Sociology 316VN - Special Topics in Sociology: 'Violence and Intimacy'

What makes violences "intimate"? And how are the most private experiences of violence also collective ones? This course examines how seemingly private violences - such as intimate partner violence - come to be defined as public problems. Students will analyze how collective violences are intimately experienced and how intimate violences are collective issues. In our sociological examination of violence, we will trace the connections between the intimate and the collective, the historical and the present, the interpersonal and the structural to answer our initial questions of how to define violence, intimacy, and intimate violences. We will conclude by examining responses and solutions that have been enacted to prevent abuse and will imagine futures without violence.

Prereq: 8 credits in sociology.