*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.
*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 98cb. Work in American Society
Catalog Number: 1503
Cameron Macdonald (University of Conneticut)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores work and its transformations in the 20th-century U.S. Investigates the nature and meaning of work and workplace dynamics, beginning with foundational texts by Marx, Weber, and Braverman. Analyzes critical contemporary issues including labor conflict and workplace control; segregation and stratification in the work force; emotional labor in the service sector; the dynamics of work and family; and emerging forms of work in the context of globalization and downsizing.
*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 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 98db. Democracies and Markets
Catalog Number: 8362
Phineas Baxandall
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
An examination of the relationships between politics and the economy in modern democracies. Instead of starting from the assumption of pure markets isolated from politics, this course will treat the economy as a fundamentally political set of institutions. The course first examines the inherent political tensions within democracies, the contingent social arrangements underlying “laws” of economics, and the degree to which democracies and markets support or harm each other. Students will then examine the dynamics of interest groups, states, and social movements in shaping the economy. The second half of the course applies these theories to debates about: the influence of money in American politics, the welfare state, unemployment, globalization, and the information economy.
*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 98di. The Politics of Inequality in Latin America: The Transformation of Political Representation in the Neoliberal Era
Catalog Number: 8597
Steven R. Levitsky
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
This course examines old and new efforts to organize, represent, and control the poor in Latin America. After first analyzing “traditional” patterns of social and political organization such as clientelism, populism, and corporatism, the course examines how changing class structures, economic liberalization, and the decline of corporatism are reshaping patterns of representation. Specific topics include party and party system change; the emergence of “neo-populist” leaders; and the rise of new social movements, NGOs, and other alternative forms of organization. The course asks whether these organizations can fill the representational void created by the weakening of unions and populist parties, or whether labor’s decline will mean a return to more exclusionary, clientelistic, and “neo-oligarchic” politics.
*Social Studies 98dm. Modernity and its Discontents
Catalog Number: 5662
James E. Miller
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores a variety of themes and texts that epitomize some of the critical concerns of our age. Among the issues discussed are freedom and the problem of progress; the end of slavery and the implications of European world domination; new views of human nature; the idea of the avant-garde; and the moral implications of modern war and totalitarianism. Among the authors read are Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Thomas Jefferson, Robespierre, Condorcet, Olaudauh Equiano, Hegel, Marx, Dostoevsky, Joseph Conrad, Freud, Marinetti, Ernst Junger, Paul Nizan, Tadeusz Borowski, Walter Benjain, Hannah Arnedt, and Michel Foucault.
*Social Studies 98dq. The Environment, Law and Culture: The Logic of Preservation
Catalog Number: 8924
Jonathan D. Kahn (Bard College)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
How, why, and to what extent should the American legal system protect the natural environment? Begins by exploring the logic of preservation underlying the laws protecting endangered species, wilderness, and national parks. Moves beyond environmental law itself to consider such issues as
what is wilderness? What makes a natural wonder different from a cultural or human-made wonder?
What makes either, or both, deserving of preservation? Compares the logic of environmental
preservation laws with laws protecting historic buildings and cultural property such as Elgin
Marbles. Considers whether distinct cultural communities can or should be accorded legal protection on a par with natural communities. Ends with a consideration of the special case of indigenous American peoples, who occupy a distinctive place, historically, culturally, and legally, in American society.
*Social Studies 98dr. Moral and Political Ideas: Contemporary Moral and Political Theory
Catalog Number: 3390
Lisa S. Rivera
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines some of the main questions in contemporary political theory. Questions include: What is the role of the state in shaping our lives and our relationships with other citizens? What is the nature of the relationship between the individual and the State? What legitimates the State’s authority? What causes oppression, and how does the fact of oppression constitute a challenge to the liberal conception of the State?
*Social Studies 98ds. Economic Attitudes, Financial Decisions, and the Structure of Wealth Inequality in America
Catalog Number: 8682
Mariko Chang
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines how people’s attitudes and thoughts about money and wealth influence their financial decisions. Also explores the relationship between economic attitudes, financial decisions, and the structure of social inequality. Students will conduct original research in order to address the following questions: How and why do people’s attitudes towards money, investment, and wealth differ along
racial, class, and gender lines? Are financial knowledge and/or certain financial attitudes a form of “cultural capital” that is passed from parents to children? Why is wealth inequality so much greater than income inequality?
