Identities in Societies
What is the individual? What is the individual’s relationship to social organization and social relations? How is the individual constituted or made through social relations? What possibilities and choices are available for the individual within social systems that are unequal and hierarchical? Much of the way that we conceive of the relationship between the individual and society comes from Western notions of the self: as autonomous, isolated, able to make decisions for oneself and responsible for one’s own actions. Courses in this cluster examine how the self constructs itself out of cultural and social materials, and how society is constructed through the interactions of multiple individual selves.
Associated Course Pairings:
Course Descriptions
Instructor: Sandra Wong
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12571
Block: 1
“The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its purpose.” The sociologist C. Wright Mills described the “sociological imagination” as a quality of mind that enables us to understand our lives and experiences and the relationship between self and society. By situating biographies in history and society, this course explores how societal structures and social forces shape our opportunities, our socioeconomic status and our positions of power or powerlessness. We also examine how cultural values and norms inform our identities and affiliations, our pursuits and aspirations, and our notions of dignity, worth, and a meaningful life.
We will engage theories of social reproduction, stratification and the construction of categories of class, race, and gender. We will study and compare different methods by which scholars conduct systematic research, collect and analyze valid and reliable evidence, and identify and explain patterns and relationships. The relationship between social inequalities and beliefs in meritocracy and achievement will be a central theme of the course.
CC120: Private Troubles, Public Issues, and Social Change
Instructor: Sandra Wong
CRN# 12572
Block: 2
This linked course builds on theories, concepts, and approaches studied in CC 100: Self and Society. We will continue to investigate the ways in which individual lives are shaped by social structure, and in addition, explore two other important facets of the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination enables us not only to understand and explain social life, but also to relate what we know to individual agency, collective action, and social responsibility. What do we do with what we know? How does the scholarship we have studied inspire further inquiry and knowledge production? How does the study of self and society motivate social action, investment in public sociology, a re-imagination of our commitments and alternative visions of how society can work?
CC100: Finding Yourself: Media, DNA, and Representation
Instructor: Dwanna McKay
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12512
Block: 1
Who are you? Is your identity socially constructed or biologically formed? How do identities of race, ethnicity, and culture manifest in American society? What are the consequences of social identity politics? This course provides an introduction and overview of foundational concepts of social identity, engages major sociological perspectives of race and ethnicity, and analyzes media representations of racial, ethnic, and cultural identities. We explore the historical trends of meanings and values attached to social identity categories and address the multiple and intersecting ways that the dynamics of these social categories and concepts shape society-at-large, our individual life-chances, and our daily social interactions. We also examine the contemporary rise of DNA as a controversial signifier of racial identity and ethnic belonging. As the public gains access to unprecedented amounts of genomic information, DNA evidence has become increasingly incorporated into political claims about race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage. Within the context of media, we will examine both the historical and contemporary mainstreaming of ideas that race, ethnicity, and culture are biologically driven through the science of genetics, and how these claims are being misappropriated to support racist agendas.
CC120: Finding Yourself: The Literacies of Identity, Representation, and Human Variation
Instructor: Krista Fish
CRN# 12525
Block: 2
Who are you? Is your identity socially constructed or biologically formed? Are identities the result of our ancestry? The culture we grew up in? Using the foundational concepts on identity addressed in the linked CC100 course, we will begin the class with an overview of the many ways in which humans vary and we will use literature from both the natural and social sciences to explore how humans have attempted to classify this variability (e.g. the concepts of race, sex, and gender). Students will then investigate the biological basis for human variation beginning with the structure of DNA, the process of protein synthesis, cell division, and heritability of both simple and complex traits as well as gene-environment interactions. Finally, we will focus on how mechanisms of evolution shape human variation as a consequence of adaptation to environmental variables such as climate, altitude, disease, nutrition, and even cultures. Building on shorter, informal writing projects and discussions of writing in the sciences, the course will culminate with an in-depth writing project requiring students to link an understanding of their personal identity with studies of human variation.
