Sociology

SOCL 5240. Feminist Resistance. (4 Hours)

Engages students in the study of a variety of forms of feminist resistance in recent history, emphasizing the United States in the context of cross-cultural examples. Examines key feminist texts and manifestos and studies feminist activism in coalition with other social movements. Students identify and analyze unique features of gender-based activism in itself and in its intersections with other social movements, including movements and activism focused on race, class, sexuality, and physical ability.

Attribute(s): NUpath Societies/Institutions

SOCL 6962. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 7001. Proseminar 1: Acclimating to Graduate School. (1 Hour)

Helps first-year students develop a firm understanding of the PhD Sociology program requirements and helps them develop beneficial skills and strategies to complete those requirements in a timely manner. Focus on relevant topics such as articulating learning expectations from the graduate program; developing individual timelines and time management strategies to meet those expectations; identifying resources on campus and beyond that are needed to meet learning expectations; and developing concrete goals for acquiring appropriate writing, reading skills, and research areas expertise in the PhD program.

SOCL 7002. Proseminar 2: Academic Planning. (1 Hour)

Helps first-year students further develop beneficial skills and strategies to complete program requirements by building on the first semester proseminar. Focuses on relevant topics such as networking, building, and developing a team of mentors and peer supports; writing and talking about research; getting research funded; and learning wellness strategies for surviving graduate school.

SOCL 7003. Proseminar 3: Committee, Topics, and Reading Lists. (1 Hour)

Helps students develop beneficial skills and strategies to complete program requirements and become more professionalized as sociologists. This third proseminar provides the structure and peer feedback designed to help students build and work through their first field statement reading list. Students produce an annotated bibliography. The weekly exercises are designed to help students create the reading list in collaboration with faculty mentors and other experts in the field.

SOCL 7004. Proseminar 4: Field Statement Writing. (1 Hour)

Offers students an opportunity to develop beneficial skills and strategies to complete program requirements and to become more professionalized as sociologists. Students share field statement drafts, participate in peer evaluations, and practice giving constructive criticism on others’ work and address others’ critical feedback. Students draft a field statement or publishable paper.

SOCL 7100. Queer Theory: Sexualities, Genders, Politics. (4 Hours)

Introduces the core texts and key debates that have shaped queer theory and examines the intersections between queer theory and feminism and critical race theory. Seeks to provide an understanding of expansive and radical contemporary queer politics by analyzing foundational queer and feminist texts, pushing beyond narrow constructions of identity politics, anti-discrimination policy, and rights-based reforms. Engages queer theory by means of a rich philosophical and political interrogation of the meaning and content of “queer.” SOCL 7100 and WMNS 7100 are cross-listed.

SOCL 7200. Foundations of Social Theory 1. (4 Hours)

Studies the classic theorists including Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and others.

SOCL 7201. Foundations of Social Theory 2. (4 Hours)

Reviews the dominant theoretical traditions in contemporary sociology, examining the key assumptions, terminology, weaknesses, and strengths of the pluralist, managerialist, neo-Marxist, feminist, and postmodern paradigms. Strives not only to expose students to the giants in the field but, more important, to give students the intellectual tools to situate entire theoretical traditions vis-à-vis one another. Introduces students to various schools of thought. Offers students the opportunity to learn “how to think” sociologically and theoretically—that is, to go beyond simplistic and descriptive accounts of social phenomena to offer more systematic and insightful explanations.

SOCL 7221. Globalization, Development, and Social Justice. (4 Hours)

Explores the rise of neoliberal globalization and its impact on local and national communities around the world. Examines complex patterns of resistance, including place-based struggles and transnational social movements. Combines theoretical analysis of global capitalism, development, the politics of resistance, and reformist/radical alternatives with the study of concrete struggles in defense of land, labor and human rights, indigenous cultures and identities, and ecological sustainability.

SOCL 7226. Economy, Politics, and Social Change. (4 Hours)

Offers a broad survey of scholarly debates on the redistribution of political power, economic power, and social capital across the globe. Emphasizes an ethnographic analysis of how colonial and imperial legacies inform contemporary arrangements that structure inequality and how political imaginations are exercised through aesthetics, identities, and institutions. Considers how experiments with economic justice and juridical and political forms of justice find expression in contemporary grassroots movements and theories. Draws on interdisciplinary conversations from the social sciences and humanities to examine and compare radical forms of social change across various global contexts.

SOCL 7227. Race and Ethnic Relations. (4 Hours)

Offers a graduate-level seminar in the sociology of race and ethnic relations. Explores the key social, economic, political, and ideological forces shaping race and ethnic relations in the United States, past and present, and the main theoretical, methodological, and substantive debates in the “race and ethnicity” subfield of sociology. Course topics include, but are not limited to, the conceptual and intellectual foundations of the study of race and ethnic relations; the sources and consequences of ethnic and racial identities; urban poverty and dynamics of racial residential segregation; the role of wealth in creating and perpetuating racial inequality; the “new black middle class”; and contemporary debates regarding racial prejudice, discrimination, and redistributive public policies in the United States.