*Social Studies 98dt. Local/Global: East Asian Experiences
Catalog Number: 1572
Yuehtsen Juliette Chung
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines how different constitutive processes of globalization transform key aspects of, and are in turn shaped by, institutions such as sciences and technology, religion, nation-state, citizenship, and cultural representations, through the passages of communication, urbanization, translation, and migration. Also discusses the issues set forth by the globalizing and local forces in the process of homogenization and conflicts. Pays particular attention to exploring a balanced approach (in any discipline or all together) in which we will not lose sight of both local and global contexts. Examines case studies focused on East Asia both as a geographic region and a propagating cultural space.
*Social Studies 98dw. Gender Politics
Catalog Number: 0447
Oona Britt Ceder
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Employing gender as a category of analysis, this course will examine women’s political consciousness and participation from the late eighteenth century to the present. The first part of the course will investigate the political activities and status of women in North America. Cases to be considered include Native American women’s resistance to colonial rule; the role of African-American and white women in the movements for the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage; and the emergence of Hispanic and Asian women on the U.S. political stage. In the second part of the course, students will evaluate the contribution of gender-based analysis to the study of contemporary political life and issues. U.S. as well as global perspectives will be considered.
*Social Studies 98dy. Rise of the West
Catalog Number: 3381
Tom Peter Harsanyi
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
This course examines a variety of historical developments and theories in an attempt to suggest answers to Max Webers old questions of how and why the West gradually emerged as the politically, economically, and scientifically most modern and dominant civilization in the world over the course of the medieval and early-modern periods. . The course will begin with a unit on the incipient recovery of Western civilization during the Dark Ages after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and will proceed to analyze the development and expansion of the economic, political, and scientific power of both European and non-Western civilizations during the medieval and early-modern periods. Students should be aware that this is not a course in moral philosophy or cultural studies.
*Social Studies 98xx. Urban Village or Urban Pillage: The Life, Death and Dreams of American Cities
Catalog Number: 9332
Corey Dolgon
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
This course will investigate theories and approaches to the sociology of urban space and examine the historical evolution of economic development, political struggles, and social identities of cities and their people. In particular, we will look at the relationships between urban geographies and economic markets; links among industrialization, immigration, and urban politics; connections between the physical landscape and social class; and the cultural politics of contemporary urban, suburban and exurban spaces. Our goals will be to understand and apply a variety of sociological theories to analyzing historical and contemporary urban issues. The pervading theme throughout the course will be the possibilities of cities as ideal human landscapes.
*Social Studies 98av. Leadership and Followership in Modern Society: Politics, Personality, and Charisma
Catalog Number: 5427
Richard M. Hunt
Half course (spring term). W., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
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 98ck. Community Empowerment and Civic Democracy in the Contemporary United States: Theory, Practice, and Policy
Catalog Number: 9316
Carmen J. Sirianni (Brandeis University)
Half course (spring term). F., 1–4. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7, 8
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). Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
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). M., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
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 98cv. Authoritarianism and Democracy in Latin America
Catalog Number: 5595
Steven R. Levitsky
Half course (spring term). M., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
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 98cz. Boundaries and Nationalism: The New Ethnography of Europe
Catalog Number: 0758
Thomas Michael Malaby
Half course (spring term). M., 1–3.
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 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 boundaries, gender, and violence to understand the recent and tragic events in the region.
[*Social Studies 98da. Disaster, Trauma, and Community in America]
Catalog Number: 2680
David Fithian
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
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.
Note: Expected to be given in 2001–02.
