The Social Animal in the Digital Age

SOCIAL ANIMAL DIGITAL AGE

This course re-examines central theories and perspectives in the social sciences from the standpoint of digital technologies. Who are we in the digital age? Is the guiding question for the course. We consider the impact of modern technology on society including, forms of interaction and communication, possibilities for problem solving, and re-configurations of social relationships and forms of authority. The course integrates traditional social science readings with contemporary perspectives emerging from scholars who looking at modern social life. The course is an introductory Sociology offering.

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel / Pa

Imm & Ethn in Israel/Pale

This seminar will focus on migration patterns, both voluntary and forced, of Jews and Palestinians to and from Israel/Palestine from the late 19th century until the present. These migration patterns of different national and ethnic groups have been informing the social, political and economic dynamics in the State of Israel, as well as the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

We first discuss Jewish immigration in the pre-state period (before 1948), Palestinian forced migration in the 1948 and 1967 wars, Jewish immigration to Israel until the 1967 war, and migration of Jews and non-Jews (including labor migrants and refugees) during the post-1967 period. In this context, we will analyze the ethnic/racial and national cleavages – between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews and between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel –that have been developing in Israel since 1948 and before. 

In addition, we will discuss Israel’s ‘migration’ into the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967 and the ramifications of such population movement on the Palestinian and Israeli societies. Finally, we will discuss Jewish emigration from Israel,focusing on the number of emigrants and the question of the brain drain from contemporary Israel.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 4 points

INEQUALITY, POVERTY & MOBILITY

INEQUALITY POVERTY & MOBILITY

This is an undergraduate seminar in social stratification. The course focuses on the current American experience with socioeconomic inequality and mobility. The goals of the course are to understand how inequality is conceptualized and measured in the social sciences, to understand the structure of inequality in the contemporary U.S. to learn the principal theories and evidence for long term trends in inequality, to understand the persistence of poverty and the impact of social policies on American rates of poverty, and to understand the forces that both produce and inhibit intergenerational social mobility in the U.S. Given the nature of the subject matter, a minority of the readings will sometimes involve quantitative social science material. The course does not presume that students have advanced training in statistics, and any readings sections that contain mathematical or statistical content will be explained in class in nontechnical terms as needed. In these instances, our focus will not be on the methods, but rather on the conclusions reached by the author concerning the research question that is addressed in the text.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Thomas DiPrete
  CULPA: 7 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

HIGHER EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY

Prerequisites: (SOCI UN1000) Higher education in the U.S. is going through a period of rapid change. State support is shrinking, student debt is increasing, full-time faculty are being replaced by adjuncts, and learning outcomes are difficult to measure, at best. This class will try to makes sense of these changes. Among other questions, it will ask whether higher education is a source of social mobility or a means of class reproduction; how the college experience differs by race, class, and type of college attended; how the economics of higher education have led to more expensive college and more student loans; and how we might make college better. We will consider several different points of view on the current state of U.S. higher education: that of students who apply to and attend college, that of colleges and universities, and that of society at large. As part of this course, students will conduct research on their own universities: Columbia College or Barnard College.

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 4 points

Life on Mars: Building a New Society in

Life on Mars: Society & S

This course explores the interdisciplinary challenges of establishing a human society on Mars. Students explore a number of challenges that are involved in reaching the Red Planet and setting up a functional social habitat for the long term. This includes both the numerous logistical hurdles of traveling to and surviving on Mars, as well as the social, political, and ethical considerations of establishing a new society on the planet. Through analysis and discussion of scientific research, social science texts, and popular media, students will gain a deep understanding of the physiological, psychological, and strategic challenges of long-duration space travel and human habitation on another planet.

The course is not scientific or overly technical in nature. Instead, the perspective being adopted is that of a social scientist seeking to understand how humans can travel to another planet and live together. The first half of the course focuses on the practical, physiological, and psychological challenges of traveling to and surviving on Mars while maintaining contact withEarth. In the first part of the course, students will study the unique environmental conditions of Mars, the health risks of space travel, and how to maintain communication and connectivity with Earth despite vast distances. Students will also engage with how sustainable living on Mars—through food, energy, and resource management—could shape the future of human expansion in space.

The second half delves into the complexities of building social, legal, and economic systems in a new extraterrestrial society. Students will critically evaluate how to create a self-sustaining, functional civilization on Mars. Given the social science focus of the class, there will be emphasis placed on topics such as governance, establishing social contracts and property rights, and building economic systems for an entirely new world.

