Sociology (SOC-UA)

Offered every semester. 4 points. Survey of the field of sociology: its basic concepts, theories, and research orientation. Threshold course that provides the student with insights into the social factors in human life. Topics include social interaction, socialization, culture, social structure, stratification, political power, deviance, social institutions, and social change.

What forms does gender inequality take, and how can it best be explained? How and why are the relations between women and men changing? What are the most important social, political, and economic consequences of this ?gender revolution?? The course provides answers to these questions by examining a range of theories about gender in light of empirical findings about women?s and men?s behavior.

This course illustrates how social factors influence even the very personal realms of sex and love, and how these topics can be studied scientifically. Focusing on modern societies, topics include dating and romantic relationships; relational and casual sex; contraception and unintended pregnancy; heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and bisexual sexualities; cultural attitudes toward sexuality; changing meanings of marriage. The aim of the course is to expose students to sociological research on sexuality and love. Students often like taking courses on this topic because they are personally interested in the topic. I am happy to have such students, but I explain at the outset that the fact that we are studying a “fun” topic does not mean that this is not a rigorous course. As with other courses, the focus should be dual: that they are exposed to the substance of research on the topic, and that they learn about the way social scientists do research and draw conclusions from data analysis.

Prerequisite: one previous course in sociology, junior standing, or permission of the instructor. Brenner, Corradi, Ertman, Goodwin, Lukes. Offered every semester. 4 points. Examines the nature of sociological theory and the value of and problems in theorizing. Provides a detailed analysis of the writings of major social theorists since the 19th century in both Europe and America: Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Freud, Mead, Parsons, Merton, Goffman, Habermas, Giddens, Alexander, and Bourdieu.

Social life in its different forms, from the delicate equilibrium of a triadic relation to the chaotic dynamic of a crowd, emerges from the interdependent behavior of multiple actors. By studying social networks – i.e., the web of relationships in which individuals and groups are embedded –, we will understand important collective dynamics, such as interpersonal influence, social diffusion, the origin of social norms, group cohesion and intergroup conflict, political participation, and market exchange. This course will offer an overview of basic social networks concepts, combining the theoretical tradition of structural and relational sociology with the analytical tools of graph theory.

What is 'race' exactly? Defining the concept presents a real challenge. This class explores what race and ethnicity mean, beginning with historical ideas about human difference. Comparing American beliefs and practices to those found in other societies, we will pay special attention to the particular notions and hierarchies of race that emerge in different times and places. The course also investigates the roles that institutions like the media, the arts, the state, and the sciences play in shaping our understandings of race and ethnicity. We will conclude by considering the predictions that scholars have made about the future of racial stratification in the United States.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Sociology (V93.0001) recommended but not required. Chibber, Conley, Guthrie, Heyns, Jackson, Manza, Persell, Torche. Offered every year. 4 points. Sociological overview of the causes and consequences of social inequality. Topics include the concepts, theories, and measures of inequality; race, gender, and other caste systems; social mobility and social change; institutional supports for stratification, including family, schooling, and work; political power and the role of elites; and comparative patterns of inequality, including capitalist, socialist, and postsocialist societies.

Concepts and data tools for the study of social change with an emphasis on the United States. Lectures will cover both substance and methods; students will do projects that apply what they have learned to public data on social change. Goals of the course include the search for evidence, integrating theory and evidence, and social science tools for analyzing change.

Why and how do people form groups to change their society? Analyzes reformist, revolutionary, and nationalistic struggles; their typical patterns and cycles; and the role of leaders as well as symbols, slogans, and ideologies. Concentrates on recent social movements such as civil rights, feminism, ecology, the antinuclear movement, and the New Right; asks how these differ from workers? movements. Examines reformist versus radical tendencies in political movements.

Offered every semester. 4 points. Examines the several methodologies employed in sociological analysis. Studies the relationship between the sociological question raised and the method employed. Some methods covered include survey design and analysis, unobtrusive measures, historical sociology, interviews, content analysis, and participant observation. Introduc-tion to methods of quantitative data processing.

Gives students in the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, political science, and metropolitan studies) an introduction to the logic and methods of descriptive and inferential statistics with social science applications. Deals with univariate and bivariate statistics and introduces multivariate methods. Problems of causal inference. Computer computation.

This course will introduce students to sociological perspectives on “economic” behavior. Economic sociologists study concepts and institutions that economists assume to be fairly obvious and transparent as socially constructed and culturally and historically specific. For example, if everything is purchasable, why is sex-work still illegal in many countries? Can we negotiate and purchase intimacy, love, or friendship? What is the relationship between money and morality? What is the role of trust in enabling market exchange? If the market is supposed to work well due to supply and demand, why does it fail so often that our society must assume its periodical failure? How did college education in America get so expensive? The course requires active participation, project work, and presentation on an aspect of economic life students are interested in.

