Social Sciences

Cultural Perspectives
In and Out: Images of the Homosexual “Other” in American Film The commercial success in the 90s of films such as Philadelphia and The Birdcage, which feature major stars (Tom Hanks, Robin Williams) as sympathetic homosexual protagonists, implies an increased public acceptance of homosexuality in stories meant to convey lessons about tolerance and social justice to wide audiences. However, the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 offers alarming testimony to the continued existence of homophobia in American life, while homosexuality on the screen, for the most part, still rarely transcends the realm of the stereotypical. In and Out, the story of the outing of a high school teacher, begins by asking the audience to laugh at hoary assumptions linking male homosexuality to an attraction to dance and movie musicals, but ends by turning these desires into clues pointing the protagonist toward the “truth” about himself. More recently, the revelation of repressed homosexuality in a principal character figures prominently in the bloody denouement of the critically acclaimed American Beauty. This course explores the cultural messages encoded in portrayals of homosexuality in American movies. In analyzing the history of gay characters in and out of the “Celluloid Closet” from the 1920s to the present, it considers the complex interactions between cultural representation, social and political context, and individual agency. Course materials include mainstream and independent films, and readings in film theory and gay history.

Sociology of Emotions Recently, symbolic interactionists and other “micro” sociologists have catalogued how emotional expressions are controlled and hidden when in the “public view” of others: suppressed laughter, eyeballs rolling in exasperation or disbelief, the tremble of anger, and the quiver and tentative tearfulness of sadness and grief. Each appears to represent the tortured result of conflicting imperatives: the impulse to give spontaneous expression to emotion versus social injunctions against such emotionality, lest one disturb the (otherwise) smooth and predictable flow of public interaction. This course seeks to counter “sanitized” conceptions of modern life as existing independent of—or parallel to—the domain of emotions and, as such, will explore how expressions of pleasure, pain, anger, etc., pervade and animate the social. Thus, in addition to exploring how expressions of emotion are repressed, circumscribed, and punished, we will examine how we—as individuals and members of collectivities—are constituted, recruited, and circulate along and among circuits of pleasure and pain. The topics to be covered include: the roles of humor and laughter in social life; emotional labor and the feeling rules that regulate life in the home and in the market; resentment, indignation, and outrage in the mobilization of resources in service of political projects; the triumph of the therapeutic, and its tropes for interpreting and organizing individual and public life; the pleasures of market consumption (guilty pleasures, pleasurable displays, pleasures of escape, etc.); the social organization of guilt and shame.

Analyzing the War on Terror During the past three years terror, homeland, security, and civilization have emerged as nodal points in a global discourse presumably responding to the attacks of 9/11 and the threat of future violence targeting the United States and its allies. At the same time we have witnessed the emergence of the rhetoric of incredulity and “loss of innocence” that enables the politically and ethically dishonest stance that earnestly asks “why do they hate us?” This course intends to dig beneath both this stance and its rhetoric to trace the genealogy of ideas and practices that define the present. Major topics include the concept of terror, Western conceptions of Islam, the legacy of colonialism and the postcolonial circumstance, globalization and the rise of neoliberalism, the rhetoric of defense and the stance of innocence.

The Foucault Effect Michel Foucault argued that we are “individuals” not because of our talents and preferences, but because we deviate in varied ways from an imposed norm; that sex is not a biological given, but an historically contingent concept used to defend “the normal” from “the abnormal”; that anything (and therefore nothing distinctive) can be deduced from the domination of the bourgeoisie; and that therapists in liberal democracies share with the police of totalitarian dictatorships a common ancestor in medieval Christian priests. He thus engaged in a series of provocative dialogues with other thinkers that challenged Western notions of the a priori human subject; reconceptualized the relationship of power and knowledge in academic and political discourse; and redefined what it meant to be an intellectual in the postmodern world. Noting that Foucault’s work is relevant to important new understandings of the social sciences, the arts, literary criticism, and politics, this course analyzes the fruitful encounters of his ideas with past and present critical theory; poststructuralism; and feminist and postcolonial analyses of marginalization and resistance. It thus explores possibilities for creating a future freer and more just than the present, which so exercised Foucault’s iconoclastic ire. Prerequisite: Upper Division status or permission of the instructor.

Quantitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences This course provides students with an introduction to research methods in the social sciences with a focus on quantitative methods. Students read about and practice designing, implementing, and presenting findings from various types of research methodologies, including survey, experiment, and observation. In addition, this course covers some general issues related to social science research, including forming a hypothesis, ethics, and sampling. This course is heavily weighted toward a hands-on approach. The readings for the course are important and are required; however, it is assumed that a great deal of the learning takes place in actually attempting to design the studies.

Qualitative Research Methods In what ways are relations of power organized into the fabric of everyday life? In what ways is gender, race, class, sexuality, or nationality an “accomplishment” that is routinely reproduced and challenged? What are the cognitive and emotional components of these processes, and how are they evident in various informal settings, interpersonal interactions, cultural products, historical documents, and artifacts? These are the kinds of questions asked by social scientists using “qualitative” research methods, which this course seeks to introduce, emphasizing the interview, participant observation, and content analysis. We will survey the basic techniques and procedures of qualitative inquiry so that students will be: (a) sufficiently informed to design and conduct elementary research projects of their own, and (b) capable of critically assessing the results of social science research. We will also examine the major debates in the field, with an eye towards how those debates have shaped the kind of questions typically posed by qualitative researchers, as well as how particular methodological approaches and conceptual presuppositions shape the kinds of questions, analyses, and conclusions that are generated by this mode of social scientific inquiry. This course is recommended for students who plan to conduct their own or assess others’ research using qualitative methods. Prerequisites: Previous Social Science coursework.

Marginalia: Encounters with Borders & Frontiers This course is imagined as an interdisciplinary investigation into the social and cultural politics of borderlands, frontiers, and marginal spaces. The course will challenge from within the domain of social scientific inquiry, the contruction of these “margins” as peripheral to our selves and society. We will inquire into the borders, real and imaginary, that constitute the political, economic, social and cultural domains of our lives. As scholars of borderlands have noted, the issue of borders—between nations, sexualities, economies, identities, disciplines, and peoples—brings together some of the most pressing issues in the 21st century, issues which drive violence and conflict, as well as cultural creation and solidarity. Borders that mark out profound dilemmas over power and sovereignty under globalization are also fertile spaces of autonomy and resistance. They thus remain central to the question of how we can continue to live together and survive. In addition to regular class meetings, the course will sponsor a series of public lectures by different faculty from across the College as well as invited guests. Together, these will introduce students to the concepts as borderlands as dealt with within their own reading and research. The course is intended to build on and further problematize the concept of cultural encounters identified in the cultural perspective requirements. Prerequisites: Sophomore standing and successful completion of a previous CP course.

Social Science Tutorial Under these course numbers, juniors and seniors design tutorials to meet their particular interests and programmatic needs. A student should see the prospective tutor to define an area of mutual interest to pursue either individually or in a small group. A student may register for no more than one tutorial in any semester.