This course is meant to attract a small group of 10-15 students interested in space exploration. The small size and intensive four-hour class format is intended to foster creative problem-solving and interdisciplinary thinking (see below for discussion of non-traditional format). By the end of the course, students will not only understand the practicalities of space colonization but also develop skills in envisioning and designing innovative solutions for humanity’s future beyond Earth.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

IMMIGRATION, RACE, AND ASIAN AMERICANS

IMM, RACE, ASIAN AMERICAN

Drawing from evidenced-based social science research, this course will equip students to understand how the laws and policies of America’s past continue to affect the experiences, trajectories, and perceptions of Asian Americans today. Tracing the racial mobility of Asian Americans from “unassimilable to exceptional”, we begin by studying legacies of exclusion and then examine Asian Americans’ experiences in education, affirmative action, the workplace, and the surge of anti-Asian violence during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennifer Lee
  CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Crime and Policing

This course will introduce students to the literature on crime and policing. Readings for the course will be from a broad range of disciplines, including sociology, criminology, law, and public policy.  Most weeks, the readings will include relevant “popular press” articles that will help situate the literature in the context of current debates. The course is organized in two parts. The first half will focus on the problems of crime and violence in urban environments. We will review classic and modern ideas and theories explaining crime and violence, and we will look at the evidence describing patterns and trends in crime in recent history. The second half of the course will focus on the approaches to confront crime and violence, with a strong emphasis on policing. We will review the literature on the relationship between crime and policing, and we will learn about the impact that policing practices have on individuals and their communities.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
  h-index: 6 Info
• 4 points

Race, Discrimination, and Racial Inequal

Race, Dscrmttion, Rac Inq

This course focuses on race, discrimination, and racial inequalities. The course will address three key questions: (1) What is race as perceived in the U.S. and Europe, and what are the sources of racial inequalities? (2) What does social science research tell us about patterns and trends of racial inequalities? (3) What policies can alleviate racial inequalities? The course will systematically adopt comparative perspectives focusing on the North American and European contexts. We will also address research on race and racial inequality within an interdisciplinary lens particularly building on sociology, economics, and social psychology.

This course is designed for advanced undergraduate students from Columbia University and Science Po (Paris). We aim for a class of 30 students (15 from each partner university). Class will take place once a week (for 2 hours). In addition, the Columbia TA will conduct a discussion section once a week in which Columbia and Sciences Po students will work together in small groups on class projects that will be presented over the course of the semester. The classes will be organized in a hybrid format. In each campus, the professor will teach his/her class in person and the two classes will be connected via Zoom. The Columbia and Science Po professors will thus co-teach a virtually connected class. The professors will closely coordinate and alternate in leading the lecture and discussion parts of each class.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• 4 points

Senior Thesis Seminar I

This seminar is an opportunity to do original sociological research with the support of a faculty member, a teaching assistant, and your fellow classmates. Over the next two semesters you will formulate a research question; design a research strategy; collect and analyze data; and write up your findings. At the end of the academic year, you will submit a completed thesis.

The class is intended as scaffolding to support you in what can sometimes feel like a lonely and disorienting process. The goal is to balance structure to facilitate your work with freedom to develop your projects independently.

This seminar is open only to Sociology majors. Please email the professor for permission to join the course.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: James Chu
  h-index: 18 Info
• 4 points

WORKSHP ON WEALTH & INEQUALITY

This Workshop is linked to the Workshop on Wealth - Inequality Meetings. This is meant for graduate students, however, if you are an advanced undergraduate student you can email the professor for permission to enroll.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 1 points

Workshop on Gender & Sexuality I

Work on Gender & Sexualit

The Gender/Sexuality Workshop is a forum for students interested in social science topics broadly related to gender and sexuality. In particular, it will provide an opportunity for students to read and discuss the works presented in the weekly gender/sexuality workshop, while also sharing and refining their own works in progress. The workshop takes an expansive view of gender and sexuality as a mode of classifying people and as a structure that organizes social life, including work that uses gender/sexuality as a lens to interrogate other social structures such as empire, capitalism, science and knowledge, states and governance, and more. The G/S Workshop will meet every other week over the course of Fall 2024.

• Instructor: Tara Gonsalves
  Info
• 2 points

CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

CONT SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

This lecture course fulfills the theory requirement in Columbia’s sociology program. It introduces students to post-War sociology by discussing its major paradigms, from Parson’s functionalism to contemporary post-colonial theory or actor-network theory. Each class discusses how a particular theory constructs social reality by making basic assumptions about the component parts of society, how they relate to each other, and what questions emerge that empirical research needs to answer. To illustrate how paradigms conceive and perceive the empirical world differently, each lecture summarizes how intimate, romantic relationships appear when empirically analyzed from a specific theoretical angle.

• MW 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• Instructor: Andreas Wimmer
  Wikipedia h-index: 41 Info
• 3 points

SOCIAL ACTION AND SOCIAL CHANGE

SOCIAL ACTION & SOCIAL CHANGE

Many of us are drawn to sociology, because--at least at some level--we care about making the world more just. The irony, however, is that sociology traditionally has had very little to say about the processes by which individuals and groups come together to address the kinds of inequalities that sociology is so good at identifying. This class focuses on the theory and practice of organizing, defined most simply as the process by which individuals enable others to come together around shared values and common interests in such a way that enhances their power.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

This course emphasizes the perspectives of foundational thinkers on the evolution and dynamics of social life. Readings address key sociological questions; including the configuration of communities, social control, institutions, exchange, interaction, and culture.

• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• 4 points

PROSEMINAR I

The Proseminar fulfills two separate goals within the Free-Standing Masters Program in Sociology. The first is to provide exposure, training, and support specific to the needs of Masters students preparing to move on to further graduate training or the job market. The second goal is to provide a forum for scholars and others working in qualitative reserach, public sociology, and the urban environment.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

FIELD WORK I

This two-semester sequence supports students through the process of finding a fieldwork site, beginning the field work required to plan for and develop a Masters thesis, and the completion of their Masters thesis.

• F 8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

THESIS SEMINAR I

This seminar gives you an opportunity to do original sociological research with the support of a faculty member, a teaching assistant, and your fellow classmates.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

Intro Social Data Analysis I

Basic techniques for analyzing quantitative social science data. Emphasis on conceptual understanding as well as practical mastery of probability and probability distributions, inference, hypotheses testing, analysis of variance, simple regression, and multiple regression.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Yao Lu
  h-index: 25 Info
• 4 points

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SEXUALITIES

Despite the ubiquity of sexual imagery in contemporary Western popular culture, most people regard sexuality to be an intimate topic that concerns the drives, experiences and pleasures of individuals. In this course, we will examine the social and pluralistic character of sexual desires, meanings, practices and politics. We will begin with some of conceptual foundations that ground contemporary sociological studies of sexuality. We will think together about how knowledge about the social sources of sexuality is produced and some of the methodological, epistemological and ethical quandaries faced by researchers--including the ways our own sexualities, desires, inhibitions and identities frame our work. We will then examine some of the key questions in the sociology of sexualities, including the complexity of classifying sexual identities, practices and populations, the relationship between institutional contexts and sexual behavior, and intersections with the sociology of race, gender, risk, health and regulation. In each of these discussions, students will explore the varied methodological approaches to these topics within sociology, as well as some of the disciplinary and cultural challenges to making sexuality a central object of intellectual inquiry.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Tey Meadow
  h-index: 8 Info
• 4 points

Transnational Approaches to Gender and S

Approaches Gender/Sexuali

Since the 1980s, third wave feminists have expanded the feminist project to include perspectives from and attention to women outside the West. In more recent decades, a similar movement has happened among queer and trans theorists. In this course, we will engage this work, much of which has been published in the past decade and a half. We will start with provincializing central concepts of feminist and queer theory: gender and sexuality. Taking an intersectional approach that attends to race, class, nation, and other social divisions, we will read scholars who study gender/sexuality around the world, including in Latin America, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. The readings will draw our attention to the ways in which gender/sexuality are implicated in imperial and post-colonial projects as well as how gender and sexuality operate outside the West, both in practice and identity. Finally, we will consider the possibilities and limitations for studying gender/sexuality beyond our own societies. Critical approaches to gender and sexuality challenge conventional “born this way” narratives about gender and sexual identities as innate. This course will raise questions that will make us uncomfortable and, hopefully, transform our understandings of our own gendered and sexual identities and practices.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Tara Gonsalves
  Info
• 4 points

Historical Approaches in the Social Scie

Historical Aprchs Scl Scn

This course introduces students to historical approaches in sociology and political science (and some economics). In the first part, the course surveys the major theoretical approaches and methodological traditions. Examples of the former are classic comparativist work (e.g. Skocpol’s study of revolutions), historist approaches (such as Sewell’s), or the historical institutionalist tradition (Mahoney, Thelen, Wimmer, etc.). In terms of methodological approaches, we will discuss classical Millean small-N comparisons, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, process tracing, actor-centered modeling, quantitative, large-N works, and causal inference type of research designs. In the second part, major topics in macro-comparative social sciences are examined, from world systems and empire to the origins of democracy.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Andreas Wimmer
  Wikipedia h-index: 41 Info
• 4 points

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY: THE ORIGINS

Prerequisites: this course is intended for sociology Ph.D. and SMS students. No others without the instructors written permission. Foundational sources and issues in sociological theory: Adam Smith, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, Mead, Mauss, others; division of labor, individualism, exchange, class and its vicissitudes, social control, ideas and interests, contending criteria of explanation and interpretation.

• M 9:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• 3 points

DESIGNS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

Required of all incoming sociology doctoral students. Prepares students who have already completed an undergraduate major or its equivalent in some social science to evaluate and undertake both systematic descriptions and sound explanations of social structures and processes.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Mario Small
  Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SEMINAR II

MPHIL THS WRTNG SMNR II

This seminar is PART 2 for second and third year students who are writing their MPhil thesis. It will assume the form of a yearlong seminar during which students design, research, and write up their MPhil projects. These projects can be based on any kind of sociological method, quantitative or qualitative. The thesis will assume the form of an article that can be submitted to a social science journal. The seminar will help you to find an interesting question, a way to answer it, and a mode of communicating this to fellow sociologists in a way that they might find worth paying attention to. The summer break between the two semesters will allow students who don’t come to the first semester with ready-to-analyze data to gather such data (through ethnographic work, archival research, scraping the internet, combining existing survey data, etc.).

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

SOCIAL NETWORKS

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• 3 points