Topics vary from semester to semester and will be announced.

Students will consider ways in which social communities intersect with, respond to, and create musical communities. Musical taste will be interrogated as a point of identification and self-presentation that is neither given nor natural, but contingent and constructed. Students will engage foundational critical texts in the sociology of music, and examine both the continuities and the disjunctures represented by our era of digital social media. Prerequisites: six credits of Sociology or permission of instructor

Comparison of family organizations in relation to other social institutions in various societies; an introduction to the theory of kinship and marriage systems.

This study of the development of human societies explores the five major 'techo-economic bases' that have characterized our species' history (hunting-gathering, horticultural, agrarian, industrial and information/biotech) and examines how contemporary macrolevel trends affect our lives at the microlevel.

This course is an early level course, which aims to introduce students to a sociological perspective on popular culture, and to examine the working of selected sociological concepts in several examples of popular culture. A familiarity with introductory level sociology is suggested, but not required. The course has two parts. In the first we will become acquainted with sociological perspectives and theories on culture; in the second we will look at several popular novels and movies and discuss how they might be interpreted sociologically.

Introduces data analysis and data processing, as well as the conceptualization of sociological problems. Emphasizes individual student projects.

Studies the fundamental concepts and principles of sociology with special attention to sociological theory and research methods. Survey of the diverse substantive fields in the discipline with a primary emphasis on the institutions in contemporary American society.

Gender and Society

Analyzes the causes and consequences of current social problems in the United States: race and ethnic relations, poverty, crime and delinquency, the environment, drugs, and problems of educational institutions.

This seminar provides a survey of Chinese society and social changes in the reform-era (1979 to the present). It uses sociological analysis to comprehensively examine various aspects of contemporary Chinese society including: economic development, social inequality, governance, political reform, nationalism, religion, ethnicity, and popular culture.