USF Department of Sociology Fall 2015 Graduate Courses

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1 USF Department of Sociology Fall 2015 Graduate Courses REQUIRED COURSES Contemporary Sociological Theory, SYA Instructor: Sara Crawley, Day and Time: Wednesday, 5:00 7:45 pm The primary goal of this course is introduce students to social theories, including schools of thought and an (incomplete) history of social theorists. In general, social theories serve to explain how social organization and/or social action happens, yet the direction and focus of various theorists interests vary considerably often diverging entirely. The purpose of this course is to expose new graduate students to a wide variety of theories. This will set the basis for your future endeavors in social theory and allow students a platform from which to explore theories and theorists in greater depth throughout their course of graduate study. Note: This course is mandatory for full-time sociology M.A. students in their first year. Graduate students from other departments are welcome based on availability of space. Sociology Ph.D. students will not take this course unless it was recommended on an individual basis. Sociological Statistics, SYA Instructor: John Skvoretz, jskvoretz@usf.edu Day & Time: Tuesday, 5:00-7:45 pm This course introduces statistical methods widely used in social science and sociology. It covers basic topics in descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics are measures used to describe data and inferential statistics are methods used to draw inferences from data to a population of which the data are thought to be representative. Basic arithmetic skills are essential and an undergraduate course in statistics is desirable. The material emphasizes methods most frequently encountered in quantitative social science research and includes laboratory sessions using statistical software. Note: This course is required for full-time M.A. students in sociology in their first year. Graduate students from other departments are welcome based on availability of space. Sociology Ph.D. students will not take this course unless it was recommended on an individual basis. Teaching Sociology, SYG Instructor: Maralee Mayberry, mayberry@usf.edu Day & Time: Friday, 2:00 4:45 pm What does quality teaching look like? How can you exploit your own personal strengths for good teaching? How is teaching sociology a complex combination of the crafts of scholarship, theater, and self-reflection? Over the course of the semester we will explore the craft and vocation of teaching sociology, from the challenging pedagogical issues of teaching the mass class, to making social life real in the classroom, to problematic course issues of plagiarism and classroom management. You will begin the life-long process of reflecting, developing and practicing the craft of teaching sociology. Most graduate programs in the social sciences prepare students to be good researchers. Few focus on preparing graduates for their future as teachers. This course is designed to provide 1

2 you with an academic arena in which to begin to develop your own teaching identity by fostering a deeper understanding of the complexities, wonder and problems of teaching at the college/university level. We will explore some of the philosophical and practical aspects of teaching, and we will work to help you to develop your own teaching portfolio as you enter the job market. Our personal wish is for you to develop an approach to teaching that goes beyond looking at it as a technical act, and to look at your own teaching as a fluid process that needs continual examination and reflection. Note: This course is mandatory for second-year funded sociology M.A. students. Unfunded and part-time M.A. students are not required to take this course but it will count as an elective. All first year sociology Ph.D. students are required to attend this course but do not need to enroll. Interdisciplinary PhD Proseminar, SYA Instructor: Philip Levy (USF Department of History) Day & Time: Tuesday, 2:00-5:45 pm No description currently available. Note: This course is mandatory for, and only open to, first-year Ph.D. students in sociology, history and GIA. Ph.D. Capstone Seminar, SYA Instructor: Bernt Reiter (USF Department of Government and International Affairs) Day & Time: Tuesday, 2:00-4:45 pm No description currently available. Note: This course is mandatory for, and only open to, third-year Ph.D. students in sociology and GIA. ELECTIVES AND CROSS-LISTED COURSES Narrative: Topic and Method, SYA Instructor: Donileen Loseke, dloseke@usf.edu Day & Time: Thursday, 2:00 4:45 pm Publicly circulating stories are a key method of meaning making within the contexts of our globalized, cyber-mediated world characterized by extraordinary social, political, and economic fragmentation. Stories are used by individuals to make sense of self and others, by politicians to sell themselves, by advertisers to sell products. Courts of all types function through the telling and evaluating of stories, stories justify social policy and the ensuing institutional arrangements that come from it. Stories mobilize social activists, and activists use stories to persuade publics to support social causes. It is stories, not statistics, that sustain war as culturally and morally acceptable. This course is about such stories, it is about how stories work and the work stories do in private and public lives. Within a theoretical framework informed by social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, cognitive sociology, ethnomethodology, and cultural sociology, we will focus on two issues. The first is about narrative as a topic of study. Questions include: What work is done by stories on different stages of social life? How do some stories achieve widespread cognitive and emotional appeal? How do socially circulating stories reflect and perpetuate/challenge existing inequalities and structures of power? The second interest in this course is in narrative as a method of research and includes questions such as: How can the 2

