Professor Barbara Katz Rothman  bkatzrothman@gc.cuny.edu

Soc. 86800 – Writing for Publication {93357}

Tuesdays, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

"Wie schrjft, die blijft," Who writes, lives.  (A Dutch Proverb)

This course will have two components: one is a scholarly sociological  
study of publishing itself: an examination of the worlds and  
institutions of knowledge-production and dissemination.  We will  
consider book publishing, following the work of Coser, Powell and  
Kadushin (BOOKS: THE CULTURE AND COMMERCE OF PUBLISHING) and more recent changes in the world of book publishing.  Similarly, we will explore the  
contemporary issues in journal publication, including issues of  
copyright and new technologies, current debates and concerns about  
journal costs and distribution, and ongoing discussions of ethical  
concerns in academic publishing in an increasingly commercialized world.  

The second component is more pragmatic, in which students take their own  
work thru the appropriate and necessary steps for publication in a  
variety of media.  Topics we will cover include how to do book reviews,  
how to prepare a paper for presentation and then for publication, how to  
participate in anthology writing, how to prepare a book proposal, and  
how to construct a book out of a dissertation.   

Registration will be in the fall semester; with the clear and absolute  
understanding that students are committing to meeting every other week  
for the entire academic year.  Because of the exigencies of publication  
timetables and the work involved, a single semester is not adequate.  

Course is limited to 12 students, with permission of the instructor.

Professor David Brotherton  dbrotherton@jjay.cuny.edu

Soc. 85000 - Studies of Youth, Marginalization and Subcultures of Resistance {93323}

Tuesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

This seminar has two major goals: (i) to explore the range of sociological theories that purport to explain the continuity and discontinuity of youth social and cultural resistance over time, and (ii) to critically appreciate the different forms that this resistance takes in the context of a transnationalist capitalist order. We will focus in particular on the origins of youth subcultures as they emerge during both modernity and late modernity and their construction within changing notions of criminal and non-criminal deviance. Please note you will also have the opportunity to attend and present at the Critical Criminology Common Sessions that will take place during the Fall Break in Corinth, Greece.This is a student-oriented conference which is run every semester in conjunction with the following universities: Athens, Barcelona, Bologna (transitional status), Erasmus (Rotterdam), Ghent (Belgium), Hamburg, Kent (UK), and Middlesex (UK).

 

Professor Cynthia Fuchs Epstein  cepstein@gc.cuny.edu

Soc. 86800 - Cultural Sociology {93352}

Wednesdays, 4:15-6:15 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

The theme of Culture and empirical work on culture have grown in the last 20 years.  Such topics as cultural practices and processes, symbolic and classificatory systems, repertoires of action, of contention, webs of significance, and cultural structures are topics comprising the “cultural turn.” in sociology.  

We shall read the work of scholars who have conceptualized these topics, sought research sites and methodologies for exploring them in such arenas as music, art, fashion, communications, celebrity culture, sexuality, gender distinction and politics.  For example, DiMaggio and Crane on the institutionalization of cultural categories, Zerubavel on cognitive sociology, Alexander on myths and narratives, Douglas and (Alexander) on the sacred and profane, Bourdieu on cultural capital, Brubecker on groups and ethnicities, Geertz on thick description and a webs of significance, Schwartz and Wagner-Pacifici on contested meanings of memorials, Lamont and Epstein on symbolic boundaries and status, Friedland on religious ideology and kinship, and Kunda on corporate cultures. 
 

 

 

Professor Stuart Ewen  sewen@gc.cuny.edu

Soc. 76900 – Social and Historical Roots of Mass Culture {93355}

Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

The seminar explores the crossroads linking the rise of new media technologies, the development of a modern, global commercial society, and the emergence of a consumer culture.  Relations between visual culture, language and social power will be of ongoing concern, as will changes in the meaning of truth, the physics of perception, and the changing character of public space and social interaction that have evolved in conjunction with the rise of a way of life that accelerates the intercommunication of human thought and experience without the necessity of physical presence.  

Throughout the course we will look at various media materials and aesthetic currents in relation to emerging cultural outlooks and significant social and historical changes. Historical junctures linking art, science, popular culture and the mass media will be explored as well. Areas of concern include the influence and meanings of visual eloquence, the power of words in print and speech, and the interactions between social structure, systems of classification, social psychology, and modernity. Students are expected to produce three projects over the course of the semester.   

