An interactive introduction to the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. This course emphasizes communication through extensive oral practice in class in order to provide students with an immersion experience. Covers basic grammar structures to equip students to communicate about personal information (description of self and family, routine, preferences) and carry out basic tasks (asking for directions, ordering food, making simple purchases).

An interactive introduction to the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. This course emphasizes communication through extensive oral practice in class in order to provide students with an immersion experience. Covers basic grammar structures to equip students to communicate about personal information (description of self and family, routine, preferences) and carry out basic tasks (asking for directions, ordering food, making simple purchases).

From A.I.-generated art to selfies, images saturate contemporary social life. This course investigates visual imagery through the lens of sociology. In particular, it focuses on how sociologists engage with visual material in the study of society. Students will examine how sociologists use images to build and evaluate theory, create new concepts, and display their findings. Students will also explore methodological approaches sociologists draw on to incorporate images as a source of data.

This course investigates economic development and globalization through a sociological lens. What is development? Why and how has the idea of development changed over time? Which development policies has this promoted, and with what consequences on people's lives in developing countries? Based on case studies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, the course examines economic, political, and institutional factors that inform global development processes from post-WWII to the present.

We live in a society described by massive data sets, dynamically organized by computer code. New divisions of digital labor align complex data infrastructures while mathematical optimization continues to expand actuarial logics of decision-making. Algorithms also mediate the social communication of networked publics in ways that transform our social selves and social interaction. This research seminar asks: How do we understand the institutional nature of a society of algorithms?

This course is an introduction to the use of quantitative data in sociology. It focuses on the ways in which data is collected, analyzed, and presented to make sociological arguments. It introduces various tools to describe data for single variables, explore relationships between pairs of variables, and make statistical inferences. Students will learn basic skills to conduct their own social science research and analyze data using statistical software.

What is religion and how does religion intersect with inequality? This course explores sociology's foundational understandings of religion -- including why people are religious, how religion is expressed in social terms and forms, and how sociologists have studied religion -- before interrogating the impact of Western secularization, and how religion and religiosity intersects with modern dimensions of social and material inequality. Readings will include selections from across the global religious landscape, with particular attention to the dominant world religions.

This course introduces students to qualitative research methods. In the course students will get basic training in the collection and analysis of qualitative research data, develop experience writing and presenting qualitative data, gain exposure to the theoretical assumptions underlying qualitative inquiry, and learn insights about the ethical responsibilities surrounding qualitative social analysis. We will focus on methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, and close observations.

Animal welfare (i.e., the psychological and physical well-being of an animal) may impact the quality of research on animals but is rarely discussed. In this class we will learn how to assess animal welfare in the common species/settings used in psychology research (e.g., pigeons, rodents, monkeys housed in research facilities, zoos, and sanctuaries).

Languages differ in the way they describe the world. For example, the noun for bridge is feminine in German, but masculine in French. Russian has two words for blue, while English has only one. The Piraha (an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe) arguably have no number words. In this course, we will be asking to what extent these cross-linguistic differences are reflected in thought. That is, do German speakers think bridges are more feminine than French speakers do? Can Russian speakers discriminate different shades of blue better than English speakers? Can the Piraha count?