Systematic description and analysis of the creation and composition of groups; development of the sociological imagination as the key to understanding the interconnectedness of individuals, cultures and social institutions. An introduction to sociological theory, methodology, and analysis as well as to the major topics studied by the discipline.

This course will provide an introduction to the field of anthropology. Anthropology is a holistic and comparative study of human diversity. Students will examine cross-cultural examples to shed light on all aspects of human life and culture from race, gender, identity and ethnicity, to language and religion, to technology and medicine, to the study human evolution and variation. Ethnographic examples stemming from both the United States as well as around the world allow students to reflect on their own identities and cultural contexts. It is often in comparison that we can see how our own cultural lens and experiences have shaped our perspectives of the world.

This course will focus on qualitative research methods such as participant and non-participant observation, in-depth interviews, content analysis, and photography. Students will design their own qualitative research, collect qualitative data, and analyze their data in the context of existing literature.

Explores the family as a SOCIAL institution, recognizing the diversity of families around the world and within various cultures. The course places particular emphasis on the history, current challenges, and future directions of the family in United States, while examining how societal perspectives on gender, race, ethnicity, social class, and immigration status impact interactions and roles within the family. Students examine how families are influenced and shaped by social forces such as the economy, politics, and religion.

This course provides an overview of the sociological study of social problems and issues, both in the United States and in global perspective. The course will examine the nature and causes of social problems as well as possible solutions. Theoretical and methodological perspectives used to analyze social problems will also be considered.

Supervised reading or research at the lower-division level. Permission of department chair required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year students.

This course explores global health from an anthropological perspective. It examines how medical anthropologists attempt to understand global health challenges within a larger historical, cultural, political, and economic framework. This course will cover a wide range of health challenges from a variety of cultural and geographic contexts. We will examine a number of topics and diseases – both infectious and non-communicable – through case studies and ethnographies. Students will consider issues of gender inequality, maternal and child health, humanitarian aid, global mental health, and the bioethics of global health practices. The course emphasizes the numerous political, economic, structural and cultural forces that lead to the unequal distribution of disease globally.

This course will use a “hands on” approach by students to grapple with the quantitative analyses of data in the social sciences. Students will learn about the operationalization, computation, and transformation of variables. Students will create and test hypotheses using SPSS. They will also write up their results using a journal article format and give presentations of their results.

This course focuses on the central ideas and assumptions of the founders of modern Sociology: Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and Simmel. We will read these influential theorists’ original work, discuss the epistemological significance of sociological theory, survey recent schools of thought and intellectual trajectories within the discipline, and apply sociological theory to contemporary issues.

A survey of sociological knowledge about sex and gender as fundamental organizing principles of our social world. Examines the interplay of sex, gender, and sexual orientation as they change over time and across cultures. Critical analysis of what it means to live as a gendered, sexual being in today's society.

Medical anthropology seeks to understand human health and wellbeing, the experience and distribution of illness, and methods of healing across cultures. While illness and health are universal concepts, the specific conditions that lead to illness and health, and the understanding of what these various states do to one’s body and one’s spirit, vary greatly. In our biomedically-oriented society, we often take for granted the various ways that culture, political economy, social structures, religion, and environment impact health. In this course, we explore the cultural variations that exist in the ways people experience, diagnose, and treat illnesses. We will cover a variety of topics from childhood disease and stress to medical travel and pharmaceutical marketing. The course readings will be rooted in ethnographic inquiry – that is, we will read about the lived experiences of people seeking health and healing, the methods anthropologists use to collect such data, and the theories that help us explain them. Course readings include a graphic novel about medical promise, an ethnography about Malawian medical students, and numerous case studies from all over the world that will bring us closer to understanding the various and complex ways people experience health, illness, and healing.

Africa is an immense continent of strikingly rich and diverse geography, politics and cultures. This course explores many of the central issues and debates in the anthropological study of contemporary Africa, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Media representations of Africa often focus solely on suffering, poverty, disease and corruption. African life is also frequently portrayed as a singular unified experience. Yet, African societies and communities are dynamic: both in their cultural, political and historical diversity, and in their responses to the legacies of colonialism and the challenges of the contemporary global context. While this course will examine many of the problems that contemporary Africans face, we will also contextualize these problems and counter prevailing narratives about Africa by exploring the resilience and rich cultural life on the continent. Topics will include: colonialism and post-colonialism, political economies, kinship and social organization, religion, health, gender, globalization, sexuality, and arts.

How have engagements with cultural “others” helped create knowledge, expand our understanding of ourselves and the world, and inspired us to think about humanity? In this class, we will learn about some of the key theoretical paradigms in cultural anthropology, from its earliest inception through contemporary, experimental anthropological thought. As anthropological theory must be deployed in ethnographic practice to have any effect, theoretical material in this class will be paired with ethnographies, articles, manuscripts, and films-which exemplify, challenge and build upon abstract concepts.

