Courses

• Anthropology (ANTH) Courses
• Sociology (SOC) Courses

Anthropology (ANTH) Courses

ANTH 002: INTRO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 3 credits
Cultural anthropology attempts to make the diverse peoples and lifeways of the world understandable. It seeks to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. This course introduces cultural anthropology, describing its methods, theories and research problems. While a major objective of the course it to review some of the debates and concepts central to contemporary cultural anthropology, attention also is given to the history of the discipline and its connections with Euro-American social thought.

ANTH 046: ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION, 3 credits
The course provides an exploration of religious practices within local communities. Drawing on extensive global research, anthropologists analyze how individuals interpret and engage with their religious beliefs, examining the intersections with social, political, and cultural aspects. In Fall 2025, the course will focus on spirit possession, witchcraft and magic, studying these phenomena both within the United States and on a worldwide scale. The primary aim is to understand how practices often labelled as exotic, irrational and anti-religious are deeply connected to historical and contemporary events such as slavery, conflicts, social and religious change, governance, inequalities, and gender dynamics. AOI: Global and Cultural Understanding, Method Research design, Women Gender Studies

ANTH 049: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, 3 credits
This course serves as an introduction to Indigenous ways of knowing, knowledge transmission, and worldviews, with an emphasis on their relevance to environmental issues, gender, power structures, technologies, and social justice. Through case studies from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, the course promotes a decolonized approach to knowledge, broadening and challenging conventional Western perspectives on societal, environmental, and political challenges.

ANTH 080: POLITICAL ANTHROPOLGY, 3 credits
This course elves into how individuals and communities interact with and influence power and politics on a domestic and global scale. The course begins with an examination of various political systems. Subsequently, we will explore the anthropological perspectives on state power and politics, with a particular emphasis on understanding how individuals perceive and experience the state in their daily lives. The course concludes by shedding light on invisible forms of power and diverse experiences of resistance. AOI: Engaged Citizenship, Theory Intensive.

ANTH 136: DIGITAL STORYTELLING, 3 credits
This interdisciplinary course will serve as an introduction to critical digital storytelling for social justice. Students will be introduced to narrative analysis of contemporary culture and society, exploring the uses of storytelling to foster social change. We will consider storytelling about the U.S. and the people who live here, at the individual, familial, cultural, media, and institutional levels. We will focus on using personal narratives as vehicles for exploring and challenging power relations. One of our goals will be to come to a fuller understanding of ourselves and of the various communities we inhabit. We will critically explore and analyze public and personal narratives about the contemporary world, including particular attention to the stories that don’t often get told publicly. During the course students will write, research, and create a short digital story focused on a contemporary social issue that will be put online for public education and engagement. AOI: Engage Citizenship, Research intensive

 ANTH 143: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION, 3 credits
This course will explore transracial adoption as it intersects with race, gender, poverty, and reproduction in the US, focusing in particular on the adoption of Black and mixed race children into white families. We will consider this topic through a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, including racial-ethnic studies, sociology, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, history, memoir, and film/video. Transracial adoption, and adoption more generally, are typically represented in U.S. media through romantic, mythical narratives that celebrate the formation of “color-blind” “forever families.” While we will certainly consider the perspectives of people who appreciate and advocate such views, we will be actively complicating such perspectives by considering the elements often left out of public narratives. We will be exploring transracial adoption as a contemporary social issue that fundamentally requires a critical perspective in order to understand the ways it is shaped by a broad range of social interests and power relations in the United States and abroad. We will explore the ways a critical perspective on race, gender, reproduction, and power relations reframe public narratives about the transfer of children from poor mothers to middle class and wealthy families.

ANTH 150: SPECIAL TOPICS, 3 credits
These courses are upper-level course topics offered on a temporary basis before being added to the approved curriculum. Prerequisites vary.

ANTH 153: DOCUMENTARY VIDEO CHALLENGE, 3 credits
This course will be an immersion in methods of qualitative fieldwork and digital video as cultural critique. Students will be introduced to ethnographic participant-observation and interviewing methods, as well as video editing techniques. We will travel to the San Francisco Bay area and conduct research with the International Rescue Committee. During the three-week J-term course students will work in small groups to conduct ethnographic research, document it on videotape, and produce short video essays that will be put on both the IRC website for community outreach and the Drake Cultures of Engagement site. This course will serve as an introduction to qualitative interview-based research and critical digital storytelling. 

ANTH 170: GLOBAL POLITICAL VIOLENCE, 3 credits
This course provides a critical understanding of the causes, features, and consequences of political violence as a phenomenon of the current global landscape. We ask questions about what violence is, how violence is produced and reproduced, what makes violence ""political,"" and what is its scope. We respond to these questions by looking at some of the main theoretical conceptualizations of violence (Hobbes, Hegel, Marx, Fanon, Arendt, and Bourdieu, among others) and by exploring case studies from across the globe. The course examines various forms of violence (extraordinary, discreet, structural, everyday, symbolic), their effects upon social structure and life-worlds, as well as how individuals and communities have responded and reworked their experience of violence.

