CRN	94028	Distribution	A/C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC 101
Title	Introduction to Sociology
Professor	Amy Ansell
Schedule	Tu Th 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 202

Cross listed: American Studies, Environmental Studies

The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the sociological perspective. Its goal is to illuminate the way in which social forces impinge on our individual lives and affect human society. The course is organized into four main parts. In the first, key sociological concepts and methods will be introduced via the study of the fathers of sociology: Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. In the second part, we will examine the significance of various forms of social inequality, particularly those based on class, race, and gender. We will then survey several important social institutions: the family, the economic order, the political order, and education. The fourth and final part of the course will focus on the inter-related issues of socialization, ideology, social movements, and social change.

CRN	94106	Distribution	C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC / HIST 214 *Rethinking Difference
Title	American Immigration: Contemporary Realities and Historical Legacies
Professor	Joel Perlmann
Schedule	Tu Th 4:30 pm - 5:50 pm OLIN 205

Cross listed: Africana Studies, American Studies, Human Rights, SRE

This course examines the huge contemporary immigration (since the 1960s) -- its effect on both the immigrants and the society they have entered.    Throughout, we will ask how the present American experience is similar to, and how it differs from, the earlier American experience as "a country of immigrants"; to this end, we will compare the present to the last great period of American immigration, 1890-1920. Specific topics include 1) immigrant origins and reasons for coming, because today great numbers enter the upper-middle class and millions more enter (as in the past) at the bottom of the economic ladder;   2) how immigrants seek to preserve or shed cultural distinctiveness and ethnic unity;  3) how the children of the immigrants are faring; 4) American politics and legislation around immigration restriction 4) the economic and cultural impact of the immigrants on American society generally; 5) how a largely-non-white immigrant population is influencing the political culture of American racial divisions and the economic position of the native-born poor, among whom blacks are especially concentrated.    Readings will be mostly from social science and history but will also include memoirs, fiction, and policy debates.

CRN	94029	Distribution	C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC 227
Title	Culture Wars
Professor	Amy Ansell
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 205

Cross-listed: American Studies, Human Rights

Related interest: Africana Studies, SRE

Contemporary domestic battles over controversial issues such as gay marriage, abortion and affirmative action have led many to charge that the Culture Wars of the early 1990s have returned to the forefront of public attention. This course will examine the most recent iterations of the Culture Wars as they become manifest during the 2004 election season. Besides a unit that focuses on the election itself, attention will also be given to: (1) the historical sources of the moral and cultural conflicts at issue; (2) empirical debate about the validity of the Culture War thesis itself; (3) charting of various factions of the contemporary conservative movement; and (4) survey of a variety of policy arenas targeted by cultural warriors, including affirmative action, welfare, education, sexuality, and public art.

CRN	94030	Distribution	A / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC / PS 241
Title	Late Modern Political Theory: Knowledge and Organization
Professor	David Kettler
Schedule	Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 107

Since the end of the nineteenth century, political theory has been influenced by its confrontation with the question whether politics can be reduced to a science. Conflicting theories share common features. First, late modern approaches are strongly marked by attention to social theory, the intellectual project centered on problems of modern rationality. Second, conceptions of political knowledge are closely linked to conceptions of organization (and the fear of disorganization). Earlier emphases on justice and authority are overshadowed by questions about the intelligence of political rule. The course will compare major nineteenth- and twentieth-century proposals for institutionalizing rationality in the political system including Mill, Engels/Marx, Weber, Mannheim, Dewey, Marcuse and Habermas, as well as some outstanding critics of the project, including Nietzsche, Hayek, and Foucault.

CRN	94031	Distribution	C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC 242 *Rethinking Difference
Title	Historical Sociology of Punishment
Professor	Michael Donnelly
Schedule	Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 203

Cross-listed: Human Rights

An analysis of punishment, and the rationales for punishing, in a variety of historical circumstances. Cases are drawn from primitive societies, Puritan New England, 18^th and 19^th century western Europe, the American South, and the recent period in the United States and Great Britain. Comparisons among such disparate cases will suggest broad developmental patterns in punishment, and more specific queries about the connections between culture, social structure, and penal strategies. The case materials also offer a historical perspective on such contemporary issues and controversies as the scope of criminal responsibility, the appropriateness of retribution, the declining concern for rehabilitating offenders, and the rationales for, and uses of, the death penalty.

CRN	94032	Distribution	A/C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC 304
Title	Modern Sociological Theory
Professor	Michael Donnelly
Schedule	Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 307

Cross-listed: Human Rights

A critical investigation into the development of modern sociological theories in the United States and Europe. The course will examine, among other schools and traditions, functionalism, conflict theory, exchange and rational choice theory, symbolic interactionism, feminist theory, and critical theory. Readings include works by Talcott Parsons, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jon Elster, George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman, Harold Garfinkel, Dorothy Smith, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas.

Prerequisite: Sociology 203 or permission of the instructor.

CRN	94073	Distribution	C / *(Social Science)
Course No.	SOC / PS 348 *Rethinking Difference
Title	Political Representation and Social Differences
Professor	Pierre Ostiguy
Schedule	Tu 4:00 pm - 6:20 pm OLIN 306

See Political Studies section for description.