Sociology

Cities at War is a lecture series bringing together scholars from war-affected cities to explore how armed conflict shapes urban life and space. Unlike studies that conflate urban militarization with cities enduring active conflict, this series centers on the physical destruction, ruination, and everyday survival strategies within cities at war. It examines how planning, reconstruction, displacement, and commodification are formed by the continuum of times of war and times of peace. A key aspect is the erasure of knowledge, heritage, and memory - both through material destruction and the ideological rewriting of cities in post-conflict nation-building.

This course examines the social, economic, and political processes that maintain hierarchies, drawing on both classical and contemporary theories. By exploring topics such as class, power, race, gender, elites, and cultural capital, the course highlights how inequality shapes opportunities, behaviors, and outcomes. The course investigates both historical and contemporary mechanisms that create and perpetuate stratification, drawing on empirical evidence and theoretical frameworks from sociology and related disciplines. In addition to academic inquiry, the course fosters critical observation and visual analysis, encouraging students to interpret and critique depictions of inequality in everyday life and in cultural media. By connecting abstract concepts to real-world phenomena, students gain a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of inequality and the tools to engage with contemporary debates. The course equips students to reflect on possible solutions to reduce disparities and promote equity in various social contexts.

This course examines theories, concepts, forms and practices of law in contemporary Australian society. It looks at the ways that "harm" is constructed as a legal category and encourages students to ask who is able to name something as either harmful, or not worthy of state intervention, and how this capacity to name effects socio-political relations. To develop this analysis, the course discusses the norms that underpin the capacity to name particular practices as harmful, and engages critically with certain historical and current harms. Examples of such harms might include treachery, riot and disorder, terrorism, payback, the Northern Territory Emergency Response, torture, sadomasochistic sex acts, or female circumcision.

This course discusses the theoretical and methodological foundations of visual sociology, aiming to define, based on theoretical, epistemological, and methodological research, the status of visual sociology within sociology in general. The course introduces the production of visual and audiovisual research documents by integrating the technique and language of photography and videography into a sociological research project. 

The role of media in shaping everyday life is paramount, and understanding it requires consideration of historical, political, economic, and other factors. This course explores the various ways people consume media content in their daily lives, seeking to understand the influence of media on society and culture. It also provides a historical perspective on how media became a crucial component of the human condition. 

The course focuses on the significance of rhetoric for human rights and democracy. The course provides tools to communicate opinions in societal contexts in a respectful, authentic, and effective manner, considering different opinions and interests. Students practice effectively listening to, formulating, and delivering messages.

What makes a group of people feel like a nation? Who decides who belongs—and who doesn't? Why do national borders, myths, and identities still matter in a globalised world? This course explores how nations are formed, imagined, and contested—from ancient legends to modern passports, from cultural traditions to nationalist movements, and offers tools to understand how nations shape the world we live in.

This course examines the unique political economy of the United States in drawing primarily—but not exclusively—on comparative political economy (CPE) scholarship to explore how the American economy functions, how it compares to its (mainly European) peers, and why it remains so. The course consists of three interconnected main parts. The first part discusses the basic logic behind the comparative analysis of capitalism and trace the ideational roots of contemporary approaches in comparative political economy, providing a foundational understanding of key debates in CPE. The second and third part of the seminar are dedicated to the dominant theoretical frameworks for the comparative analysis of capitalism in the last decades, with a particular focus on the United States. By integrating theoretical perspectives with in-depth comparative analysis, this course equips students with the tools to critically assess the evolution of the American model of capitalism, engage critically with contemporary economic challenges, and understand how national political economies mediate and respond to the global forces shaping today’s capitalism.

This course provides students with a general overview of social inequalities in health at the individual and population level and how they differ across time and place. It spans topics from sociology, public health, epidemiology, and demography to explore the various factors that produce and exacerbate health inequalities. Emphasis is placed on first building foundational knowledge about health inequalities and its determinants, including understanding how health is defined and measured, and what are the factors that influence health at the individual (e.g., socioeconomic status, family structure) and population (e.g., cultural norms, welfare systems) levels. The course then discusses how health changes over the life course and over time. A central focus throughout this course is on contextual differences, so readings cover a range of countries and populations. Students are expected to critically engage with scientific articles selected by the instructor and are encouraged to contribute relevant articles for discussion in class. A solid understanding of quantitative research methods is essential for the successful completion of this course.

This course offers a critical introduction to the sociology of revolution. As revolutions involve the dismantling of social orders and the remaking of new ones, revolutions are ripe for sociological exploration. Yet revolutions remain relatively absent from sociology curricula today. This course intervenes by guiding students through a global sociological history of revolutions spanning 200 years: from 1789 to 1989, before concluding by assessing 21st revolutionary movements in the aftermath of the putative 'end of history'.