Sociology

In this course, students learn about various research tools, such as participant observation and qualitative interviewing. Students learn how to take field notes and are introduced to various forms of interviewing, such as the structured interview, the in-depth interview, focus groups, and life history interviews. Taking field notes and interviewing are practiced in and outside of the classroom. Moreover, students are guided through the process of crafting a feasible research question and the appropriate design for future studies they conduct. The research questions provide the basis for students' investigations. What is to be investigated is entirely up to the student(s). However, they are provided with guidance in the formulation of their topics. In this course, students have to conduct at least one interview, thus they need to have access to a tape recorder and/or video camera. This is a time and labor-intensive skills training, especially once the data collection has begun. Most of the required work is done outside of the class setting. Students are expected to work independently and should count on having to invest an extra two to four hours per week in interviewing, transcribing the interviews, and working on the data analysis. This course is for students with a background or sincere interest in sociology, anthropology, and/or cultural studies.

This course presents the discussion of Brazilian culture in its most relevant aspects to students who come from other cultures. Rethink Brazil through the reading of possible stereotypes present in images internationally disseminated, taking into consideration the process of construction of the Brazilian Portuguese Language and the verbal, non-verbal, and social interactional patterns currently in use. This course provides effective contact with different cultural aspects such as ethnic diversity, art, religion, folklore, culinary, and language through theoretical readings, debates, and eventual lectures about specific cultural topics.

This course explores the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the complex idea of home. Major topics include: sense of place, home technologies and design, gender and housework, home and travel, globalisation, nationalism, homelessness, exile, and representations of home. Students complete the course with a new appreciation for the complexity of the places – house, neighborhood, nation, planet – they call home.

This course applies the theoretical concepts, methods, and approaches of sociology to the study of topics in health and wellness of the population. It analyzes the consequences of a lack of health and wellness at individual and social levels and includes perspectives from disciplines such as social policies, anthropology of health, and sociology of the elderly.

Ignorance looms large in our current political discourses. From the ignorance of epidemiological facts shaping pandemic policy and public compliance or willful ignorance of climate change which continues to perpetuate the reliance of fossil fuels to naive ignorance of epistemic exclusions that to reproduce marginalizations on the basis of race and gender, ignorance takes center stage in key public debates. With so much putative ignorance around, one might get the impression that ignorance more than knowledge gives shape to contemporary political cultures. Yet, with a more careful eye towards how ignorance functions, it is clear that we are not dealing with a singular idea. Rather, there are multiple discourses around, definitions of, and practices built on ignorance. This seminar distinguishes between two particular modalities of ignorance: positive and negative ignorance. That is, 1) ignorance defined through the absence of specific forms of knowledge, and 2) ignorance defined in terms of someone’s positionality in and situated knowledge of a complex system. The course traces the first modality of ignorance via its deployment in current political debates such as climate change, racial marginalization, and intersectional feminism. In these discourses, ignorance functions as a foundation for critique, as a moral imperative, and even as basis for political activism. The second modality of ignorance, perhaps better understood in terms of aporia, can be found today in a variety of positive programs for dealing with complexity (aporetics) such as administrative decentralization, neoliberal economics, and even public sector design. The course introduces some of the epistemological and practical preconditions for such aporetic governance. Finally, the seminar asks what forms of research, ethical conduct, and political practices may be mobilized in response to or built upon ignorance and aporia.

In what ways does gender play a role in our daily lives and in our societies? How are understandings and performances of gender and sexuality shaped by discourses and how do they inflect discourses in turn? How have perceptions of gender been changing and how do they vary across cultures and places? How do material factors and emotions interact with discourses in shaping gender? And, finally, how can gender be approached in a variety of manifestations and connect theory to practice?

The course addresses these and related questions by providing an overview of ‘classical’ and contemporary theorizations of gender as well as looking at some differences in defining gender issues and shaping gender politics. Students look into the history of debate about gender and sexuality, and the key definitions developed by feminist critics. This includes engaging with ways of ‘doing’ femininity and masculinity and constructing gendered identity at the interface of race and sex. Students focus on some contributions of gender theory to the larger field of critical humanities and social sciences. Students are introduced to a variety of materials from texts and film, mass and new media, everyday practices, and international policies, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to working with different types of data.

This course examines ideas of culture, ideology, and hegemony, discourse, media aesthetics, and digital convergence. Class discussions investigate the history of communications techniques, the implication of media in the workings of power in modern societies, the politics of media aesthetics, the role of audiences in shaping media, and the impact of digital technologies. Specific examples are introduced to clarify the main ideas, including the printing press, 19th-century visual entertainments, early and avant garde films, fan-fiction, and computer games.