How capitalist democracy affects the distribution of goods, rights, and powers. Asks whether capitalist markets are efficient and whether market outcomes serve the ends of democracy and justice. Explores how efficiency can conflict with justice and how just institutions can in turn have a beneficial impact on efficiency.

How do markets interact with Democracy? It has long been a pillar of modern political thought that there is a deep mutuality between capitalism and liberal democracy. Equally, critics have pointed to myriad ways in which market institutions and their effects are corrosive to both the culture and the practice of democratic politics. We will assess the arguments for and against the positive view. We will also examine the historical record of the capitalism-democracy relationship, as well as its current dynamics, with a special focus on the United States.

Sociological perspectives on law and legal institutions: the meaning and complexity of legal issues; the relation between law and social change; the effects of law; uses of law to overcome social disadvantage. Topics: ?limits of law,? legal disputes and the courts, regulation, comparative legal systems, legal education, organization of legal work, and lawyers? careers.

The goal is to map out the social terrain of medicine: the health care professions, health care systems, illness, and healing. Employs a historical approach to uncover the evolution of health care in the United States and evaluate how sickness and healing are socially constructed and organized. Explores how competing and changing social institutions have reshaped the social landscape of living and dying.

What is culture? Should we understand it as ideas floating in our head? As ways of acting? And where do cultures come from? How do they affect our world? Following both theoretical debates as well as empirical work on music, fashion, film, and food this course is an introduction to the study of meaning in social life. Through these studies and debates, we will try to think about the role of power relations in culture, as well as the place for creativity and ways of challenging power; to see how cultural industries are organized, and how sub-cultures provide alternative ways for people to imagine their world.

Examines the relationship between religion and society, not the ultimate truth of any particular religion or religion in general. What is religion? How is it related to other institutions in society, like science and politics? Is terrorism a natural result of some religions? What do people gain from being religious? How do religions change over time?

Introduction to the sociology of family life. Addresses a range of questions: What is the relationship between family life and social arrangements outside the family (e.g., in the workplace, the economy, the government)? How is the division of labor in the family related to gender, age, class, and ethnic inequality? Why and how have families changed historically? What are the contours of contemporary American families, and why are they changing?

This course provides an introduction to contemporary immigration to the United States, against the backdrop of immigration since the start of the Republic and rooted in socio-behavioral science. The first half of the course is devoted to understanding U.S. law and policy governing immigration, and the second to understanding the characteristics and behavior of foreign-born - especially immigrants - in the United States.

This seminar examines how sociology can help us understand the challenge of climate change. We will briefly overview the climate science and learn about the rise of “weird weather,” but the core themes of the course concern questions about communication and cognition, cultural values and material consumption, politics and persuasion, mitigation and adaptation, economics and social justice, power and social movements, and the possibility of creating new, more sustainable ways of living on earth. We will dedicate several sessions dedicated to Superstorm Sandy and its aftermath, with a focus on the question of how to rebuild a more resilient city and region in anticipation of more extreme weather events.

Introduction to urban sociology. Historical development of American cities and theories about cities. Ongoing processes of urban community life. Are cities sites of individual opportunity and rich communal life, or are they sources of individual pathology and community decline? What social, economic, and political factors promote one outcome or the other? How do different groups fare in the urban context, and why?

The nature and dimensions of power in society. Theoretical and empirical material dealing with national power structures of the contemporary United States and with power in local communities. Topics: the iron law of oligarchy, theoretical and empirical considerations of democracy, totalitarianism, mass society theories, voting and political participation, the political and social dynamics of advanced and developing societies, and the political role of intellectuals. Considers selected models for political analysis.

Following the 9/11 attacks, there has been much discussion of “terrorism” and political violence more generally by politicians, journalists, and scholars. But what exactly is “terrorism,” and how does it differ from other types of violence? This course addresses the following questions: How and for what purposes has the idea of “terrorism” been conceptualized and used by politicians, journalists, and scholars? How have scholars attempted to explain terrorism and political violence? Why and under what conditions does collective violence and terrorism in particular seem to arise? Are terrorism or other forms of political violence ever justified? And does terrorism or violence actually work? If so, how and under what circumstances? To answer these questions, we will examine a wide range of historical cases of terrorism and political violence in the modern world.

How statuses and behaviors come to be considered deviant or normal; theories of causation, deviant cultures, communities, and careers. Functioning of social control agencies. The politics of deviance. Consideration of policy implications.

Examines the making of criminal laws and their enforcement by police, courts, prisons, probation and parole, and other agencies. Criminal behavior systems, theories of crime and delinquency causation, victimization, corporate and governmental crime, and crime in the mass media. Policy questions.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

See the student services administrator for content and other information.