ANTH 175: MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 3 credits
This course is an introduction to the key concepts, theories, and methods of medical anthropology. Medical anthropology examines affliction and healing in a cross-cultural perspective. It emphasizes the understanding of how health and healing are shaped by both cultural and biological processes. It also analyzes the relations among health, illness, social institutions, power, and cultural representations. Medical anthropologists examine the ways in which global processes--health policies, epidemics, war and violence, inequalities--affect the life of individuals and communities. They take us into refugee camps, hospitals, zones of social abandonment, factories, and trees across the world and in our community. This course will focus on three broad topics. We will start by discussing how health-related issues, including disease and treatment, are far more than narrow biological phenomenon. By examining specific ethnographic cases, we will see how these processes are all heavily influenced by cultural and social factors as well. We will then grapple with the Foucauldian concept of "biopower" by means of specific ethnographic applications. By reading about colonial and postcolonial governance in the global South, the "construction" of mental illness, current national and global policies toward asylums seekers, and the use of pharmaceuticals, we will reflect upon the ways in which medicine can be an instrument of domination, discipline, and surveillance. The final section of the course discusses the contributions that medical anthropology can make to increase access to health services and to improve--i.e., humanize--health care in the U.S. and across the world.

ANTH 197: INDEPENDENT STUDY, 1-3 credits
Directed independent study and or research in a problem area selected by the student and not otherwise provided for in a regularly scheduled course.

SOC 199: SENIOR SEMINAR ON COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, 3 credit hr.
Senior sociology majors complete their Senior Capstone requirement by enrolling in SOC/SCSS 199 in conjunction with a flagged Senior Experience Course. Senior Experience Courses are identified in the schedule of courses for each semester. In consultation with the instructor of the Senior Experience Course, students design their Capstone Experience. All students completing their capstone during an academic year participate in the planning of an annual colloquium and present their papers/projects/ experiences at this public event. Prerequisites Senior sociology or anthropology/sociology majors.

 

 

 

Sociology (SOC) Courses

SOC 001: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, 3 credit hrs.
A survey of the substantive areas of study and the theoretical and methodological tools of the discipline of sociology.

SOC 042: SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY, 3 credits
Required for this class: Entry-level SOC or ANTH class, OR permission of instructor. This course approaches sociology as an active process of discovery rather than as a settled body of information. Doing sociology involves identifying puzzles and questions about the social world, exploring them in a systematic way, and dialoguing about discoveries with others. This process of inquiry enables sociology to remain vibrant, relevant, stimulating, and useful. Through this course you will develop your capacity for sociological inquiry by exploring sociological perspectives and research approaches, analyzing sociological research reports, and investigating sociological questions AOI: Written Communication, Research intensive

SOC 061: ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY, 3 credit hrs.
Environmental sociology examines the relationship between human communities and the natural environment in the modern world. In particular, it focuses on how political, economic and cultural institutions shape our interactions with the natural environment. This course also considers how societies are responding to environmental problems on a global and local level, with special attention to the intersection of environmental problems and social inequality. Specific topics of study may include industrial pollution, environmental ideologies, global climate change, and natural disasters, among others.

SOC 075: INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES, 3 credit hrs.
This course is designed to familiarize students with women's experiences as well as with the ways in which society shapes notions of gender. The course also provides ways to identify and analyze how a society's notions of gender shape the ways in which a society sees and organizes itself. Class members examine the construction of women's social roles and their personal experiences, discussing points of congruence and dissonance. In this interdisciplinary course, reading and discussion material are drawn from fields such as religion, sociology, psychology, political science and literature, so students may examine the views, status and contributions of women. Class sessions consist of lectures, guest speakers, films, and discussion. 

SOC 076: INTERMEDIATE TOPICS IN SOCIOLOGY, 3 credit hrs.
These courses cover topics being offered on a one-time basis, or for the first time, before being added formally to the curriculum. 

SOC 080: SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 3 credit hrs.
Why do we care about some social problems and yet ignore others that are possibly more harmful? This course is not an in-depth study of any one social problem nor is it a survey of social problems in our society. Rather this course will examine how and why we think about social problems and how we respond to them (or do not respond). Using the theoretical perspective of social constructionism, students will examine how social problems are socially constructed and how different organizations and constituencies attempt to frame them in different ways. Students will learn that the way we define and interpret social problems is based on human activity and claims-making, which both reflect and perpetuate larger cultural and social forces. The principles and concepts learned in this course will be useful for critical analysis of social problems, statistics, inequality, public policy, politics, media, advocacy, and popular opinion. The course fulfills a theory-intensive requirement for sociology majors. 