 

Professor David Halle  dhalle@ucla.edu

Soc. 82201 - Computer Mapping for LA & NY {93299}

Mondays, 11:45 – 1:45 p.m. Room TBA, 1 credits

 
An introduction to computer mapping (Geographic Information Systems), using the software Mapinfo.  We will learn the techniques of computer mapping using 2000, 1990, 1980 and 1970 census data for New York and Los Angeles, both the cities and regions. We will start by mapping the distribution of income, occupations, and racial and ethnic groups.  Students will use the data to discuss such key topics as the Latinization of inner city neighborhoods, whether it make sense to talk anymore about inner-city "ghettos", the movement of ethnic groups to the suburbs, gentrification and urban growth..  We will also map crime at the level of the police precinct, political data including mayoral and congressional elections, and  city and county boundaries, and discuss the issues associated with these data. 

The class will meet for four sessions during the month of September - October. (Meetings will be held on Mondays, starting Monday, September 8^th  through Monday, October 6^th, from 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m. in the Computer Classroom. In addition, Professor Halle will be available at regular times throughout the year to help/consult with students on G.I.S.  

 

 

Professor Lily Hoffman  lilymhoff@aol.com

Soc. 72500 - Urban Sociology -- Changing Cities/Evolving Theory    

{93306}

Wednesdays, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

This survey of urban sociology will critically examine models of the city and urban life, including Marx, Weber, the Chicago School, the new urban sociology, global cities formation, culture and urban economy models, etc.

 
 

Professor James Jasper  jmjasper@juno.com

Soc. 84600 –Social Movements {93309}

Mondays, 4:15-6:15 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

This course introduces theories of social movements, with special emphasis on the periods before and after the structural paradigm of the 1970s to 1990s. We will end with recent developments in the analysis of cultural meanings, strategic choices, and emotions. Throughout, we will emphasize the micro-level foundations beneath the grand metaphors such as movements, states, and cultures. 

 

 

Professor Mary Clare Lennon  mlennon@gc.cuny.edu

Soc. 81900 - Causal Inference: Design and Statistics {93301}

Wednesdays, 4:15 – 6:15 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

This is a seminar on causal inference for doctoral students in the social sciences and public health. In recent decades, economists and statisticians have developed an approach to causality that will be the focus of this course: the counterfactual or potential outcomes model. In the past several years, these methods have made their way into sociological studies, as well as into public health.  This approach provides a logic of causal reasoning and a framework for evaluating evidence of causality. The course focuses on the logic of causal inference in observational studies, that is, studies in which individuals select themselves into different situations or treatments (quasi-experiments and non-experiments).  The course objective is to provide students with instruction and hands-on experience in applying methods of research design and quantitative analysis to research problems in social sciences with an emphasis on studies of health and social policy. Topics covered include concepts of explanation and causality in the social sciences, specification and estimation of single equations and systems of simultaneous equations to model causal relationships, and statistical and design techniques for inferring causal effects from observational data.  Special attention will be given to the assumptions that underlie these methods and statistics.  As a seminar, we will devote about half our time to lectures and the other half to student presentation and discussion of class projects. 

 

Professor Marnia Lazreg  mlazreg@gc.cuny.edu

Soc. 80000 -Contemporary French Social Theory {93756}

Mondays, 4:15-6:15 p.m. Room TBA, 3 credits 

This course traces the influence of debates on national identity, ideological representation, and the social consequences of rapid industrialization on the evolution of postwar French social theory.  It further examines how the collapse of the French empire and the emergence of the May 1968 movement helped to re-orient social thought and paved the way for the absorption of American methodological and theoretical concepts.   

Theories will comprise phenomenology, structuralism and post-structuralism, practice theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, semiology, feminism and post-coloniality.  Students will be encouraged to develop in-depth knowledge of two theorists and explore central issues from a comparative perspective. 

Major theorists whose work will be discussed:  Marcel Mauss, Claude Levi-Strauss, Lucien Goldmann, Etienne Balibar, François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Roland Barthes, Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Michelle Perrot, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze.   

Requirements:  active class participation and a substantive term paper. 

Cross-listed with the Women’s Certificate Program