SOCL 7231. Sociology of Prejudice and Violence. (4 Hours)

Examines the roots and consequences of violent behavior in society and the individual. Topics vary from semester to semester, but will include serial murder, massacres, hate crimes, workplace murder, group violence including cults, and mass media portrayals of violence.

SOCL 7243. Sociology of Health and Illness. (4 Hours)

Studies social aspects of illness and medicine, historically and cross-culturally. Focuses on illness and the medical profession in modern society and their structural settings: the community, the hospital, the medical school. Critically examines research studies in the field and specifies problems for future research.

SOCL 7256. Contemporary Issues in Sociology. (4 Hours)

Discuss contemporary issues in sociology. Include supervised readings and written reports on special problems. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 7263. Social Psychology of Stratification. (4 Hours)

Explores the social psychological dimensions of structured social inequality. Overviews the “social psychologies” embedded in the classical social theorists, then explores the literature on sociological social psychology (as opposed to its psychological cousin), identifying key theoretical frameworks and focusing on “social structure and personality” (or “social structure and attitudes”) research. Explores relevant literatures on various “subjective” responses to stratification including the self-concept, stratum (that is, race, class, or gender) identification and consciousness, the process of legitimation, stratification beliefs (or stratification ideology), racial attitudes, and links between these phenomena and various policy attitudes and preferences (support for affirmative action, wealth redistribution, and so on). Also explores the ways in which such responses may contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of the status quo (social reproduction), and social change.

SOCL 7267. Environment, Health, and Society. (4 Hours)

Studies contested illnesses, which are diseases or conditions in which there is dispute over environmental causation. For many diseases and conditions attributed to environmental and occupational exposure, the disease or condition and/or its causes are discovered by laypeople in workplaces and communities, with considerable attention to chemical exposures. This seminar synthesizes a diverse set of fields, encompassing environmental sociology, medical sociology, medical anthropology, science studies, history of medicine, history of science, environmental health, community-based participatory research, environmental justice, and environmental public health. Emphasizes both political economic and ideological factors as determinants of contestation. Also examines issues of interdisciplinary collaboration between social scientists and environmental health scientists.

SOCL 7270. Sociology of Work and Employment. (4 Hours)

Examines the ways in which work organizations powerfully shape individual and social life. Traces such influences with particular emphasis on how organizations differentially affect the distribution of job rewards across class, gender and racial/ethnic lines. Topics include the historical evolution of the management/worker relationship, job segregation by both race and gender, the impact of new technologies on social inequality, the relation between gender and professional careers, govermental efforts to ensure equal opportunity, and the impact of workplace transformation on racial and gender inequalities at work.

SOCL 7273. Gender and Social Policy. (4 Hours)

Provides an introduction to gender and social policy, with emphasis on intersections of inequalities based on class, race, and sexuality. The focus is on equality policies in employment including family-friendly measures and antidiscrimination policies. Includes those focused on child care, poverty, reproduction, and sexuality. Examines the intersections of family, economy, sexuality, and state from a variety of perspectives including cross-national and comparative analysis.

SOCL 7287. Social Movements in Health. (4 Hours)

Offers a graduate seminar centering on health social movements. Also explores general social movement theory and research. Uses concepts from science and technology studies, and covers some core medical sociology concerns such as health inequalities; personal experience of illness; and lay-professional disputes over disease identification, causation, prevention, and treatment. Among the movements covered are disability rights, breast cancer activism, medical activism, Black health movements, environmental justice, community health centers, patients’ rights, and health access movements.

SOCL 7962. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 7976. Directed Study. (1-4 Hours)

Comprises reading and research directed by a faculty member. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 7990. Thesis. (1-4 Hours)

Offers thesis supervision by members of the department. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 8960. Exam Preparation—Doctoral. (0 Hours)

Taken while completing one of two PhD field statements under faculty supervision. May be repeated three times.

SOCL 8984. Research. (1-4 Hours)

Offers an opportunity to conduct research under faculty supervision. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 8986. Research. (0 Hours)

Offers the student the opportunity to conduct full-time research. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 9000. PhD Candidacy Achieved. (0 Hours)

Indicates successful completion of the doctoral comprehensive exam.

SOCL 9986. Research. (0 Hours)

Offers the student the opportunity to conduct full-time research. May be repeated without limit.

SOCL 9990. Dissertation Term 1. (0 Hours)

Offers theoretical and experimental work conducted under the supervision of a departmental faculty.

Prerequisite(s): SOCL 9000 with a minimum grade of S

SOCL 9991. Dissertation Term 2. (0 Hours)

Offers dissertation supervision by members of the department.

Prerequisite(s): SOCL 9990 with a minimum grade of S

SOCL 9996. Dissertation Continuation. (0 Hours)

Offers continued thesis work conducted under the supervision of a departmental faculty.

Prerequisite(s): SOCL 9991 with a minimum grade of S or Dissertation Check with a score of REQ