Sociology

This course explores the dynamics of modern society by looking at the manifold styles and life in modern culture. It examines questions on what underlies styles, how choices in life are made, and how cultural spaces are closed and created. We live in a time with so many options available to us about how to craft ourselves, yet at times we must make choices under constraints not of our own making. Therefore, central to our endeavor is considering the interplay of structure and agency. The course asks questions such as, are we able to lead the kinds of lifestyles we want to, and why or why not? How do certain lifestyles become naturalized and universalized? Some of us layer various lifestyles that might, at closer inspection, be in tension with one another: how do we reconcile those? Identity formation and consumption in specific cultural contexts are major themes in this class. We will draw from interdisciplinary readings to explore the relationship between them, inquiring how facets of identity such as class, gender and sexuality, race, age, and nationality are shaped through what people buy and the spaces (actual and virtual) we inhabit. Ideas about authenticity and essentialism will be examined as we look at how modern lifestyles serve as a way to experience individuality and inclusion in a community. Through theoretical and ethnographic readings we will study other concepts such as globalization, commodity fetishism, ethical consumption, and modernity.

Medicine is so pervasive in the modern Western world it seems difficult sometimes to understand what it is. This course explores the complex ways medicine is shaped by, and in turn, shapes us and the world we live in; whether medicine can be conceived as a system of knowledge, a form of power or an example of professional practice. The course focuses on some of the core theoretical insights that have emerged from the sociological studies of medicine, health, disease, and illness and is divided into two sections. In the first part, students look at the nature of medical professions, the relationships between clinicians and patients, biomedical power and knowledge, the rise of information communication and technology, empowered patient subjectivity and patient activism. In the second half of the course, students discuss the rise and status of public health (including some reflections on the social consequences of the coronavirus) and key contemporary issues in biomedicine (such as geneticization, pharmaceuticalization and cyborgization). We discuss the social and ethical consequences of these new medical (bio)technologies that may go 'beyond therapy' to enhancement. The question that runs throughout the course is whether, there is occurring a wider transformation from medicalization to biomedicalization that has changed what medicine was.

This course studies how economic globalization and technological change interact in shaping development at the level of regions and countries. Peter Dicken's GLOBAL SHIFT is the main text used. The first part of the course defines economic globalization as growing functional interdependencies between countries and regions in the world economy. It proceeds to map contemporary trends, including the entry of countries such as China and India as major players. Current debates over "slowbalization" and "deglobalization" are also introduced. The second part is more theoretical, discussing specifically the role of multinational companies and more generally the question of industry localization in light of modern space-shrinking transportation and communication technologies. The role of the state in regulating and facilitating economic globalization is thoroughly discussed. Critical questions concerning who are the winners and losers in ongoing global shifts are reflected upon, with emphasis on how the policies, industrial structures, and institutional conditions of regions and countries determine whether they benefit or not. Finally, economic globalization is discussed in the context of social and environmental sustainability challenges.

This course introduces students to some of the main questions addressed by both the sociology of health and the sociology of gender. It applies a gender perspective to the sociology of health and uses health as an interesting topic to analyze gender inequalities and social norms. The first part of the course focuses on gender and health as sociological objects. The second part analyzes how health care systems interact with the very definition of gender by illustrating the case of intersexuality and transgenderism. The third part of the course focuses on two main topics: gender inequalities in health (examining both health outcomes and health as an occupation) and the study of specific health conditions that have a gendered dimension (like reproductive health, violence, infant feeding practices, or covid-19).

This course introduces the major theoretical schools of thought in social change theory. Through the course, students learn how to analyze social change and improve their understanding of social change in China since 1949.

This course offers a study of the history of migration in Argentina. It examines the various historical contexts in which immigrant communities arrived in Argentina and how they were integrated into, or marginalized by, a larger national community. This course discusses how migratory phenomena affect the position and relationship of Argentina with other countries in the region and on a global scale.