Food is central to human life, but how food is defined, acquired, and consumed varies widely throughout the world. This class takes a four-field anthropological approach to the study of food. In this course, students will explore how food nourishes and shapes our bodies, how historical changes in food acquisition have shaped society, and how globalization is re-shaping what and how we eat. The social and cultural importance of food will be emphasized in this class, and students will examine the role of food in building identity, making meaning, organizing society, and creating social practices. This course will draw on anthropological theory and methods to understand the importance of food in shaping and giving meaning to human life.

Definition, causes and theories of deviant behavior in the framework of social norms and institutions. Major deviant identities in American society.

This course offers an introduction to the region of Latin America and to the field of anthropology. Latin America is a vast expanse of geographic extremes from the glaciers of Patagonia to altiplano desert to the Amazon basin. The region is home to more than half a billion people, speaking over eight hundred languages, and living in twenty different nations. It is a region of contrasts, where wealth and poverty are often in proximity. It is the world’s most urbanized region, yet Latin America is often associated with agrarian communities. Using anthropological concepts such as culture, community, identity, and political economy, students will explore Latin America’s great diversity while also identifying the cultural factors that unify and shape Latin America.

This course will offer an exploration of current topics in the field of men’s studies. What is masculinity? How is it formed? Who does it benefit? What are its hazards? Readings from a variety of disciplines will challenge students to analyze the way masculinity functions across cultures and in their own cultural context.

In this course, students will examine how the corrections system works to enforce, shape, invent, and constrain people's behavior related to gender. Students will use first hand accounts, statistics, and ethnography to understand the relationship between gender, power, and the corrections system. The experiences of inmates, corrections officers, judges, and victims will be central to understanding how corrections systems work in relationship to power, gender, and race. Finally, we will consider how this can be used to shape corrections policy in the future.

Social and economic inequality is receiving increased attention in recent years. This class will explore a range of issues and research related to inequality. These questions include: Is economic and social inequality necessary? How does inequality overlap with race, gender, religion, and other demographic characteristics? How does inequality shape everything from the things we buy to how long we live? How does the United States compare to other nations in regards to inequality? Although some class days will involve lectures, many class days will examine these questions through discussions, films, and other activities.

Issues such as depletion of natural resources, pollution, loss of habitat, global warming (or not), population growth, urban growth and sprawl, biodiversity, toxic waste management, transportation, energy, vegetarianism, sustainable community development, and globalization will be considered. Aspects of these issues to be covered include: conditions of emergence, theories, applicable social movements and counter-movements, cross-cultural perspectives, and social change. Special attention will be given to consideration of low or minimal impact lifestyle efforts.

This course uses a cultural focus to understand how humans study, experience, interpret, and mitigate global climate change. We investigate climate science, politics, and economics, along with how climate change intersects with matters of justice, gender, globalization, media, development, and higher education. As we learn about these topics, we will conduct applied research on particular climate topics at various scales—local, state, national, and international—to work towards defining solutions and ways forward in a rapidly changing environment.

Families are universal, yet their form varies widely across the globe. People hold strong ideas about who belongs to their family, what responsibilities family members have towards each other, who they can have sex with, and who they should marry. While our ideas about family seem natural and rigid, they are in fact eminently flexible and constantly changing. Kinship is a term used in anthropology to mean the web of social relations that make up families. In considering the different ways that people come to see themselves as related to one another, we will examine familial practices of different cultures, and consider how contemporary social changes like new reproductive technologies, migration, and transnational marriage are shaping family life around the world.

Why do some Native nations have unique fishing rights? Why do some operate casinos? This topics course explores these and other questions that examine the ways Native nations continue to assert self-governance. For centuries, colonizers used military and assimilationist campaigns against Native nations. Fortunately, these campaigns failed to account for Native nations’ resilience and North American continues to be home to hundreds of distinct tribal governments. By exploring the histories and cultures Native nations in Minnesota and across North America, students in this course will learn from the strategies they use to resist colonization and assert their independence.

Community has always been a central concept in Sociology, and this course will introduce you to the history of sociologists' analyses of communal life. We will study the relationship between the individual and the community, as well as relationships between communities. We will consider both geographic and relational communities, the degree to which these overlap, and changes in the structure and function of communities over time. The first half of the course will cover the history of sociologists' theoretical and empirical work on community, while the second half of the course will focus on contemporary American communities. Much of our time will be spent studying new, emerging forms of community made possible by technology and mobility.