3 empirical examination of stories be conceptualized as a specific type of research? How can stories be examined in ways allowing us to understand their contents, meanings, and apparent abilities to appeal to both hearts and minds? How can analysts comprehend the meanings and morals of stories intended for audiences whose understandings of the world differ sharply from those of the analyst? Readings will include interdisciplinary empirical studies of narratives as well as descriptions and elaborations of research methods associated with qualitative narrative analysis. During the semester there will be two relatively small data analysis projects. In addition, each student will design and implement one empirical research project of size and quality sufficient for professional presentation. Note: This course counts as a specialty methods course (two are required) for sociology Ph.D. students. Alternatively, it can also count as a disciplinary elective. Sociology of Education, SYO Instructor: Maralee Mayberry, mayberry@usf.edu Day & Time: Wednesday, 2:00 4:45 pm The primary purpose of this seminar is to examine the relationship between education and U.S. society using analytic frameworks from social theory. Three major themes run through the course: 1) education and economic/cultural reproduction; 2) education and resistance/negotiation; 3) educational transformation. Social class, race, and gender inequalities will be explored within the context of these themes. The objectives of this seminar include: to develop and demonstrate an understanding of the school as a social institution that sustains economic/cultural reproduction; to develop and demonstrate an understanding of the relations between schooling and social class, race, and gender inequalities; to explore and develop an understanding of various social movements oriented toward educational and social transformation. During the semester, this course will emphasize the ways in which schools reproduce, reinforce, and challenge prevailing social, economic, and political relationships. City & Community, SYD Instructor: Maggie Kusenbach, mkusenba@usf.edu Day & Time: Monday, 2:00 4:45 pm The discipline of sociology originally developed in 19 th century Europe as an attempt to make sense of urbanization, industrialization and secularization, and the resulting changes in social structures, institutions, identities and interactions. While these concerns no longer dominate sociology, one could argue that the importance of socio-spatial environments, and of cities in particular, in shaping societies and people has only grown. The main goal of this seminar is to introduce graduate students to the exciting subfield of urban and community sociology while providing graduate-level training in reading, critical thinking, writing, as well as research and presentation skills. The course is open to all graduate students in the social sciences who have an interest in urban culture, urban problems, urban planning, urban theory and/or space and place issues. The course predominantly focuses on current scholarship and ongoing debates yet we will also read some old and modern classics in urban & community sociology to gain a foundation and to be able to put current issues in perspective. Course readings concentrate on urban and community issues and problems within the United States. Selected topics include public space, inner cities, suburbanization, gentrification, neighborhood interaction, belonging and home, and others. 3

4 Sociology of Consumer Culture, SYP Instructor: Laurel Graham, Day & Time: Thursday, 5:00 7:45 pm In the United States, the social forces that shape our likes, dislikes, fears, dreams, aesthetics, and morals are intimately tied to the engines of the consumer economy. As global economic and environmental crises threaten to shake up life as we know it, those with a sociological imagination must ask about the types of social structures and global citizens the Earth now requires. Progressively minded people are beginning to piece together a new way of being human that does not center so heavily on achieving wealth and consumption goals. This course will explore theories of consumption as well as recent empirical research and writings on particular developments within American consumer culture especially in relation to climate change. Much of this research is interdisciplinary, drawing from the insights of fields such as economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, communication, marketing, advertising, and psychology. The course includes several writing assignments and one longer paper based on secondary research. Advanced Feminist Theory, WST Instructor: Sara Crawley, scrawley@usf.edu Day and Time: Monday, 5:00 8:15 pm To what extent is gender performative? What is the connection between gender, race, and sexuality? How are each connected to inequality? If gender is a social construction, can it impact the size and shape of physical bodies? What is the relationship between queer theory and feminist theories? This course complicates the nature/nurture binary by investigating how bodies can become gendered, racialized, and sexualized, investigating social constructionism at many levels of focus from intimate interaction to global economics. Organized in seminar fashion, this course will critique the major theories of gendered and racialized embodiment, including but not limited to ethnomethodological approaches, queer theory, Gender and The Body, Black Feminist Thought, Marxist Feminism and the relationship between feminist theory and gender theory. While we will explore the depths of feminist theory and queer theory, a previous study in feminist or queer theory is not assumed. All graduate students are welcome. Philosophy of Social Sciences, SYA Instructor: Stephen Turner, turner@usf.edu Day & Time: Monday, 5:00 7:45 p.m. This course is a seminar that introduces the current literature on the philosophy of the social sciences. Topics include the relationship of social policy to social science, interpretive research, action explanation, game theory, social scientific accounts of norms, joint intentionality, reductionism, causal modeling, case study research, experimentation. causality, the interaction between the normative and the sociological. We will also consider the problems of public sociology, and current controversies about sociological objectivity and the role of advocacy, including a discussion of two of the controversial cases in recent sociology: the Regnerus affair and the controversy over Lenore Weitzman s study of the differential economic effects of divorce on men and women. Note: This course is offered by the USF philosophy department, it is cross-listed with the sociology department. Ph.D. sociology student can take this course as either a sociology elective (enroll in sociology) or an interdisciplinary elective (enroll in history). 4

5 Race, Gender & Labor in Latin America, SYA Instructor: Elizabeth Hordge Freeman, Day & Time: Wednesday, 5:00 7:45 pm This course examines race, gender, and labor in Latin American societies. The course will begin by providing an overview of the social construction of race, the position of women throughout the Americas, and the history of slave labor. All of these themes set the tone for understanding how race, gender, and labor function together in the Americas. Following this review, the course is organized thematically in order to address the major substantive issues that impact race, gender, and labor in different countries with an emphasis on Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. Of special interest is labor and domestic work. When appropriate the use of film and digital media will be used to complement core text. By highlighting some of the major works written by social scientists in the last twenty years o. Latin America students will be prepared to elaborate a research project. This is a graduate course with a significant emphasis on research development. During the semester, students will work to develop a research project based on one of the thematic areas discussed in the course. Note: This course is offered by USF ISLAC, it is cross-listed with the sociology department. Ph.D. sociology student can take this course as either a sociology elective (enroll in sociology) or an interdisciplinary elective (enroll in ISLAC). 5