Prerequisite: junior standing and three courses in sociology, including Introduction to Sociology (V93.0001), or written permission of the instructor. 4 points. See the student services administrator for content and other information.

Required both semesters of senior year for all honors students. 4 points. Assists students in designing and completing senior thesis projects and finding appropriate faculty advisers.

Required both semesters of senior year for all honors students. 4 points. Assists students in designing and completing senior thesis projects and finding appropriate faculty advisers.

Offered every year. 4 points.

Prerequisite: permission of the department. 2 or 4 points per term. Intensive research under the supervision of a department faculty member.

The history of Germany in the twentieth century offers rich material to explore various approaches to organizing modern society. Beginning with Imperial Germany in 1900 and moving forward to today’s reunited Germany, we will look at different ways in which the relationship between the state and the individual, and relationship between politics, economy, and society developed over five different political systems. We will interrogate how these institutional arrangements were envisioned and structured and how they were experienced in everyday negotiations. In this course, principle narratives and events will be situated in a European and global context, allowing us to place the concept of German modernity in a comparative framework. Lectures will provide an overview of Germany in the twentieth century; readings and in-class discussions will explore different approaches to analyzing German history and society. During museum visits and walking tours, we will analyze contestations over the various attempts to integrate – both in concerted efforts to memorialize as well as to forget and erase – Germany’s oft-problematic pasts within the narrative of Germany’s present.

How do social movements form in response to environmental concerns? What makes them effective or ineffective? This course analyses the various social movements that organized in response to environmental concerns. Both historical and sociological dimensions of environmental movements are covered, with particular attention given to how issues of environmental protection and social justice intersect. At NYU Berlin, the course includes American (I), European, and in particular German (II), as well as global movements (III).

This course explores the development of the rule of law and human rights issues in post-communist Central Europe. We will also refer to transitional systems outside the post-communist region. Although dealing with Central European region, we will often talk about American situation as well. First, we will face a short introduction into the history of the Central European region and its culture of human rights, and try to delineate this region. Next, we will examine the historical, national and international context of making constitutionalism and the rule of law in Central Europe. We will try to understand what human rights actually mean. We will face the debates that occurred when emerging democracies dealt with the former communist regimes. On several case studies, we will explain several basic attitudes towards the former communist regimes, its apparatchiks, its agents, and collaborators (lustration laws and dealing with the communist crimes). We will compare these approaches with those found elsewhere (South Africa, Latin America). Furthermore, we will examine contemporary human rights debates surrounding abortion, freedom of speech, social rights, the relation between religion and the state, the discrimination against minorities, gay rights, gender discrimination, affirmative action etc. We will also analyze the Western legal transplants in Central Europe and the post-communist application of basic rights. Finally, we will deal with the European Union and the legal dimension of the European Enlargement of 2004.

This course is designed as a collaborative project between NYUB and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin offering students a unique opportunity for academic and cultural exchange in a classroom that serves as a test lab for global education. The course will focus on the current realities and future possibilities of global higher education at the backdrop of its historical and conceptual coordinates. A glance at the con-temporary higher education landscape reveals ambivalent trends and directions: Excellence and internationalization protrude as paradigms that drive universities to secure their stakes in the global higher education market. National politics of education further enhance this competition among institutional front-runners by launching excellence initiatives or entering in supranational Bologna-type arrangements to facilitate cross-border academic exchange and knowledge production. Hence a range of distinct regional approaches to global education have emerged from national models and practices of education. This course will serve as a site of academic dialogue between NYU and HU students in one classroom by pursuing the following three steps. First, it seeks to familiarize its participants with the visions and promises of global education while also paying attention to potential perils involved in globalizing national models of education. Among others, we will address questions such as: How are modes of producing and disseminating knowledge affected when education crosses borders? What does global education demand from student learners and how are globally educated citizens envisioned? How can experiences of knowledge production and education specific to one context be made operable in another? In a second step, the course introduces and compares regional approaches to global education. Different national histories of higher education yield different answers to the questions formulated in the first step. Yet, debates center around (one) global education, not educations. This tension requires scrutiny and, in a third step, it will ask students to develop an informed and critical position on the stakes of global education. In order to make use of the unique classroom setting the course will employ independent (out-of-class) and in-class, individual and collective, analytical and interpretive formats. Students will be particularly encouraged to fully embrace the learning impulses resulting from the inter-cultural encounter between NYU and Humboldt students. The language we are going to acquire in this course is called global education. By starting to learn its rules and formulas, students are likely to see possible future trajectories of educational development and might even envision their future role in it. The class work will culminate in a colloquium at which both NYU and HU students will present their final group projects.