SOC 081: MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY, 3 credit hrs.
This course applies sociological principles to health, illness, and health care. In order for students to fully develop an understanding in this context, a variety of perspectives will be explored and critiqued including that of patients, providers and society. This draws on foundational disciplines at the broader level and frames them into the biomedical experience. For example, sociological constructs of age, gender, ethnicity, and social class; psychosocial aspects of personal illness experience, historical and political perspectives of dominance, regulation and governance of providers and health care organizations will be the multidisciplinary topics covered. Other topics may include but are not limited to: history of 'western' medicine, models of illness, stress and well-being, social stratification of illness, health demography, medicalization and de-medicalization of illness, disability, and patient-provider relationships. A combination of reading, discussion, reflective activities, and paper/project composition will be used to facilitate comprehension of the course material.

SOC 085: SOCIOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE, 3 credit hrs.
Sociology of Everyday Life focuses on the daily details of how people interact with each other and the consequences of those interactions. Social interactions help create and maintain relationships, social divisions, institutions, social structure, and cultural forces that make up our world and shape our differing subjective experiences. Some of the topics will include interpersonal relationships, emotion work, self-narratives, negotiating a working consensus, saving face, politics of language, identity, constructing normality and deviance, institutional talk, impression management, social control, and politics of reality. Prerequisite is SCSS 001 or instructor’s approval.

SOC 090: EFFECTIVE LISTENING, 3 credit hrs.

SOC 105: RACE, GENDER AND POVERTY, 3 credit hrs.
This course focuses on the way that race, gender, disability, and poverty are organized and configured through public policy, social structure, and public discourse. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval.

SOC 122: MAKING FAMILIES PUBLIC, 3 credit hrs.
In this course we will explore relationships between families and the public sphere. The complexities of understanding how families are both shaped by and shape public culture lead us to an interdisciplinary approach to exploring families in context that includes attention to media, public policy, law, and community engagement. Contemporary concerns over families what they look like, who they are, how they are shaped by society, how their legitimacy is legislated have become subjects of fierce public debates in recent years. We will explore in particular the avenues through which the state legislates families, public debates emerge in the media, and citizens engage in public actions and dialogues over the meaning and shape of contemporary families. Family has always been a site of shifting and contested meanings. Society has investments in defining and regulating families in particular ways, and families, in turn have their own stakes in how they are seen, recognized, and provided for in the public realm of rights, benefits, and obligations associated with citizenship. Indeed, family will be explored as an arena of public debate about the meaning of citizenship. We will, as a class, consider academic and political debates about the meanings of family, as well as participate in public education and community engagement around contemporary local and national issues concerning the diversity of families.

SOC 133: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL CHANGE, 3 credit hrs.
This course examines various ways that sociologists think about social structure and social institutions. Sociologists use the terms "social structure" and "social institutions" refer to broad patterns of social organization that influence the lives of individuals, sometimes without their knowledge. Drawing from important theoretical works, we will explore the sorts of structures and institutions that sociologists believe characterize modern societies, as well as considering where these structures come from and how they change over time. Topics include social stratification, systems of norms and values, language and culture, bureaucracy, and social conflict and revolution. Sociology and ANSO majors may use this course to satisfy one of their "theory-intensive" requirements. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval.

SOC 137: WOMEN, MADNESS AND CULTURE, 3 credit hrs.
This course explores the relationship between gender and socio-cultural definitions of mental health and illness, and examines the history of the treatment of women within the major settings of the mental health system; psychiatry, psychoanalysis and asylum. The first major goal is to understand the social relations of power within which psychiatry emerged and within which women became defined as "hysterical", "irrational" or "mad". A second goal is to chart the relationship between women's social roles and the experience and treatment of mental illness, making use of autobiographical and fictional accounts by women, films and other materials. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval or Introduction to Women's Studies (WGS 075/SOC 075/ENG 075).

SOC 140: YOUTH AND CRIME, 3 credit hrs.
A sociological study of the youthful offender in American society. Special emphasis is placed on theories of youthful crime, societal responses that have impacts on definitions of youthful crime and subsequent public policy, research methodologies employed in understanding the quality and quantity of youthful crime, predicting youthful crime, and social control associated with youthful behavior defined as being negative. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval. 

SOC 145: FOOD AND SOCIETY, 3 credit hrs.
The aim of this course is to unearth and analyze the social context of food production, distribution, and consumption. Students will examine social identities represented and reproduced in food consumption, food regulation and food-based activism, and cultural differences in the preparation and eating of food, among other topics. The course will focus mainly on food in the United States but may also consider comparisons with other countries. Materials for the course include works written by sociologists and anthropologists as well as popular examinations of the food industry and food policy. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval.

