THE SOCIAL WORLD

Identification of the distinctive elements of sociological perspectives on society. Readings confront classical and contemporary approaches with key social issues that include power and authority, culture and communication, poverty and discrimination, social change, and popular uses of sociological concepts.

• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 4 points

THE POLITICS OF MASS INCARCERATION

THE POL. OF MASS INCARCER

To many observers, mass incarceration is among the most pressing civil rights and human rights issues in

the contemporary United States. America’s carceral state is sweeping. In addition to the nearly 2 million

people currently incarcerated, there are over 7 million people living who have been imprisoned in the past

three decades and 19 million people currently living with felony records. These carceral sentences impact

the lived conditions and life chances of those most directly affected as well as their families and

communities. These dynamics are also deeply racialized and have reshaped American culture and

democracy at the local and national levels. But that is not the full story. Liberatory movements have

resisted and surged against racialized subjugation for centuries in the United States, making confinement

a continually contested racial and political condition in the United States.

 

In this course, students will study the origins and developments of mass incarceration, as well as the

political struggles that have been waged against it. Students will read across a range of genres, including

scholarly work in the fields of sociology, political science, history, and law, as well as performance,

memoir, and testimony. By examining the rise of the carceral state in this way, students will gain a critical

lens on longstanding concerns in the American imaginary: race and racism, justice and injustice,

community and reparation, liberation and abolition. While the course is not exhaustive, it is meant to

equip students with a working framework on the critical debates in the field.

• W 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David Knight
  Info
• 4 points

SOCIOLOGY OF WORK & GENDER

This course examines gender as a flexible but persistent boundary that continues to organize our work lives and our home lives, as well as the relationship between the two spheres. We will explore the ways in which gender affects how work is structured; the relationship between work and home; the household as a place of paid (and unpaid) labor; and how changes in the global economy affect gender and work identities.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Teresa Sharpe
  CULPA: 14 Info
• 3 points

The Politics of Work

In this class we will examine the politics, organization, and experience of work. In the first three weeks we will get our bearings and consider some basic (but difficult!) questions about work, including: What counts as work and who counts as a worker? How important are our jobs to our survival in the world, and what makes for a good or bad job? In this section you will start thinking about and analyzing your own work experiences. In weeks four and five we will read what sociology’s founders had to say about work, and consider some of the important shifts to work that accompanied industrialization. Then we will turn to 20th century transformations, including the rise of the service economy and worker-customer relations, changes in forms of managerial control and worker responses to these changes, globalization, and the proliferation of precarious work. Finally, we will turn to examining gender, class and race in labor markets and on the job, paid and unpaid reproductive labor, the construction of selves at work, and the job of fashion modeling. Throughout the course we will examine how the sociology of work is bound up with other key institutions including gender, race, class, and the family.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 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.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Sudhir A Venkatesh
  CULPA: 11 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SENIOR SEMINAR

Prerequisites: required methods and theory courses for the major, and the instructors permission. Students wishing to qualify for departmental honors must take W3996y. Students carry out individual research projects and write a senior thesis under the supervision of the instructor and with class discussion. Written and oral progress reports.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: James Chu
  h-index: 18 Info
• 3-4 points

INDIVIDUAL STUDY II

Prerequisites: open only to qualified majors in the department; the director of undergraduate studies permission is required. An opportunity for research under the direction of an individual faculty member. Students intending to write a year-long senior thesis should plan to register for C3996 in the spring semester of their senior year and are strongly advised to consult the undergraduate studies as they plan their programs.

• Instructor: Peter Bearman
  CULPA: 19 Wikipedia h-index: 54 Info
• Instructor: Adam Reich
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 1-6 points

Workshop in Gender and Sexuality II

Work Gender and Sexuality

The Gender/Sexuality Workshop is a forum for Ph.D. students interested in social science topics broadly related to gender and sexuality. In particular, it will provide an opportunity for students share and refine their own works in progress by getting feedback from other students in the workshop. The workshop is geared towards students conducting empirical work, from ethnographies and interview-based projects to archival research to other kinds of critical quantitative work that attempts to theorize gender/sexuality. We will take an expansive view of gender and sexuality as a mode of classifying people and 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 biweekly (every other week) over the course of Spring 2025.

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

Carcerality, Law, and Punishment Worksho

Carcerality, Law Wkshp

The Carcerality, Law, and Punishment Workshop is a forum for students interested in social science research on the carceral system broadly construed and related institutions, processes, and practices. The CLP workshop invites leading scholars and brings together students and faculty for a deeper and more focused dialogue about new directions in the field. Supported by a grant from Columbia University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research Policy (ISERP), the CLP Workshop will meet generally on two Tuesdays every month during the academic year, and provide students with an opportunity to read, discuss, and share works-in-progress as well as build a scholarly network with others at Columbia and beyond. This year, the workshop theme will be “Politics, Movements, and Public Engagement.”

• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: David Knight
  Info
• 2 points

SOCIOLOGY OF EXPERTISE

A new approach to the classical problems of the sociology of knowledge - the social determination of knowledge and the social roles of those who create, possess, and distribute knowledge. This new approach rejects the current boundaries of inquiry and reunifies them as a network of practices straddling the boundaries of science and the professions.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Gil Eyal
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 26 Info
• 3 points

Israel and the Palestinians

The seminar will examine the main political, economic, and social processes that have been shaping contemporary Israel. The underlying assumption in this seminar is that much of these processes have been shaped by the 100-year Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict. The first part of the course will accordingly focus on the historical background informing the conflict and leading to the Palestinian refugee problem and establishment of a Jewish, but not Palestinian, state in 1948.  The second part of the seminar focuses on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (and Gaza) and the settlement project, as well as on USA's role and its impact on the conflict, the occupation, and Israel. These topics did not get much academic attention until recently, but as researchers began to realize that the Occupation and the West Bank settlements are among the most permanent institutions in Israel, they have come under the scrutiny of academic research. 

The third part the seminar will concentrate on the development of the conflict after the establishment of Israel and its effects on sociological processes and institutions in contemporary Israel.  Analyzing patterns of continuity and change in the past seven decades, we will discuss immigration and emigration patterns, as well as issue relating to ethnicity, gender, religion and politics, and the Israeli military.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Yinon Cohen
  CULPA: 4 Wikipedia h-index: 33 Info
• 4 points

METHODS WORKSHOP

Introducing students to a series of methods, methodological discussions, and questions relevant to the focus of the Masters program: urban sociology and the public interest. Three methodological perspectives will frame discussions: analytical sociology, small-n methods, and actor-network theory.

• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: David Knight
  Info
• 4 points

PROSEMINAR II

• F 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 1 points

FIELD WORK II

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

THESIS SEMINAR II

• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Denise Milstein
  CULPA: 9 h-index: 5 Info
• 3 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.

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

Reckoning with Asian America

It took the mass murder of six Asian women in Atlanta on March 16, 2021 to draw national attention to what Asian Americans have been warning about since the wake of Covid-19: a surge in anti-Asian violence and hate. Since the onset of the coronavirus, 1 in 8 Asian American adults experienced a hate incident, and 1 in 7 Asian American women worry all the time about being victimized, reflecting an under-recognized legacy of anti-Asian violence, bigotry, misogyny, and discrimination in the United States that dates back more than 150 years. Drawing on research and readings from the social sciences, this course links the past to the present in order to understand this legacy, and how it continues to affect Asian Americans today.

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

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SEMINAR

MPHIL THESIS WRITING SMR

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

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND/FOR THE SOCI

AI AND/FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE

Escaping artificial intelligence has become a complicated task. Escaping the discourse about AI has become even more so. Whether we see in it a promise of progress, the vector of a dangerous regression, a fad that will eventually pass, a simple tool, discussions about AI are omnipresent. And when we ignore it, AI often affects our lives in ways we do not notice. Because AI has become integral to the discourses and the practices of contemporary societies, social scientists are being pressed to position themselves with respect to it. 

The idea behind this course is that to understand what is at stake with AI, we first need to understand what AI is. It is useful to explore its origins, its history, the movements that have gone through it. It is also necessary to understand in concrete terms what a contemporary AI algorithm does. This means that we need to grasp, even intuitively, the difference between an expert system and a connectionist approach; why the Transformers architecture has allowed progress in the study of content; why neural networks are said to be “better at prediction than explanation”. Understanding what certain now-ubiquitous terms mean (such as RLHF, train/test/dev sets, AGI, zero and few-shot learning, ...) is also important for those who want to study contemporary societies.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Etienne Ollion
  Info
• 4 points

Frontiers in Sociology Workshop II

FRONTIERS SOC II

The Sociology Frontiers Graduate Student Workshop is intended for Sociology graduate students and will run in conjunction with the newly instituted Sociological Frontiers Colloquium.It will provide an opportunity for students to read and discuss the works presented in theFrontiers Colloquium, which will meet 7 times over the course of the 2024-2025 academic year (3 times in the Fall and 4 times in the Spring) while also sharing and refining their own works in progress. The Frontiers Workshop will meet on the same day as the Frontiers Colloquium.Students who enroll in the Frontiers Workshop are expected to attend both the colloquium and the workshop.The first half of the student workshop consists of attending theFrontiers Colloquium.The Frontiers Colloquiumis sponsored by Columbia University’s Sociology Department and will bring leading sociologists who are doing cutting-edge research to speak to faculty and students in the department.The speaker list for this year will be announced in August 2024

• T 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Instructor: Tara Gonsalves
  Info
• 1 points