to relate societal to cultural change, in particular secularization.
Particulars: Presentations, essay, paper. Readings will include Bellah (ed.), Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society, Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, Heilbroner, The Essential Adam Smith, Levine, Visions of the Sociological Tradition, Levine (ed.), Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms, Strauss (ed.), George Herbert Mead on Social Psychology, Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader
SOC 554: Causes of Crime
Griffiths, Friday 9:00 am-12:00 pm, Max: 10
(Written permission required from instructor prior to registration)
Content: This graduate seminar is designed to survey major criminological theories. Criminologists rely on numerous theoretical perspectives, all with distinctive foci. Some focus on explaining offending, others focus on explaining victimization; some focus on the characteristics of criminal incidents, others focus on trends in aggregate crime rates. In this course, we will explore the underlying assumptions of key criminological theories, implications of their distinctive theoretical contributions for the study of crime, and empirical evidence for each perspective. The seminars will be organized around four main objectives: to recognize the unique contributions of each theory, to explore relationships between theoretical concepts, to understand how to operationalize those concepts in empirical work, and to examine the ability of each theory to explain the causes of crime in contemporary American society.
Particulars: A series of short papers comprising a theory portfolio, active participation, and a final paper.
SOC 585: Research and Theorizing on Whiteness
Lewis, Tuesday 4:00-7:00 pm, Max: 10
Content: This graduate seminar will investigate theory and research on whiteness. Though we will explore some of the work in the recent explosion of “whiteness studies,” we will also revisit older sociological and historical texts. These works are derived from a broad range of methodological genres (ethnographic, survey research, historiography, etc.) and theoretical perspectives. Topics we will cover include the historic racialization of whites, the construction and negotiation of white identities in the U.S., the meaning and function of whiteness today and its connection to systems of domination and culture.
SOC 590R: 2nd Year Research Paper Seminar
Condron & Johnson, Thursday 1:00-4:00 pm, Max: 10
(Written permission required from instructor prior to registration)
Content: This seminar has two broad goals. First, it instructs students in the conceptual and pragmatic issues associated with empirical research. It does so by focusing on such fundamental issues as the construction of literature reviews, the translation of theoretical concerns into empirical projects, and the design and implementation of empirical studies. Second, it assists students in bringing their own empirical research to completion. As a result, enrolled students are expected to enter the semester with an identified research project; moreover, they are expected to make substantial progress on these projects, especially given the feedback and dialogue that will occur throughout the semester.
Texts: Online Reserves
Particulars: In-class presentations of ongoing research efforts; demonstrated progress on research paper by end of semester. Written permission required from instructors prior to registering.
SOC 712: Race, Gender, and Social Theory
Aldridge, Wednesday 1:00-4:00 pm, Max: 10
Content: This seminar analyzes the intellectual contributions, social context, and influence of selected scholars from various subcultural groups on the development of the field of sociology. Particular emphasis is placed on their theories of social stratification, race, gender and social organization. While focus will be on major African American scholars such as Du Bois, Frazier, and Cox, considerable attention will also be devoted to women and other subcultural groups and the contributions they have made and challenges met in the discipline of sociology and the social sciences in general.
The purpose of this course, then, is two fold:
1) to familiarize students with the lives and contributions of African American scholars and scholars of various other subcultural groups in the development of the field of sociology and
2) to demonstrate the relevance of the theoretical and methodological works of these scholars' for integration/ incorporation into courses throughout the discipline of sociology and the social sciences rather than largely, if not only in race and gender relations courses.
Texts: Selected books and articles.
Particulars: The seminar requires active class participation as well as:
1) leading one class discussion based on assigned readings;
2) a final research paper, and
3) a final exam addressing the course content and taking the format of a preliminary examination question.
SOC 719R/WS 585: Gender and Global Health
Yount, Thursday 1:00-4:00 pm, Max: 10
(Written permission required from instructor prior to registration)
Content: This course provides an overview of theories, policies, and social interventions related to gender and health, with a focus on the global South. Students are exposed to some of the major theoretical developments in sociology and population studies that have advanced an understanding of the institutional bases of gender inequality, and of the power dynamics within families and households, that influence women’s well being in these settings. The theoretical and empirical underpinnings of existing social policies and interventions intended to improve the position of women in LDC’s are emphasized, and case studies of the health-related consequences of these policies and interventions are discussed. By the end of the course, students will have developed the ability to evaluate critically and to identify the relationships between theories, policies, and social interventions related to gender and health.
Particulars: Regular class attendance and participation (15%); leadership of one discussion (15%); weekly reaction journal (20%); annotated bibliography (20%); term paper (30%)