Course:

SOC 101  Introduction to Sociology

Professor:

Peter Klein  

CRN:

15645

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM – 1:10 PM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: American Studies

Sociology is the systematic study of social life, social groups, and social relations. The discipline views the individual in context of the larger society, and sheds light on how social structures constrain and enable our choices and actions. Sociologists study topics as varied as race, gender, class, religion, the birth of capitalism, democracy, education, crime and prisons, the environment, and inequality. At its most basic, the course will teach students how to read social science texts and evaluate their arguments. Conceptually, students will learn basic sociological themes and become familiar with how sociologists ask and answer questions. Most importantly, students will come away from the course with a new understanding of how to think sociologically about the world around them, their position in society, and how their actions both affect and are affected by the social structures in which we all live. This course fulfills the Difference & Justice distribution requirement because sociology examines relations among social groups with a particular focus on race, class, and gender inequality, in addition we will attend to patterns of solidarity and conflict in social life.

 

Course:

SOC 120  Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality

Professor:

Yuval Elmelech  

CRN:

15646

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Hegeman 204

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap: 22

Crosslists: American Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights

Why do some people face severe economic hardship and persistent poverty while others enjoy financial security and experience upward mobility? What are the patterns and sources of this inequality? Is inequality inevitable? Through lectures, scholarly works, documentary films, and class discussions, this course examines the causes and consequences of socioeconomic inequality in the contemporary US. Sociological theories are used to explain how and why socioeconomic inequality is produced and maintained, and how it affects the well-being of individuals and social groups. The course will focus on two general themes. The first deals with the structure of inequality while studying the unequal distribution of material and social resources (e.g., social status, earnings, wealth, power). The second examines the processes that determine the allocation of people to positions in the stratification system (e.g. educational attainment, social capital, institutional discrimination, parental wealth).

 

Course:

SOC 213  Sociological Theory

Professor:

Laura Ford  

CRN:

15647

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM – 4:50 PM Olin Language Center 115

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 22

Crosslists: Human Rights

This class introduces students to classical and contemporary sociological theories. It considers foundational theories that emerged from the social upheavals of modernization in the 19th Century, including those of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and DuBois. The course thus introduces many enduring themes of sociology: alienation and anomie; social structure and disorganization; group conflict and solidarity; secularization and individualism; bureaucracy and institutions, the division of labor, capitalism, and the nature of authority. We then follow these conversations into the contemporary era, examining traditions such as functionalism, conflict theory, rational choice, symbolic interactionism, feminist theory, and critical theory, including thinkers such as G.H. Mead, Robert Merton, Pierre Bourdieu, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault. Students will learn the key concepts of major theoretical approaches in sociology, and will consider questions such as the relationship between theory and research, and the relationship of social conditions to the production of knowledge.

 

Course:

SOC 224  Punishment, Prisons, & Policing

Professor:

Allison McKim  

CRN:

15648

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM – 1:10 PM Olin 204

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 22

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American Studies; Human Rights

This course introduces students to the sociology of punishment and criminal justice. The amount and type of punishment found in society is not a simple, direct result of crime patterns. Rather, to understand how and why we punish, we must examine the ways that historical processes, social structures, institutions, and culture shape penal practices as well as how systems of punishment shape society. This course draws on sociological and historical scholarship to explore the social functions of punishment, its cultural foundations and meanings, what drives changes in how we punish and police, the relationship between penal practices and state power, and the role of the system in reproducing race, gender, and class inequality. The course digs deeply into research on the punitive turn in American criminal justice over the last 4 decades. We consider the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, its racial disparities, the drug war, the effects of intensive policing, the politicization of crime, changing gender dynamics, and the role of criminal justice in the welfare state. This course fulfills the Difference & Justice distribution requirement because a central task is to examine the role of racial inequality in the American criminal legal system.

 

Course:

SOC 333  Tricks of the Trade: Qualitative Research Practicum

Professor:

Allison McKim  

CRN:

15649

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    12:30 PM – 2:50 PM Olin 303

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 12

Crosslists: American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights

To study social life, researchers often turn to methods of inquiry based on interviewing people, observation, or examining the meanings of texts like ads and news coverage. This course gives students instruction in how to conduct this kind of qualitative research, focusing on ethnography (participant observation), in-depth interviewing, and discourse/content analysis. The course is ideal for moderated students from various majors who plan to use these research methods for their senior project or those who are interested in pursuing social research in the future. The class offers both conceptual grounding and practical training. Students will develop and conduct a qualitative research study. To do this, students will engage epistemological questions about how we create knowledge and learn the nitty-gritty aspects of how to design and carry out research. These include techniques for taking field notes, conducting interviews, picking case studies, and interpreting and analyzing qualitative data. In the process, students will learn about debates over objectivity, power, inequality, and perspective in social research. The course offers training in research ethics and human subjects (IRB) review.