*Social Studies 98de. International Institutions and World Politics
Catalog Number: 4405
Kip Charles Wennerlund
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
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
Judith E. Vichniac
Half course (spring term). W., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
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 98dh. Cultural Pluralism and American Law
Catalog Number: 1941
Jonathan D. Kahn (Bard College)
Half course (spring term). W., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
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 98dj. The Rule of Law: Social Theoretical Debates
Catalog Number: 7023
Rebecca Mary McLennan
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
How has the advent of corporate capitalism, private and public bureaucracies, and “globalization” affected the operations of formal, calculable legal principles of the kind conceived by Locke and other early liberal theorists? Has the liberal rule of law lost its efficacy and its legitimacy? Does it sustain or undermine the social relations of capitalist mass democracies? Explores the social theoretical debates around the fate of formal law under the conditions of modernity. Among other questions, considers Marxian critiques of formal law; Max Weber’s analysis of law in the age of bureaucratic rationalization; the conservatives’ attack on liberal law (Carl Schmitt and Friedrich Hayek); and the debate between the Frankfurt theorists (Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Jürgen Habermas) and Critical Legal Studies (Duncan Kennedy and Roberto Unger) on whether liberal law is determinant and legitimate.
*Social Studies 98do. Genes “R” Us?: Towards a Social Analysis of Genetics and its Application in New Technologies
Catalog Number: 0509
Karen-Sue Taussig
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Examines the complex ways that genetic knowledge and its application in biotechnology reflect important aspects of contemporary American social life. Explores how such knowledge and
technology are enmeshed in social, political, and economic systems. How do people encounter and make sense of these emerging areas of social life? Does this new knowledge affect the ways in which people understand their relationships to others? Does it affect people’s conceptions of what it means to be human? Do technologies such as those associated with genetic testing create new sites for imagining new futures and new social and cultural practices?
*Social Studies 98dp. Children and Public Discourse: From the Progressive Era to the Present
Catalog Number: 6204
Kiku Addato
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
What political, social, and cultural forces explain the place and treatment of children in contemporary public discourse? Within this historical perspective, traces the role of children in public discourse from the Progressive era to the present. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between the civic and reform movements to improve the lives of children; the growing influence of the consumer and popular culture; and the powerful role of visual images (used by reformers, journalists, advertisers, and entertainers) in shaping and defining childhood. Among the topics covered are the reform movements in education (from Dewey to contemporary debates), the role of documentary photography and photojournalism (from the work of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis to current documentary work on children’s poverty and health), and the deepening influence of the commercial and popular culture on children (from the rise of the movies at the turn of the century to the role of television and the Internet today).
*Social Studies 98du. Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
Catalog Number: 2976
James Schmidt (Boston University)
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Traces the vicissitudes of the Enlightenment ideals of reason, critique, and autonomy over the last two centuries. Through an examination of the arguments of both advocates and critics of the Enlightenment, explores such themes as the relationship between tradition and authority, science and domination, reason, and emancipation. Readings will be drawn from the works of Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, G. W. F. Hegel, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas.
*Social Studies 98dx. Feminist Theory: Equality, Identity, Difference
Catalog Number: 3055
Oona Britt Ceder
Half course (spring term). W., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
This course will examine main currents of feminist thought. We will read feminist theories that have their origins in Western social and political thought (Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Emma Goldman, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Okin, Catharine MacKinnon, Iris Young), as well as works and essays by writers who reject the methods of canonical thought and develop new, oppositional forms of feminist theorizing (Irigaray, Audre Lorde, Mary Daly, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler). Through analysis of these thinkers and writers, students will acquire an understanding of the relationship between feminist theories and major traditions of social and political critique (liberalism, socialism, Marxism, postmodernism, and existentialist, psychoanalytic, literary, and cultural theories).
*Social Studies 98dz. Democratic Theory
Catalog Number: 8691
Jeffrey B. Abramson (Brandeis University)
Half course (spring term). Th., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 18
What makes democracy morally the best form of government? Or do we have to fall back on Churchill’s famous quip that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others? From the psychological point of view, does democracy find its justification in accommodating human nature and its interests or in transforming human nature? This seminar will examine these and other questions of political theory, drawing primarily on the United States for its examples. Both classical and contemporary theories of democracy will be at issue. Proposals for reform, including those drawing on the “direct democratic” capacities of the Internet will be debated.
*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.