Sociology Graduate Course Descriptions

Listed below are detailed descriptions of the graduate courses. Some graduate courses listed are not offered every year. Students should check in the Sociology Department Office to find out which courses are available for each semester. If students have any questions concerning a particular course they should talk to their advisor or the course instructor.

Course Numbering System

100-299	Courses designed for freshman and sophomores.
300-499	Courses designed for juniors and seniors.
500-699	Courses designed primarily for juniors and seniors, but can also be taken by graduate students who have fewer than 30 hours of graduate credit.
700-799	Courses designed primarily for graduate students who have fewer than 30 hours of graduate credit, but can also be taken by undergraduates.
800-900	Courses designed primarily for graduate students who have fewer than 30 hours of graduate credit.

Required Courses

Sociology 790 MA Proseminar
Introduction to major disciplinary issues, departmental research specialties, faculty research interests, interdisciplinary connections, funding sources, and professional writing. Required of MA students entering the graduate program in sociology. May not be taken by those who have credit for SOC 990. Graded on satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. LEC

Sociology 811 Sociological Research
The use of the scientific method to study social phenomena including: the formulation and testing of hypotheses; techniques for collecting data; measuring social variables; interpreting research findings; the relationship of theory and facts. Prerequisite: A distribution course in sociology. LEC

Sociology 812 Analytic Methods in Sociology
Consideration of quantitative methods of analysis including both parametric and non-parametric techniques. Prerequisite: A course in statistics. LEC

Sociology 990 PhD Proseminar
Survey of major disciplinary issues and introduction to departmental research specialties, faculty research interests, interdisciplinary connections, funding sources, and professional writing. Required of PhD students entering the graduate program in sociology. May not be taken by those who have credit for SOC 790. Graded on satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. LEC

History and Theory of Sociology

Sociology 700 Advanced General Sociology

Sociology 705 Seminar in Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Sociology 706 Sociological Theory and Model Construction

Sociology 707 Seminar in Historical Sociology
Each seminar will explore problems at the intersection of sociology and history. Topic, instructors, and hours of credit will be announced in the Timetable. Seminars will be offered by different instructors on different topics and students may take more than one topic. No prerequisite. LEC

Sociology 801 The Rise of Social Theory
This is less a survey of intellectual history than an effort to trace the “preclassical” roots of sociological theory. We explore the rise of paradigmatic concerns in the writings of such key figures as Aristotle, Marsilius of Padua, Martin Luther, Etienne de la Boetie, Michel de Montaigne, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Flora Tristan, and Ludwig Feuerbach, among others. LEC

Sociology 802 Modern Social Theory
This seminar will focus on the later 19th and early 20th century “theories of society,” addressing the origins and developmental tendencies of Western modernity and their relation to premodern social orders. Primary texts of the major theorists (eg. Marx, Durkheim, Nietzsche, Weber, Simmel, and Mead) will be studied in historical context. The tradition’s analytical and critical resources and problematic features will also be explored. Finally, the connections between this tradition and contemporary sociological approaches will be explored. LEC

Sociology 803 Issues in Contemporary Theory
A critical examination of recent trends and debates in sociological theory. This is a thematically oriented course in which classical as well as contemporary views will be explored. Attention will be directed to theoretical issues under discussion in fields such as symbolic interactionism, semiology, ethnomethodology, critical theory, macrosociology, and others. LEC

Sociology 804 Sociology of Knowledge
Sociology of Knowledge examines how social forces, particularly social relations of inequality, shape the contours of knowledge and the privileging of some kinds of knowledge over others. Several paradigms within sociology have addressed this problematic but, particularly in recent decades, the most fruitful work has been done by feminist scholars. In this course we will read some of the “classics” in sociology of knowledge, feminist critiques of mainstream knowledge, and feminist perspectives on knowing and the known. Finally we will take a critical look at the social institutions organizing the production of knowledge in western sociology: the discipline and the academy. LEC

Sociology 808 Feminist Theories
This course will explore and evaluate accounts of social structure, social processes, and consciousness developed in the feminist literature. We will review a range of theoretical arguments, including liberal, historical, materialist, psychoanalytic, cultural, and Black feminist theories. Some of the readings will focus on limitations and distortions within mainstream social theory; others will center on the development of alternative social theory using the standpoint of women as a point of departure. LEC

Sociology 900 Seminar on Special Topics in Theory
Each seminar will explore problems of theory in sociology. Topic, instructor, and hours of credit will be announced in the Timetable. Seminars will be offered by different instructors on different topics, and a student may take more than one topic. LEC

Sociology 900 Seminar on Special Topics in Theory: Goffman and Blumer
Participants will read and analyze texts by Herbert Blumer and Erving Goffman. These mid-20th-century American theorists emphasized the understanding of social life through meaning, self, action, and interaction. They are leading exponents of theory shaped for and through close observation of social life. Both were influenced by the ideas of George Herbert Mead. Also, Goffman was influenced by aspects of Durkheim’s thought and Blumer by aspects of Weber’s method for comparative historical sociology. Taken together Blumer and Goffman conceptualize a broad range of social formations and processes from self to interpersonal interaction to contemporary societies. Substantive topics treated include conceptual treatments of self presentations, cognitive framing, mental illness, teamwork, total institutions, race relations, fashion, public opinion, and mass society. The seminar requires near perfect attendance and very ample, consistent participation in discussion, and several written assignments. Blumer will be treated as a thinker in his own right and as a general background for Goffman. Blumer readings will include Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method and the recently-published George Herbert Mead and Human Conduct. About 2/3rds of the seminar will be spent on Goffman. Goffman reading will include Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Stigma, Asylums, Encounters, and parts of Frame Analysis. As the Timetable entry for this class points out: "To accommodate a health condition, students may not wear fragrances in this class."

Methods of Sociological Research

Sociology 710 The Logic of Sociological Inquiry

Sociology 813 Field Methods and Participant Observation
Will acquaint the student both theoretically and empirically with the procedures and logics of the research techniques employed by individuals or small research teams conducting qualitative fieldwork. Prerequisite: A distribution course in sociology. FLD

Sociology 814 Health Services Research: Epidemiology, Evaluation, and Survey Methods
Students learn the logic, assumptions, designs, and procedures involved in conducting the major types of research found in the health services field. Students develop an informed basis for critically evaluating the methodological adequacy of research studies in the areas of descriptive and analytic epidemiology, program evaluation, and health-related survey research as well as working knowledge of the research process itself. Emphasis is placed on examining basic health services issues such as measuring quality of care, understanding the role of social factors in the etiology of disease, determining the health status and health needs of populations, and incorporating health services research into organizational policy and decision making. (Same as HP&M 821.) Prerequisite: PRE 710 or equivalent, HP&M 810 and HP&M 812 or consent of instructor. LEC

Sociology 910 Seminar in Special Topics in Methods
Each seminar will explore problems of methods in sociology. Topic, instructor, and hours of credit will be announced in the Timetable. Seminars will be offered by different instructors on different topics, and a student may take more than one topic. LEC