 

Course:

SOC 348  Empires, City-States and Nation-States: An exploration of the social and political dimensions of Rule

Professor:

Karen Barkey 

CRN:

15991

Schedule/Location:

   Tue    3:10 PM – 5:30 PM Olin 304

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 12

Crosslists: Historical Studies

Nation-states as territorially bounded sovereign polities are a relatively novel form of governance and since their emergence they have sometimes modeled themselves on larger scale alliances and unions that may remind us of empires. Empire, on the other hand, a different form of political organization, has existed since antiquity and has endured past the era of colonialism. They endured as layered civilizations, a bricolage of peoples and cultures, through violent expansion but also by creating some sort of PAX in international and internal political relations. Similarly, at a different scale, city-states were determined by geography and the absence of strong central political structures. They were organized around cities as centers of political, social and economic life and claimed sovereignty over a neighboring territory. This course will explore the three different models of political and social governance in historical and comparative fashion. We will first study concepts of state, power, and governmentality before we discuss cases. We will study exemplary cases of empire (The Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire); Italian city -states (as well as contemporary city-states) and then explore transitions to nation-states. Students will be guided to explore cases through comparative historical and political analysis.

 

Course:

SOC/EUS 361  Hudson Valley Cities and Environmental (In)Justice

Professor:

Peter Klein  

CRN:

15961

Schedule/Location:

   Every Other Fri     10:10 AM – 12:30 PM Olin 202

Distributional Area:

SA  Social Analysis   D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 2

 

Class cap 15

Crosslists: Architecture; American Studies

How do urban processes of growth, decline, and revitalization affect different groups, particularly along dimensions of race, class, and gender? This place-based research seminar course looks closely at this question by examining the historical, political, and social landscape of Kingston. We will use this nearby city as a case to explore theories on urban transformation and the contemporary challenges that face small urban centers. In particular, the course will use the lens of environmental inequality to examine the effects of historical processes, as well as to investigate how residents and government officials are addressing pressing problems. The course will look specifically at issues of food justice, pollution, access to resources, environmental decision-making processes, and housing security. We will visit Kingston as a class, and students will develop and carry out their own project with a community partner. (This course fulfills the practicum requirement for moderated EUS students.) Admission by permission of the instructor. This course will usually meet every other Friday from 10:10-12:30, but students must be available from 9:00-1:00, in order to allow for off-campus trips. Please note that this is the second semester of a two-semester course. Students must have taken the first section of the course in fall 2021 to enroll.  This is an Engaged Liberal Arts & Sciences (ELAS) course. In this course you will be given the opportunity to bridge theory to practice while engaging a community of interest throughout the semester. A significant portion of ELAS learning takes place outside of the classroom: students learn through engagement with different geographies, organizations, and programs in the surrounding communities or in collaboration with partners from Bard's national and international networks. To learn more please click here.

 

Cross-listed courses:

 

Course:

CC 108 C  The Courage to be: Liberator or Leviathan: Law in the Liberal Arts

Professor:

Laura Ford  

CRN:

15985

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM – 4:50 PM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value  SA  Social Analysis   

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 22

Crosslists: Sociology

What does law have to do with justice? Do our laws regulating property and contract impact the work of artists and scientists? If lawyers tell stories in court, how do these stories work like novels and dramas to reflect and change who we are? How does the ideal of legal justice inspire or impede activism in the name of social justice? What kinds of courage, responsibility, and conviction might be required for people who choose to engage with law and legal institutions, whether as lawyers, lawmakers, judges, or simply as citizens? These are the types of questions that we will consider in this class. Building from Plato’s culminating text in political and social theory, The Laws, we will consider answers rooted in comparative history, in legal philosophy, in empirical social studies, and in the practical experience of lawyers, lawmakers, and political activists. The course will offer an introduction to sources of law and methods of legal research. But the course is driven by a more ambitious goal: to enable students to understand law as a “liberal art,” as a complement to their other studies at Bard, and as a vital locus for thoughtfully engaged citizenship.

 

Course:

ECON 227  The Right to Employment

Professor:

Pavlina Tcherneva  

CRN:

15588

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Campus Center WEIS

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 20

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights; Sociology

 

Course:

PSY 220  Social Psychology

Professor:

Kristin Lane  

CRN:

15387

Schedule/Location:

 Tue   Fri   1:30 PM – 2:50 PM Hegeman 308

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 22

Crosslists: Gender and Sexuality Studies; Sociology

 

Course:

REL 298  Sharing the Sacred: Space, Narratives and Pilgrimages

Professor:

Karen Barkey  

CRN:

15737

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM – 1:10 PM Olin 309

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

Credits: 4

 

Class cap 15

Crosslists: Sociology