| source Harvard (X) |
level |
department Social Studies (X) |
What is the nature of aesthetic judgment? Are aesthetic judgments objective or merely reports on our private preferences? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral or political judgment? Does art play a significant role in the validation of social norms? How do institutions affect our appreciation of art? Is the aesthetic merely an attitude reinforced by museums or other social preconditions? Or is there something like an autonomous realm of beauty? These questions will guide us as we explore modern aesthetic theory from its idealist origins in Kant, Schiller, and Hegel, followed by Nietzsche, and concluding with contemporary philosophers of art such as Benjamin, Heidegger, Greenberg, Danto, and Nehamas.
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This course explores the special status of children and families in American society and politics. We consider social protections for children and families and examine the role of the state in marriage, parenting, and the education of children and adolescents. Topics include child abuse and neglect, divorce and single parenthood, social class and parenting styles, and the relationship between families and schools.
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The Cold War's demise brought to the fore new rights claims by groups-e.g. participation, recognition, and equity. Focusing on major theories and debates on multiculturalism, recognition, redistribution, liberalism, group rights, and self-determination, the tutorial explores the illusive and controversial "what" and the "why" of the claims. Then, asking the "how," demands are explored as international human rights, contextualized in case studies that locate claims within local politics, contested histories, and globalization.
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This tutorial will examine the ideas about democracy in the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Constant, Tocqueville, Proudhon, Jaures, Alain, Aron and de Gaulle.
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This tutorial traces the vicissitudes of Marx and Freud in the works of the Frankfurt School. Its aim is to deepen students' knowledge of the historical continuities and discontinuities of concepts and debates on psyche, labor, and art from the perspective of critical theory. Particular emphasis is placed on critiques of modernity and mass culture and society by Horkheimer, Adorno, and Benjamin.
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The course explores various approaches to the study of culture, drawing on studies in anthropology, history, philosophy, sociology, literature and photography. Among the questions addressed are: How is historical memory constructed, and what are the competing forces that shape it? How do advertisements, photography, and film document cultural change? How is culture tied to power, domination, and resistance?
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Examines both the history of and present controversies surrounding the application(s) of Darwinian Theory, broadly speaking, to social and political thought in the West. Asks how and why "Social Darwinism" went from being a popular motif to being virtually banned in the social sciences to re-emerging in a modified - but how modified? - form. Topics to be discussed include: what Darwin actually said; original appropriations (or misappropriations) of evolutionary theory; the replacement of "scientific racism" by culturalist/constructivist anti-racism in 20th century social science; the return of Darwinism via the "Sociobiology" controversy; genetics and politics; the relationship between biology and culture; the new study of "memes"; sexual politics; the politics of human uniqueness.
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What assumptions about human beings underlie the conviction that development and modernization consitute progress, that the developed West points the way for the rest of the world? Does economic growth involve a package that necessarily changes the society, the polity, and the culture along with the economy? This tutorial provides a framework for thinking about these questions, both in the context of the west, and in the context of the Third World.
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Explores how education has been and continues to be a central institution of American society, reflecting social ideals and ideologies while also directly shaping the contours and structures of society in both productive and detrimental ways. Examines different philosophical foundations of formal learning and how those theories have become manifested across time in various educational practices. Investigates how schools currently operate, specific issues the American educational system faces, and the implications of various schooling practices for structuring American society.
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The course will examine cultural, social, and political manifestations of difference and context in confrontation by examining cases of ethnic and religious conflict from East, Southeast, and South Asia. We will first examine dominant understandings of difference in these regions, then we will read ethnographic examples from the region. This will bring our attention to recent issues of ethno-religious discord in Sri Lankan civil war; communal violence in India; ethnic wars in Burma (Myanmar); discord among the Muslim, Tibetan, and Han Chinese; the Acehnese struggle for independence in Indonesia; and Muslim "insurgency" in both the Philippines and southern Thailand. The course will bring critical attention to bear on the issues of ethnicity, religion, and conflict in a trajectory from imperial/colonial to national settings across Asia.