CC100: Chinese Culture: Traditional and Modern
Instructor: Hong Jiang
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
CRN# 12491
Block: 1
This course starts with introducing students to Chinese concept of family, nature and self and how Chinese philosophical thinking (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) transformed way of life for the East, but will focus on critical inquiry of social and political changes of modern China and help students to understand how these changes perceived and conjured up modern Chinese society and cultural landscape as well as individual identity. This is an introductory course, which will lead students to study Chinese culture in a broader historical, political, social and global context.
Instructor: Ryan Platt
CRN# 12545
Block: 2
What is the most important skill you can learn at the beginning of college? Play, of course! This course dismisses biases about the unproductive, frivolous nature of play and proposes to take play seriously. Play is crucial in creative and critical inquiry. It cultivates our capacity to make discoveries, to imagine alternative possibilities, and to deal with setbacks, failures, and the unexpected. In an increasingly regimented world, play keeps us productively off-track and open to ever-changing futures. The course will explore many types of play, including children’s play, rule-based games, competition dance, and combat sports. Reaching across disciplines, we will speak with artists, scholars, and scientists about creative play and how they experiment and improvise in order to keep ideas alive. The course also introduces new trends in theatre. We will read new plays, play games used in actor training, and learn about cutting-edge theatrical trends, such as immersive theatre and VR performance. This course is a discussion-based writing seminar and does not require prior experience on stage. Students will read theories about play from philosophy, sociology, and performance studies while honing the writing skills needed to succeed in multiple academic disciplines at CC and beyond. Along the way, there will be opportunities for students to nourish their own creativity and try out roles that go into making theatre, including acting, playwriting, stagecraft, and design.
Instructor: Sayantan Roy
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Analysis & Interpretation of Meaning
CRN# 12499
Block: 1
This course is an introduction to the field of legal anthropology. The course is primarily concerned with the problem of law in action. It interrogates how individuals and groups
engage and interpret the law and, in turn, how laws shape societies and individuals. We will learn how to study law and legal institutions ethnographically and explore the class and racial dynamics of modern-day legal operations. We will also focus on some key concepts in legal anthropology like sovereignty and rights. Readings will include ethnographies from US, South Africa, India, Russia, Egypt among others.
CC120: Law, Society, and Language
Instructor: Sayantan Roy
CRN# 12542
Block: 2
In this course we will explore the linguistic dimensions of law. The operation of the law and its force are rooted in linguistic conventions. We will learn how to analyze legal
artifacts like judgements, oaths as linguistic devices as well as the narrative structure of legal documents. By focusing on the linguistic conventions upon which the efficacy of
the law depends, we will see the instabilities that emerge at the intersection of law and language. As a CC120 this course will help students learn the conventions of academic writing and anthropological analysis.
CC100: Markets and Morality (I)
Instructor: Dan Johnson
Learning Across the Liberal Arts Designation: Societies & Human Behavior
CRN# 12637
Block: 1
As the social science devoted to decision-making, economics is a mathematical analysis of how to optimize outcomes. But how do we make choices when the yardstick isn't obvious? How do we assess outcomes that are more moral than financial, more holistic than quantitative? Even more challenging, how do humans interact effectively when we don't agree on how to assess the outcomes, or don't even agree on the value systems we might use to evaluate the outcomes? This course is about how we make economic decisions, but more importantly it is about how we think about our own morality and the morality of those around us as we make decisions together. So each day we will advance your knowledge of the core principles of economic theory while reflecting on them critically to ascertain their implicit cultural assumptions (and therefore, also our own positionality as scholars and citizens).
CC120: Markets and Morality (II)
Instructor: Dan Johnson
CRN# 12638
Block: 2
In this writing-intensive sequel, we will explore how micro-level behaviors affect macro-level outcomes. We will explore how economic policy works (and how it doesn't), the inevitability of difficult trade-offs, and most importantly, how to write a policy proposal to empower social change. We will focus on identifying and describing specific imperfections in the world, ranging from social injustice to environmental concerns, then learn how to communicate effectively in order to inspire, educate, and create prototypes while respecting the importance of inertia, context and cultural norms.