This course will explore ethnographic field methods and techniques as well as the epistemological, political and ethical debates about them. In order to explore various approaches to writing an ethnographic text, students will read excerpts from classic ethnographies and full-length contemporary ethnographies; discuss content, method, and style of each piece; and examine the connections between theory and method. Students will gain an understanding of differing approaches to fieldwork and analysis and discuss the broader ethical and theoretical implications of each approach.

(Offered as SOCI 333 and BLST 246 [US].  This course is an intensive examination of the politics, and the policy consequences, of racial and ethnic identity in the United States. The course focuses on the historical and contemporary experiences of several racial and ethnic groups in American politics. Attention is given to contemporary issues, emphasizing the roles of governmental actors, institutions, and policies. In the first part of the course, we begin by considering the concept of racial identity.

Sociology emerged as part of the intellectual response to the French and Industrial Revolutions. In various ways, the classic sociological thinkers sought to make sense of these changes and the kind of society that resulted from them. We shall begin by examining the social and intellectual context in which sociology developed and then turn to a close reading of the works of five important social thinkers: Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, and Freud.

This course examines the use and control of mood-altering drugs in the United States today.  Specifically, we look at two important sets of issues: first, the increasing use of prescription drugs to deal with a growing range of human moods and thoughts; second, the ongoing “war” against drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.   By juxtaposing these two, we will reflect on the contradictions of drug use and drug control in America.  On the one hand, we take a more punitive approach to the control of currently illegal drugs like marijuana than any other west

In this course we will examine texts that challenge the conventional wisdom of sociology, thereby enabling us to see foundational concerns of the discipline in new ways. These texts--some by sociologists, some not--will be used to explore such things as changing modes of social power, the cultural unconscious, commodity culture, normality and its transgressions, media technology and the social imaginary, as well as social identity and the self in ways unanticipated by mainstream sociological thought.

(Offered as ENGL 180 and FAMS 110.)  A first course in reading films and writing about them. A varied selection of films for study and criticism, partly to illustrate the main elements of film language and partly to pose challenging texts for reading and writing. Frequent short papers. Two 80-minute class meetings and two screenings per week.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester:  Visiting Professor Johnston.  Spring semester:  Visiting Lecturer Pritchett.

(Offered as ENGL 160 and BLST 132 [US].)  The focus of this introduction to African American literature is the complex intertextuality at the heart of the African American literary tradition.  Tracing the tradition’s major formal and thematic concerns means looking for connections between different kinds of texts:  music, art, the written word, and the spoken word–-and students who take this class will acquire the critical writing and interpretive skills necessary to any future study of literature.

Fall semester.  Professor Parham.

(Offered as ENGL 160 and BLST 132 [US].)  The focus of this introduction to African American literature is the complex intertextuality at the heart of the African American literary tradition.  Tracing the tradition’s major formal and thematic concerns means looking for connections between different kinds of texts:  music, art, the written word, and the spoken word–-and students who take this class will acquire the critical writing and interpretive skills necessary to any future study of literature.

Fall semester.  Professor Parham.