Sociology

This course takes London, a global, multicultural city as our lab for exploring social science theories and methods. It engages with current social issues in the city, situating them historically and within wider national and global contexts. The course considers what a focus on a particular city, in this case London, can contribute to the social sciences, and conversely considers how social science concepts and theories can contribute to a richer understanding of cities and city life.

Each of us has a self and an identity by virtue of being human. But do other living beings have a self? Do other living beings have society in the same way humans do? In this course, students will consider some traditional assumptions of selfhood (e.g., the capacity for reason, speech, and memory) from different sociological perspectives.

This course covers the family as a social institution with emphasis on Middle Eastern characteristics. It also discusses selected aspects of marriage and family life and pays special attention to the social consequences of changing family styles.

This course explores the many ways in which poetry matters in the world: how it is read; how it is used; how it can be put to work in the messy and often contentious settings of social life. Drawing on frameworks from the sociology of literature, it considers how relationships with poetic writing and practice can be implicated in the formation - and contestation - of unequal social relations. 

This course introduces students to the complex area of youth crime, the contemporary forces that shape youth justice policy, and the ways in which the criminal justice system has responded to it.

The course is for students who want practical experience and skills in social research. The course is designed to mimic a real world research scenario, in which a multi-disciplinary research team takes varying approaches to a topic but works together towards the same goal. The emphasis is on learning while doing, and giving students a structured environment where they can learn how to reflect on your research while they are doing it. The course is taught through lectures and group work. The lectures give you grounding in various research skills, debates, and controversies in social research. The main focus of the course is the group work. Each group develops a topic to investigate, conducts research on it, and presents its findings. Students sign up for a group and conduct a research project under the guidance of a tutor. Visiting students should have at least 2 university-level social science courses (such as sociology, politics, social policy, social anthropology, etc.) at grade B or above.

This course examines sociological concepts and debates related to these family/marriage issues, focusing on the patterns, causes, and potential consequences of the changing family behaviors and values. While this scholarly exploration will take a global perspective, a particular attention will be given to (1) East Asian societies and (2) cross-cultural differences between East Asian societies and Western postindustrial societies. 

This seminar course surveys major approaches and current issues relevant to the study of language in society. It aims to familiarize students with a range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks they may refer to in addressing sociolinguistic questions across a variety of sites and to provide general principles that they may consider when engaged in the study of language in social context. For this purpose, we will critically discuss classical and contemporary research in sociolinguistics to explore the historical background, prevailing assumptions, methodological perspectives, and analytic strengths of different approaches to language in society and consider recent developments in the field. Students will also be enabled to use empirical methods to conduct sociolinguistic research.

This course examines the relationship between colonialism, decolonization, and religion globally from both historical and contemporary perspectives. This includes the ways in which secularism and colonial modernity provided a context for the remaking of religion, as well as the many different forms of colonial power and anti-colonial resistance across the world. Special attention is paid to questions around gender, class, racialization, and religious minorities. Students critically examine formative concepts, theories, and texts related to the post-colonial study of religion, as well as historical arguments from anti- and decolonial perspectives. Examples may be drawn from a variety of contexts and religious traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, as well as indigenous religious traditions.