*Social Studies 20. Statistics for Social Studies
Catalog Number: 3643
Mariko Chang
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
An introduction to basic research methods and statistics designed primarily for concentrators in Social Studies. No previous background in statistics is required. Assists students in developing the skills to understand statistical methods used in social science research and to conduct quantitative analyses that address research questions. Also prepares students to do quantitative research for projects such as senior honors essays.
Note: Concentrators must take one fall and one spring tutorial. Admission is based on student preferences and a lottery system. Undergraduate non-concentrators may enroll in these tutorials if space is available.
*Social Studies 98bc. Habermas and Foucault
Catalog Number: 6038
Henry S. Rubin
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Builds on introductory knowledge of Habermas and Foucault. Contextualizes each in relation to Frankfurt School, Nietzsche, and classics of social theory. Focuses on rationalization, normalization, power, subjectivity, methodology, and the promises of the Enlightenment.
*Social Studies 98bj. History and Memory
Catalog Number: 1652
Judith E. Vichniac
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the way in which collective memory is shaped and its relationship to history. What is collective memory, and how does it differ from individual memory? How does history help to construct collective memory? When is collective memory a source for history? When does collective memory enrich and when does it impoverish? Case studies include the Civil War, World War I and the Holocaust.
*Social Studies 98bq. Popular Culture: Theories and Practices
Catalog Number: 2209
Lynne B. Layton (Medical School)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the many theoretical perspectives on popular culture currently debated in academia--Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, semiotic. Focusing on one or two popular media as case studies, we will draw on the theories to inform textual analysis and to investigate issues of production and reception.
*Social Studies 98ca. The Anthropology of Violence, Memory and Reconciliation
Catalog Number: 5606
Jennifer Schirmer
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Considers the nature of political violence and means of attaining reconciliation. Addresses different theoretical debates about truth, accountability and justice (i.e., the politics of memory), and whether the resurrection of the past serves to aid the reconciliation process or deepen the wounds. Compares specific cases of repression, truth commissions, post-repressive trials, and amnesty laws in Latin America, Bosnia and South Africa.
*Social Studies 98cd. The Politics of Social Policy in the United States
Catalog Number: 8657
Anya Bernstein
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines social policy in the United States and considers competing approaches to developing policy for the 21st century. Compares different perspectives on the nature and purposes of American social policy and explores how American institutions and political culture have shaped the development of social policy throughout the 20th century. Case studies will include welfare, health care, education, work–family policy, and social security.
*Social Studies 98ce. The Labor Market and Equality: Panacea or Poison
Catalog Number: 8865
Mariko Chang
Half course (fall term). M., 2–4.
Examines the ways in which the labor market can perpetuate inequality and/or heighten social equality. Provides a comparative perspective on how labor markets shape and are shaped by other social institutions, such as the family, the state, and the educational system and how these factors impact the equality of different groups. Topics will include cross-national differences in structure, variation and outcome, the impact of policies such as affirmative action, and the relationship between the labor market and gender, racial, and class-based inequality.
*Social Studies 98ch. The Power of News
Catalog Number: 1650
David Fithian
Half course (fall term). Th., 2–4.
Considers theories about, and studies of, the production, distribution, and consumption of news. Focuses on the agenda-setting power of journalism and addresses the question of whether news reflects and reinforces existing social, political, and economic relations, or shapes them. The influence of electronic media and live broadcasts on social and political behavior in general and democracy and citizenship in particular is also explored, as is the power of news organizations.
*Social Studies 98cq. Race and Ethnicity in the American Vein
Catalog Number: 8176
Jonathan M. Hansen
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines problems of blood and belonging in the United States from a theoretical, historical, and cultural-critical perspective. Explores the promise and peril of race and ethnicity as epistemological categories.
*Social Studies 98ct. Producing and Consuming the Good Life: Ideologies of Work and Leisure in East Asia
Catalog Number: 1633
Lida Junghans
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the cultural and political processes that have shaped the experience of work, leisure, production, and consumption in East Asian societies since World War II. Explores the social technologies through which economic practices are made culturally meaningful. Topics include the relationship of work and leisure to individual and collective identity; the connections between production, consumption, and the nation-building process; and how cold war and orientalist legacies have shaped representations of work and leisure in East Asia.
Social Studies 98cw. The Political Theory of Multiculturalism
Catalog Number: 1766
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines the challenge that cultural diversity poses for moral and political theory. What place does culture have in moral deliberation? Can the demands of diversity be squared with the claims of justice? What conceptions of diversity and justice do these questions presuppose? These questions will be examined theoretically and through examples. Readings include McIntrye, Taylor, Habermas, Rawls, Raz, Hampshire, Moody-Adams, Tully, and a range of case studies.
Social Studies 98cy. Explaining Knowledge
Catalog Number: 4858
Michael Peter Biggs
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores whether objective, rational knowledge is possible. Questions include: How does knowledge change? If knowledge will always be superseded, is it therefore “false”? Does “science” provide a superior kind of knowledge? How can we explain others’ adherence to beliefs that we believe to be false? Finally, does knowledge differ when its object is human culture? Focuses on natural science as it has developed since the 17th century, but also considers cartography, witchcraft, and social science.