Theoretical causes of criminal behavior. Strengths, limitations, and challenges to the effectiveness of police, judicial, and corrections systems in the U.S. Attention to the role of the media and cultural biases in analyzing the "crime problem." Course includes an optional Service Learning component. Alternate years.

The city is a built environment that lends material form to social relations. We will study how people interact with the city, and how the city structures people’s interactions with each other. Liberating for many, the city offers unprecedented access to a variety of subcultures, lifestyles, and communities. For many others, the city constrains opportunity in unprecedented ways. This course will introduce students to theoretical and empirical work on cities and provide an opportunity for independent research: Students will learn a bit about ethnographic research methods and have opportunities to observe public spaces, take field notes, and analyze those notes in the context of relevant sociological and anthropological literature.

This is a course on sociological social psychology, with a primary focus on symbolic interactionism as a way to understand the many connections between society and the individual. We will think about the self and social identity: how these things emerge from interaction with others; how we selectively adjust and present ourselves to others; and the implications of these social processes for our individual and collective narratives. We will study how groups and institutions shape our self-concept, and also how our ideas about who we are contribute to the creation and negotiation of social reality.

We interact daily with the environment in a multitude of ways which often pass unnoticed. When we use cell phones powered by lithium batteries, when we wash our dishes with chlorinated water, when we drink coffee produced in other countries, and when we walk through the arboretum, we engage with nature and the politics that manage it. In this course, students will gain an anthropological framework for observing and critically analyzing diverse human relationships to the environment. The course addresses the questions: In what ways do human cultures perceive, use, and care for the natural world? What does it mean to live in the Anthropocene? How does resource management mediate the natural world? In what ways do people plan for, participate in, subvert, and are affected by environment management schemes? This course examines the relationships between human cultures and the environments they inhabit through ethnographic examples drawn from around the world.

Social scientists approach race and ethnicity as constructed concepts. This class will explore the ways in which racial and ethnic distinctions are constructed, how these distinctions are made meaningful to individuals and groups, how racial understandings are based on social and cultural contexts, and in what ways inequalities form along racial and ethnic lines. This course utilizes social science approaches to critically analyze race, ethnicity, and the ways these concepts impact people in today’s world.

Political participation, power and ideology as expressed in political structures and processes. Voting, political parties, social movements.

Examines the social factors affecting learning and educational processes. Considers the relationship between types of societies and systems of education and the rise of education as a social institution, the links between schools and social stratification, and the contribution of schools to the preservation of the social order.

Students abroad are already proto-anthropologists, trying to make sense of the rules of the society around them so that they can adapt to the rhythms and practices of their new, temporary home. This class turns that experience into a structured exploration, both offering history and social context that will allow life in Greece to make sense, and giving assignments that will have students exploring that society in ways they might not otherwise find on their own. We focus on the culture(s) of Modern Greece from the 1960s onwards, drawing on authors from across the social sciences to help us identify key realms that make life in Greece distinct. We will also train more specifically in the theories and methods of anthropology, identifying how the focuses of anthropologists writing ethnographies in Greece have changed over the past decades, learning thus both about social changes in Greece and about the history and scope of anthropology at the same time. Tying this content to the experiential realm, we will try on different lenses that social scientists have created for us to look through as we conduct ethnographic research, testing what new insights we can gather when we examine the world through theories of space, ritual, performance, gender, symbol, and more. This structure will allow the student an understanding of contemporary society in Greece and a developing awareness of their own cultural conditionings and ethnocentrisms.

In this course, students will use cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approaches to discuss how identity is formed, challenged, and defended in an ever more globalized world. They will also investigate and compare the pressing issues of immigration, race, and ethnicity in contemporary Italy, Europe, and the U.S. Pre-requisite: completion of introductory coursework in any of the following subject areas: Cultural Studies, Sociology, Political Science, or History. Note: this course requires payment of an additional fee to cover active learning components that are above and beyond typical course costs, such as site visits, entrance fees, and other expenses.

This course explores a variety of topics about contemporary Japanese politics (political parties, elections, foreign policy), the economy (Japanese corporate management, unions, commodity pricing, the monetary system), and society (social trends, popular literature, personal relationships, etc.). Mandatory and optional excursions. Term papers and class participation required. (Taught in English)

What is Britain’s historical relationship with peoples that later migrated to Britain? How have forms of religion been transplanted, transformed and helped in the building of community? What does it mean to grow up as an immigrant in London? The course will be a study of Britons from multi-ethnic backgrounds, which have evolved from diaspora communities into multicultural ethnicities. The strobe will be on London, a “global city” where much of the debate focuses on these transnational communities that inhabit the capital, the unique mixture of cultural assets and beliefs, and the consequent challenging inequalities. Students enrolled in this course will the diasporas of the Black community, Chinese and South Asians, and religions in the global diasporas –Jewish, Islamic & Sikh. At the conclusion of this course students will attain a sound knowledge of the transnational nature of the modern world and will have developed an anthropological perspective and related skills in dealing