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Despite globalization, the nation is still a major actor in today's world. This course tries to understand why this is so by examining the role that nationalism plays in peoples' identities and the effects of globalization on nations and nationalism. Examples from the United States, Western Europe, Latin America, India, and the Middle East.
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This course will examine the changing nature of humanitarian intervention since the end of the Cold War, with particular emphasis on the current NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. The readings will offer a broad survey of the different methods and means of modern intervention, as well as an introduction to some of the more theoretical debates over the different ends and justifications provided for intervention today.
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Since World War II, human rights have moved from the margins of international law and politics to the center. This tutorial will introduce students to some of the main human rights instruments and institutions, both international and regional. It will use this legal framework to ask and explore what rights are protected, which vulnerable populations have special claims to protection, and what legal and practical instruments are available to them. It will explore the strengths and weaknesses of different intervention strategies.
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This course examines various perspectives on international migration and the social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of movement. The course examines labor migration, forced migration and refugee processes, trafficking, and the relation of migratory processes to transnational citizenship, violence and displacement, development, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and kinship and the family.
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This course offers an introduction to the classic texts of social theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Our focus will be on the rise of democratic, capitalist societies and the concomitant development of modern moral, political, and economic ideas. Authors we will examine include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx.
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This class continues the introduction to the classic texts of social theory begun in Social Studies 10a through the twentieth century. Authors include Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, and Michel Foucault.
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This course looks at contemporary Muslim identity in Germany, France and the United States. After situating Islam historically and conceptually, we will examine themes such as secularism, interpretation, and modernity through the lenses of Muslims and the non-minority national communities. We will use texts from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, religious studies, sociology, and political science.
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Examines law as a defining force in American culture and society in four dimensions-as it establishes individual rights, liberties, and limits of toleration; as it attempts to resolve differences among competing constituencies; as it sets out terms of punishment and social control, and as a source of informing images and ideological consistency.
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Examines the interconnections between modernity and social change in contemporary China, Japan, and Korea. Explores how modernity is conceptualized by both state and society actors and how these visions fuel change at local and national levels. Particular attention will be paid to issues of social protest, migration, consumption, gender, ethnicity, and family life in both rural and urban locations. Readings focus on ethnographic case studies and the effects of modernity on everyday life experience.
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This course integrates research methods with an investigation of the philosophical foundations of the social sciences. Topics covered include causal explanation, interpretation, rational choice and irrationality, relativism, collective action, and social choice.
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The main political and educational writings of Rousseau, with emphasis on "the general will one has as a citizen."
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Making democracy work requires an "organized" citizenry with power to assert its interests effectively. Yet US political participation declines, growing more unequal, as new democracies struggle to make citizen participation possible. Students learn to address public problems by organizing: developing leadership, building community and mobilizing power. Our pedagogy links sociological, political science, and social psychology theory with democratic practice.
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Introduces core concepts and theories from urban sociology and urban politics. Emphasizes race, immigration, and ethnic identity in space. Topics include racial and economic segregation, immigrant enclaves, spatial assimilation, urban inequality, and racial identity in the city. Also engages with questions about the autonomy of local communities to challenge poverty and disadvantage.
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Introduces key themes and problems in the study of religion and politics in modern America. Includes sections on political affiliation and electoral behavior, Supreme Court decisions, grassroots movements of the left and right, policy formation, foreign policy, political theory, the culture wars, and global politics. Devotes special attention to debates about the implications of America's religious diversity, the role of religion in a democracy, church-state relations, and the secularization or de-Christianization of American public life.
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This course will examine both the causes and consequences of social movements, attending to a variety of research programs on social movements, revolutions and collective action. Discussion will revolve around the multiple levels and dimensions of social change: micro versus macro, structural versus ideological, state-level versus personal transformations. Theoretical explorations will be grounded in a series of cases studies from the labor movement, civil rights movement, student movements, revolutionary movements, and others.
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