Gender & Globalization

Examines how globalization impacts gender relations, as well as how beliefs about femininity and masculinity influence globalization. Focuses on particularly important contexts, including: global production, international debt, migration, sex, tourism and war.

Sociology of Love

The Sociology of Love looks at a subject that we all take for granted, but none of us understand. Love is both a physiological state and a socially constructed experience. We will examine the major bio-chemical, psychological, and sociological theories that have attempted to explain the causes and nature of love and attraction. We will also look at the social construction of love through Western history, as well as in other cultures, and at the complex relationships that exist between love, "courtship", marriage, and sexuality.

Race, Class, and Crime

This course will take an historical approach to understanding the relationship between race, class and the criminal justice system. We will analyze the various ways that social inequality, as a result of race and class, mediate individual and social group experiences with crime and the legal system. We will also analyze the affect of mass incarceration on poor and marginalized communities. The main goal of the course is to situate contemporary inequalities in the criminal justice system and their impact on communities, social groups, and populations in an historical context.

Gender And Crime

The extent and causes of gender differences in crime, from the "streets" to the "suites." Topics include problems in the general measurement of crime, historical and cross-cultural differences in the gender gap, the utility of general theories of the causes of crime in explaining the continuing gender gap, and a detailed look at the question and magnitude of gender discrimination in the American criminal justice system.

Deviance & Social Order

The relation of deviant behavior to acceptable social patterns of behavior. Several forms of deviant behavior, both economic and personal transgressions of acceptable behavior. The causes and conditions for the creation of deviant behavior and the mechanisms for its social control. Prerequisite: 100-level Sociology course.

Sociology/IntlCrises&Disasters

Disasters result from sudden or slow incremental environmental changes, technological glitches, industrial negligence, chemical pollution, and willful acts of terror. Despite various sources of disasters, they all culminate in unmistakable massive changes for individuals, rural communities, and urban centers. While earlier understanding of disasters focused on the impact of "natural" disasters on the built environment and fatalities, more recent sociological theories and case studies of disasters have given more attention to the social causes and consequences of disaster.

Social Movements

Explores how and why social movements occur, what strategies they use, how they create collective identities, how issues such as civil rights, workers' rights, women's rights, the environment, the global economy mobilize activists' participation within the circumstances faced.
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