Social Studies 98cz. Boundaries, Violence, and Nationalism: The New Ethnography of Europe
Catalog Number: 0758
Thomas Michael Malaby
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines theories of nationalism and recent ethnographies of Europe to illuminate the disparate circumstances of Europe’s people and the prominence of the discourse of unification in their everyday lives. Explores how borders created the context for violence and posed a challenge for nation-states in their deployment of authority and their development of notions of citizenship in Ireland, the Pyrenees, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Analyzes these ethnographies to clarify prospects and problems of a unified Europe and provides a local-level exploration of violence and boundaries to understand the recent and tragic prevalence of the former in the region.
Social Studies 98db. Democracies and Markets
Catalog Number: 8362
Phineas Reed Baxandall
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
An in-depth examination of how political and market forces influence one another. The course begins by questioning some basic behavioral assumptions of economics and examining more politicized and socially-embedded perspectives on the organization of economic life. Subsequent classes explore alternative views of how individuals manage to act collectively and how interests are aggregated into policy. Students will examine ways that political and institutional configurations underlie economic trends, as well as ways that economic interests structure political conflict. Major applications in political economy will include: campaign finance, unemployment, welfare states, globalization, and new information technologies.
Social Studies 98df. Comparative and International Political Economy
Catalog Number: 5750
Sylvia Maxfield
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Develops research skills and an ability to analyze the similarities and differences between the interaction of politics and economics across nations. Organized around specific issues: the politics of economic reform; the economics of transition to democracy; political business cycles; the correlation between growth and institutions of governance; and internationalization and cross-national convergence in economic policy. Each student will pick a country to research and report on during the course of the semester.
Social Studies 98dh. Cultural Pluralism and American Law
Catalog Number: 1941
Jonathan D. Kahn
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Takes a broadly interdisciplinary approach to examine the myriad ways in which the American legal system has confronted questions of the legal status of “culture,” “identity,” and “difference." Readings will be drawn from legal studies, history, politics, anthropology, and philosophy. There is no escaping the fact that law shapes identity. Laws tells us who we are and where we stand in society. While sometimes benign, such classifications can also be a devastatingly powerful instrument of ostracism and subjugation. Conversely, recognition and classification may also give voice and agency to distinct groups and their members. We will explore these dynamics by looking to such different areas of American law and politics as racial discrimination, nativism, religious persecution, native American rights, and the legal regulation of gender and sexuality.
*Social Studies 98av. Leadership and Followership in Modern Society: Politics, Personality, and Charisma
Catalog Number: 5427
Richard M. Hunt
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Based on Social Studies 10 readings of Weber, Durkheim, and Freud, examines recent theories of leadership—political and professional—in modern society. Special attention is given to the relation between leaders and followers, and to the specific historical conditions from which leaders emerge. Also studies various forms of charismatic leadership. Case studies include Lincoln, Hitler, FDR, Huey Long, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
*Social Studies 98bg. The Contemporary American City
Catalog Number: 0913
Gwendolyn Dordick
Half course (spring term). M., 1–3.
An introduction to the various theoretical and substantive aspects of the sociology of the American city. Examines unique qualities of the city as a social and cultural form. Specific topics include post World War II suburbanization and the emergence of edge cities; new immigrants, the informal economy, and globalization; race and ethnic relations; urban poverty and homelessness; as well as relevant policy issues.
*Social Studies 98cf. The European Union and the Nation State
Catalog Number: 7870
Francesco Duina
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4.
Examines whether the European Union (EU) challenges the authority and existence of the nation state. Considers the early neo-functionalist theory of the 1950s and its critics, and then the more current approaches: intergovernmentalism, rational choice, institutionalism, europeanization, and others. Considers South America’s MERCOSUR and Southeast Asia’s ASEAN and their relationship to the nation state to gain a better understanding of the EU case.
*Social Studies 98cj. Democracy Ancient and Modern: From Pericles to American Politics
Catalog Number: 5819
James E. Miller
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
A genealogy of democratic idealism. In an effort to see how the idea of democracy has come to play a pivotal—and often ambiguous—role in modern political life, the focus will be on two formative periods: Athens in the age of Pericles, and revolutionary America and France in the 18th century. Readings include historians as well as theorists: M.I. Finley, R.K. Sinclair, Plato, Aristotle; Gordon Wood, Jefferson, Madison; R.R. Palmer, Albert Soboul, Rousseau, Robespierre, Condorcet; Joseph Schumpeter, Walter Lippmann, Hannah Arendt and Benjamin Barber.
