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Race in the Americas
This is a mixed undergraduate/graduate level course on race
throughout the Americas. Race has been important in constructing national
identity and individual identities and life chances throughout Latin America,
though in ways different from those with which many US students will be
familiar. This course focuses on two central themes of race in Latin America:
1) the socially and culturally constructed rather than “natural” nature of
race, and 2) the realities of racial inequality. We cover the ambiguity about
race in Latin America (including silence, euphemism, “whitening,” color
terminology, the weak black power movement, and the nationalization of
Afro-derived culture). Then, we examine the overwhelming evidence of
socio-economic inequalities based on skin color. Throughout the semester, we
will compare these processes to those occurring in the United States, relying
on comparative readings to guide us.
Sociology of Culture
This is a mixed graduate/undergraduate level course on the
sociology of culture. By the sociology of culture, I refer to three
intellectual orientations: 1) to understand what constitutes culture, how it
is constructed, what forms it takes, 2) to examine how culture – in its many
forms – influences, or even co-constitutes, social processes and structures,
and 3) to examine culture as a tool actors use in social action. We will
discuss several active debates in the literature on culture: structure vs.
agency, form vs. content, and coherence vs. incoherence. Culture touches many sub disciplines in
sociology (race, gender, social movements, politics, nationalism, etc.), but
we will not have time to discuss all of these areas. The theoretical works we
will read are broadly oriented towards many areas of social like. The
empirical readings emphasize inequality, race, class, gender, and work. We
will begin by reviewing the role of culture in the work of major classic
theorists. Then, we will spend the majority of the semester discussing the
variety of directions taken by contemporary work on culture.
Sociology of
Popular Culture
This undergraduate course explores “popular culture” – popular
material goods, television and movies, music, dance, art, festivals,
holidays, etc. – from a sociological perspective. What this means is that we
will examine themes of race, class, gender, commodification, globalization,
subculture groups, identity, resistance, and domination through popular
culture. The class is framed around the theoretical traditions of conflict
theory and symbolic interactionism, providing unity to the diverse topics and
subjects we discuss. Students will analyze a popular culture artifact and
event of their choice and will learn to apply a sociological framework to
viewing movies, TV, music, and other forms of culture.
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