Faculty First Year Seminars 197SOC5 - BERNIE MEETS KARL: Socialism i

The 2016 U.S. Presidential election featured an effective, openly socialist candidate, Bernie Sanders. Socialism has a long history in the U.S., including Abraham Lincoln?s own contacts with Marx and the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, after whom our library is named. This course will survey the origins and history of socialism, joined at birth with the discipline of sociology, with a focus on the U.S. We will encounter socialist interpretations of race, class and gender inequalities, along with their critiques. In the final weeks of the course we will contrast socialist and non-socialist perspectives on the big issues raised in the Presidential campaign--college education, trade and technology, income inequality, racism and police brutality. We will end by considering the future prospects for socialism in the U.S. in light of its failures and successes to date.

Freshmen Only