To provide an understanding of the main immigration trends in Britain, France and Germany since 1850 To provide an understanding of the problems attending the social and political integration of immigrants in contemporary Western Europe To compare the experience and understanding of immigration in Europe with the experience and understanding of immigration in the United States To examine the ways in which the memory of immigration is represented in literature and contemporary culture.

What most people know about Italian criminal organizations comes from stereotypical representations in popular culture – films and literature. The analysis of real-world data, such as investigations, proceedings and crime statistics, dismisses many of the accepted myths about Italian mafias over the last decades. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the definitions of this complex phenomenon by demystifying criminal underworld. This course will examine the organization of mafia groups in Italy, their codes and symbols, their activities both in legal and illegal markets, and their relationship to politics and other social institutions. The Italian case will be compared with those countries where Italian mafia groups migrated (such as the United States) and other nations where similar groups operate. Comparisons will enable students to disentangle different types of organized crime and to discover patterns and mechanisms of emergence and persistence across countries. The course will include also a review of the policies designed to control organized crime and of the grassroots initiatives to reduce the risk and combat mafia infiltration into local economy and society.

An introduction to urban societies and politics in Europe. Designed to provide students with practical and theoretical tools to understand and critically analyze European cities. Looks closely at the social, political and urban challenges these cities are currently facing. Urban concepts, as well as pertinent theories in the field, will be studied in order to better comprehend the ever-changing urban fabric of metropolitan areas across Europe. Pays special attention to Madrid and how this city is responding to issues such as gentrification, social exclusion, immigration, racial and spatial segregation, political participation and social movements, public spaces, creative industries, environmental policies, sustainability and local economic development. Specific case studies will provide concrete examples of conflicts around urban space and both participatory and bottom-up initiatives.

This course is a study of comparative human rights between European countries, including Spain, and the United States of America. International human rights legislation imposes the same obligations on all signatory countries. Despite this, however, interpretation and application of these rights vary considerably between countries. Students will explore a set of controversial issues in order to understand the complex differences between the United States and European countries' interpretation of human rights obligations, and will also look at how these differences are portrayed in society by comparing international and national media coverage of the issues. Typically Offered: NYU Madrid Spring Only

This course is a mixture of classroom discussions and field trips to different museums in Berlin, with a focus on the five major museums on Museum Island (Museumsinsel), which were built over a period of 100 years (1830-1930). We will also talk about the newest addition to Museumsinsel, the Humboldt Forum scheduled to open its doors in the reconstructed city palace on Schlossplatz in 2019. Discussions will focus on the nature and social function of museums as well as their role as places where the image of the state and its civil society are constantly reshaped, and how this has evolved up until the era of global migration. Other topics include museum architecture, exhibition design, visitor studies and audience development, museum education, and the museum in the 21st century. A special component of this course in Fall 2015 is the workshop “Where is the Pergamon Altar? Visitor Orientation and Expectations in the Pergamon Museum.” With the help of renowned museum and visitor orientation experts, students will create a plan for optimizing communication about the temporary closure of the famous Pergamon Altar to the 1 million annual visitors to the museum. They will then present their plans to the Director of the ancient art collection and the Head of Education and Communication of the National Museums in Berlin. Previous knowledge of art history, architecture, or German history is not required, but useful.

The course description for this Sociology course varies depending on the topic taught. Please view the course description in the course notes section below.

This interdisciplinary course examines the works of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, three German speaking writers who pioneered radically different and influential interpretations of modern life, which continue to shape our contemporary understanding of society and individuality. The seminar not only delves into the origins of these prominent traditions of modern Western thought, but also underscores their relevance in modern social theories and poetics. Hence, the course will also include references to the writings of their contemporaries, as well as explications of the direct and indirect influences of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud on other writers.

This course proposes to look at migration from a contemporary perspective and to examine how it reconfigures identity and citizenship. It looks at the present situation through a historical perspective, taking the current ‘refugee crisis’ as a point of departure, and placing it in a European and global context. The course is intentionally multidisciplinary and incorporates debates from history, sociology, anthropology, political science, geography as well as cultural and urban studies. This will permit students from different backgrounds to approach the subject from their own vantage point and with their chosen methodological instruments. The course starts from observation and media analysis to lead students to theoretical approaches, instead of using a more common deductive approach. Field trips are included where Berlin is the case study, which will give students an opportunity for experiential learning. Structured discussions are a central element of the course and follow several methods: fishbowl, panel, open space, world café etc. There is an emphasis on teamwork in class, although assessment is based upon individual performance.

The course description for this Topics in Sociology course varies depending on the topic taught. Please view the course descriptions in the course notes section below.