Sociology

This course brings together frameworks and methods from multiple disciplines to think about crisis, a hegemonic and deeply polyvalent concept. Using seminal ideas from queer, trans, and cultural theory, students consider how moments of crisis are often rife with contradictions and ambivalences and how the language of crisis has become ubiquitous in the contemporary world. Students also discuss seminar theories that situate crisis as endemic to capitalism, and think about how we might think about crisis as ordinary rather than exceptional. Throughout the course, students work through myriad texts and disciplines to consider the notions of crisis and catastrophe, and use different examples to research how crises often unfold in drastically different ways. Topics may include climate change, migration, epidemics and pandemics, moral panics around trans rights and bodies, and settler colonialism.

This course introduces the key questions, issues, and tools necessary to conduct qualitative research. It guides students through devising a research question, choosing appropriate research epistemologies, ethical implications, selecting appropriate methods of data collection and analysis, and writing a research proposal. Students learn the key techniques of qualitative sociological inquiry including interviews, focus groups, content and discourse analysis, archival research, participatory and action research, and various forms of ethnographic research. It further introduces relevant qualitative data analysis and research software, in addition to examining the analysis, writing, and reporting of qualitative research.

This course examines the multifaceted impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on contemporary society, exploring the intersection of AI's evolution with social issues such as personal identity, social relationships, privacy, surveillance, political order, the public sphere, mediatization, platformization, the attention economy, digital labor, and social polarization. Rather than uncritically embracing technology or relying on simple technological determinism, the course emphasizes the mutual shaping of AI and society.  

The course focuses on how AI creates new media environments and how individuals and communities adapt to, negotiate, and resist these changes. Students formulate critical and creative research questions suited to the AI era by engaging with diverse social theories and applying them to real-world cases. Students engage in in-depth discussions about the intricate relationship between AI and society and develop their own critical perspectives and research projects.  

Topics include AI-mediated social relationships, Interacting with AI, AI and privacy, AI and mediatization, AI and platform dependency, AI and surveillance, AI and disinformation, AI and attention economy, AI and digital labor, AI and social polarization.  

This course provides you with an introduction to the philosophical issues in social research. Students look at ethics in social research and theory, quantitative versus qualitative methods, sampling, observation, interviewing, media analysis, and questionnaire design. Students are given the opportunity to work through the research process on a topic of independent study of your choosing.

This course explores the concept of physical activity and the importance of encouraging people to move more and sit less as part of health promotion efforts. Students examine measuring movement behaviors to equip students with the ability to judge data based on how it was obtained. Students identify and analyze various factors that impact how much or little people move. This includes looking into the psychology of physical activity, environmental assessments, and policy enquiries. Insights allow students to design an intervention that can improve movement behaviors. Students can gain tangible knowledge and skills for assessing, understanding, and changing movement behaviors across diverse populations.

The course provides an introduction to theoretical, historical, and contemporary debates around race, racism, and empire. It covers the following thematic areas: history; theory; experience; futurism. Students begin by exploring the historical events and contemporary afterlives that have created a world structured by racism and colonialism. From the Enlightenment to nationalism; from science to secularism, students look at how this world came to be, and why these often-hidden histories matter. The course then looks at different ways people have tried to understand this world. Theoretical paradigms include anticolonial theory, the Black Radical Tradition, Queer theory, Trans* theory, and postcolonial theory, decoloniality and settler colonialism, among others. The third block looks at the everyday experiences of race and empire. The course looks at the politics around tourism, climate change, technology, intimacy, movement and food, and the course ends with a discussion about abolition as a means of imagining a future free of racism.

This course engages key sociological issues through the critical reading of theoretical and analytical texts. Students engages with advanced concepts in sociological thought, and explores the connections between theoretical arguments and the practice of social enquiry and analysis. Students read a combination of social theory texts in a range of traditions as well as contemporary research studies.

This course provides students with an introduction to the criminal justice system in England and Wales, as well as introducing students to key debates on crime, justice, and punishment.  Students learn about policing, the courts system, prisons and community punishments.

This course critically examines the issue of endangered languages, focusing on the impacts of globalization, ethnic identity, and language policies on language survival. It explores historical and contemporary factors, including population movements, war, trade, and colonization, that have shaped linguistic diversity. The course investigates why a small number of global languages dominate while thousands of minor languages face decline, and considers debates around language preservation, revitalization, and the pressures of modernity. Students analyze the political, cultural, and educational forces that influence language use and endangerment, developing insight into the tension between preserving linguistic heritage and adapting to a globalized world.

This course offers an in-depth study of the social structure of Spain, recognizing it as a specific case within the context of a broader model. That is, an analysis of the characteristics of the modern social structure system, its transformations, and the evolution of contemporary societies, with particular attention to the phenomena of wealth distribution, power, and social classes. It focuses particular attention on changes to social structure and social wealth distribution as a result of the economic crisis.