What role does Seville have as one of the most important cities in the secular state of Spain? Why and how has it played a central part during history while remaining a key anchor of national pride. It reflects the cultural contradictions that define what means to be a Spaniard. For example, Seville's main national celebrations, ie. Holy Week, run contrary to the fact that Spain is a secular country. Additionally it embraces the cultural icons of being Spanish: Catholicism, flamenco and bullfighting. Through these incongruences, Sevillians have cultivated a counter-culture, based upon the re-interpretation of their identity and culture as a manner of resistance. Here marginalized groups gain their space; one where traditional folklore meets with active social movements, where three world religions met and still peacefully co-exist. Seville exemplifies an ideal environment to explore alternative cultures, gender-related identities (ie. the LGBT community) and new political affiliations. Finally Seville's transformation, through newly constructed ideas of citizenship, have generated organic solutions to the economic crisis, which have yielded novel local ways to understand and articulate notions of community. This course adopts an interdisciplinary approach borrowing instructional tools and methods from subject areas ranging from Spanish studies to gender studies. The course develops by providing a historical and analytical review on the changes which impact cultural and gender identity in Sevillian / Spanish society over the last four decades, roughly from the last years of the Franco regime to now. On the one hand, we will explore how these changes can be understood by the political developments witnessed in the country, from a conservative dictatorship to a stable democracy. On the other hand, we will also investigate how citizenship and gender spaces are negotiated within the local society by exploring different areas such as the political realm, work, cinema, family and religion. Our analytical focal point is placed upon the city, the suburbs, and the neighborhoods of Seville where the presence of diverse local initiatives offer opportunities for exploration on how effectively they have managed to create impact and transformation on the Spanish political, economic, societal and cultural mainstream. Through academic readings and course excursions, you will explore Andalusia's capital city and the multicultural populations to which it has been home in both a historical and a contemporary context. Personal observations of and encounters with people from a variety of populations are all part of the fieldwork in this course. You will learn how a culture's official policy about belonging and foreignness relates to gender, sexuality, and ethnicity by drawing from similar rhetorical strategies. The course will point to ways to cross lines of difference to re-imagine new forms of belonging and citizenship for a 21st century Seville.

Supervised reading or research at the upper-division level. Permission of department chair and completion and/or concurrent registration of 12 credits within the department required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year or second-year students.

What roles do Two-Spirit and other Indigenous gender identities play in Native American communities? How did colonialism impact these identities and what steps are being taken to reclaim them? As we explore the similarities and distinctions between Indigenous and Western gender constructions, students in this course will understand the roots of Indigenous and LGBTQ+ allyships and the tools necessary for develop successful coalitions.

Cultures and cultural groups have never been bounded to a single location – people have always been in movement, learning from people outside their cultural groups, and hybridizing ideas and ways of life. This course uses cultural anthropology theory and method to study transnational cultural groups that are present in contemporary Minnesota. In particular, we will study ethnographic manuscripts about Hmong, Somali, and Mexican people and topics including ethnicity, migration, refugeeism, tourism, nomadism, political economy, and medical anthropology. Students will be conducting original ethnographic research in a semester-long project that analyzes a particular transnational cultural case study.

This is a course grounded in the sociology of knowledge. As sociologists, our approach to the study of conspiracy theory will focus on how truth and falsehood are socially constructed in our society. We will ask a variety of questions in this class: Why do conspiracy theories seem so wildly popular at this moment in history? How are people convinced of the truth of either a conspiracy theory or an official narrative that contradicts it and aims to debunk it? How can people in one society find evidence for—and claim as true—wildly incompatible and mutually exclusive versions of reality? How can power, science, and media be used to bolster or undermine truth claims? While we won’t reach a final conclusion on the “reality” of any particular conspiracy theory, this course will improve your ability to weigh the plausibility and legitimacy of competing arguments about social reality.

An integrative academic experience which engages majors in key debates and issues of concern to sociologists. Preparation for the transition to graduate school and/or exploration of the applicability of sociology in the workplace. Students demonstrate mastery of core concepts, theoretical perspectives, and methods of the discipline through original research. Emphasis placed on critical reading of scholarly journals and on student participation in sociological discourse. Topics determined by expertise of the faculty.

Supervised field work and experience in a variety of social, administrative and research settings. Subject to approval of faculty advisor and department chair and completion of the pre-internship seminar. S/U grading. No more than 4 credit hours may be applied to the major.