*Social Studies 98ck. Community Empowerment and Civic Democracy in the Contemporary United States: Theory, Practice, and Policy
Catalog Number: 9316
Carmen J. Sirianni
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Analyzes innovations in community organizing, civic engagment, and “policy design for democracy” in a variety of arenas (urban development, environment, health, journalism, social services, education) over the past several decades in the U.S. Examines these in terms of theories of deliberative democracy, social capital, and civil society, as well as debates on the future of the welfare state and regulatory politics. Considers the larger crisis of American democracy and the possibilities of civic renewal.
*Social Studies 98cl. Law and Society
Catalog Number: 7389
Terry K. Aladjem
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines law as a defining force in American culture and society in four dimensions—as it establishes individual rights, liberties, and limits of toleration; as it attempts to resolve differences among competing constituencies; as it sets out terms of punishment and social control, and as a source of informing images and ideological consistency.
*Social Studies 98cm. American Social Movements
Catalog Number: 2773
Anya Bernstein
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines social movements in 19th- and 20th-century America using theoretical material and case studies of major social movements. Topics will include how movements arise and evolve, how members determine strategy, the relationship between movements and other modes of politics, and why movements succeed or fail.
*Social Studies 98cp. Foundations of Contemporary Social and Cultural Theory
Catalog Number: 5713
April Noel Flakne
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores the influence of 20th-century continental philosophy on contemporary social and cultural theory. Investigates the increasing significance of language, the body, sexuality, and technology.
*Social Studies 98cr. Genocide
Catalog Number: 9385
Daniel J. Goldhagen
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores comparatively the phenomenon of genocide. Instances of mass killing discussed include the Armenians, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
Social Studies 98cv. Authoritarianism and Democracy in Latin America
Catalog Number: 5595
Steven R. Levitsky
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines political regimes and regime change in modern Latin America, focusing primarily on the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Compares different theoretical approaches (including modernization, neo-marxist, cultural, choice-centered, and institutional approaches) to explaining the emergence of democracy in the region, its breakdown in the 1960s and 1970s, and the “wave” of re-democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Examines contemporary problems of democratic survival and consolidation, analyzing the effects of factors such as the international context, the debt crisis and economic liberalization, state weakness, political violence, and poverty and inequality. Also examines how different institutional structures, such as electoral systems, party systems, and executive-legislative arrangements, may affect the stability and quality of new democracies.
Social Studies 98cx. Ethnic Diasporas and the Emergence of Creole Societies
Catalog Number: 5490
Engseng Ho
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
The Current resurgence of interest in ethnic communities, now conceived as transnational ethnic diasporas, remains colored by the one-sided, interest-group politics of the plural society. Conceptually, the globalization of the ghetto distracts us from recognizing ongoing processes of creolization at work. This course examines how creole societies emerged in early-modern Southeast Asia and the Caribbean (including the American South). How did varying configurations of class, color, sexual union and economic opportunity frame the interaction of diasporic Africans, Asians and Europeans in the colonial creation of creole societies? In the 20th century, how were local creolizing processes affected by phases of parochialism (e.g. territorial nationalism, autarkic autocracy) and interationalism (e.g. socialism, transnational capitalism, Negritude, pop culture, religious fundamentalism, diasporic nationalism)? Can diasporas be utopian alternatives to the nation-state?
Social Studies 98da. Disaster, Trauma, and Community in America
Catalog Number: 2680
David Fithian
Half course (spring term). Th., 2–4.
Examines case studies of the social, psychological, and economic effects on communities from natural catastrophes, technological accidents, diseases, and other social crises. Cases include natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes), industrial contamination, acts of terrorism, and riots. Accidents such as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and pandemics such as AIDS are also considered. Explores concepts of community, collective action, altruism, survivor guilt, power, social justice, and faith, among others.
Social Studies 98dd. International Morality in Historical Perspective
Catalog Number: 0357
Jennifer Gaston Pitts
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
How do we, and how should we, argue about the morality of war? What are states’ obligations to people who are not their citizens, especially the very vulnerable? Analyzes modern theories of war, empire, and international justice from Aquinas and Grotius to Hannah Arendt. Examines such concepts as human rights, just war, nationality, and progress, through theoretical debates and historical examples.
Social Studies 98de. International Institutions and World Politics
Catalog Number: 5519
Kip Charles Wennerlund
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores the conditions under which international institutions affect world politics. International institutions are defined broadly, from enduring sets of rules, norms and practices, to formal international organizations like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund. Reviews contending theoretical perspectives that disagree about the impact that international institutions have on relations among states and on outcomes within states. Surveys a number of influential precursors to present-day international institutions. Examines a variety of international and regional institutions in political, economic, security, environmental and humanitarian issue areas.
Social Studies 98dg. Democracy and Dictatorship
Catalog Number: 9019
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Considers why certain countries develop and maintain democratic institutions while others do not. Are the answers to be found in sociological preconditions, political culture, or institutional developments? Readings are drawn from classics in political science and sociology. Consideration is given to historical and contemporary cases.
*Social Studies 99. Tutorial — Senior Year
Catalog Number: 7501
Judith E. Vichniac and staff
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Writing of senior honors essay.
Note: Required for concentrators.