SOC 146: RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, 3 credit hrs.
Restorative justice is a perspective that views crime as a harm against people and the community, which needs to be addressed through the involvement of offenders, victims, and the community. This course provides an introduction to the principles and practices behind restorative justice. The course is designed to allow students to struggle along with the experts in trying to navigate the opportunities and challenges, the success stories and the pitfalls that accompany restorative justice programs. In the process, students will explore questions about justice, crime, imprisonment, punishment, rehabilitation, forgiveness, and the purpose of a legal system.

SOC 150: SELECTED TOPICS, 3 credit hrs.
Courses listed as selected topics in sociology are either one-time offerings or are courses that have not been added formally to the curriculum. Prerequisites vary. Availability of graduate credit is course-specific.

SOC 151: CRIMINOLOGY, 3 credit hrs.
General facts and theories with respect to crime, the criminal and his or her treatment by society; emphasis is on the theories of causation and criminal behavior and problems in prison treatment, probation, and parole. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval.

SOC 154: POVERTY AND SOCIETY, 3 credit hrs.
A focus on a sociological exploration of the relationship between poverty and current social concerns, the changing nature of poverty, changes in social responses to poverty, with a special emphasis on public policy implications. Prerequisite entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor approval.

SOC 158: SOCIAL SCIENCE STATISTICS, 3 credit hrs.
Descriptive and inferential statistics most often used in social science research are examined, with an emphasis on statistics as communication tools; includes development of skills in formula reading, interpreting statistical outcomes and selecting appropriate statistics for analysis of various research questions and data. Counts toward SOCIOLOGY and ANSO methods-intensive requirements.

SOC 159: METHODS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH, 3 credit hrs.
Survey of selected research methods used in sociology, with varying emphasis on survey, documentary, observational, archival and other techniques, both qualitative and quantitative. Counts toward SOCIOLOGY and ANSO methods- intensive requirements.

SOC 160: JOBS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND INEQUALITY, 3 credit hrs.
This course examines the organization and experience of work in the modern American economy, using both classical and contemporary sociological writings. We will pay special attention to how the workplace and labor market are connected to inequalities of race, class, and gender. The course also will examine the growth of flexible manufacturing and service sector employment in the United States and the corresponding rise of contingent and insecure work. Finally, we will discuss several perspectives on the relationship between work and family structure.

SOC 161: RACE AND ETHNICITY, 3 credit hrs.
An examination of the nature of social inequality based upon conceptions of race and ethnicity. Emphasis is on the economic and power relationships that have characterized the history of racial and ethnic inequality in the United States. Prereq.: Entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor's consent. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

SOC 162: WOMEN AND WORK, 3 credit hrs.
Course description is pending. 

SOC 167: SOCIOLOGY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, 3 credit hrs.
This course is an exercise in the application of sociological theory, concepts and methods to the study of African-Americans. The focus of the course is the socio-historical context of the African-American experience. Students examine the social institutions of United States society as they relate to the African-American experience and the subcultural institutions established by African-Americans. Prerq.: Entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor's consent.

SOC 170: DEVIANCE, 3 credit hrs.
In its broadest sense, the course is about how definitions of “badness” are created in society and culture and attached to people, actions, places, and things. The sociological concept “deviance” can take the place of the word “badness” in that sentence. This process is political and has a great deal to do with power, including the power of the state. The premise of the course is that deviance is always relative to time, place, power,  authority, and even person. Prereq.: Entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor's consent. Counts toward SOC and ANSO theory-intensive requirements. AOI: Values and Ethics. LPS fulfillment.

SOC 171: GRIEF AND LOSS, 3 credit hrs.
In this course, students will learn how narratives of grief are constructed, experienced, debated, politicized, and pathologized. We will examine various aspects of grief including cultural difference, social policing, media portrayals, and theoretical debates. Students will learn how tragedy and grief are used to sell politics and products and what implications this has on individual and cultural understandings of loss. This course is reading and writing intensive. Prereq: one entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor consent.

SOC 174: FEMINIST THEORIES, 3 credit hrs.
This course is a critical, in-depth examination of contemporary feminist theories of subjectivity. The central concern is for students to gain an understanding of the relationships between sexual difference, subjectivity and social relations of power. Students explore theories that address the psychic and subjective roots of relations of gender, power and domination, as well as the socio- historical dimensions of gender subjectivity. Materials and the approach used in the course are interdisciplinary, drawing on sociology, literary criticism, film studies, philosophy and psychoanalysis. Prereq.: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 075/SCSS 075/ENG 075) or one entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructors consent. Counts toward SOC and ANSO theory-intensive requirements. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

SOC 175: THEORIES OF INEQUALITY, 3 credit hrs.
This course examines class, race, gender, sexuality, and disability inequality in the United States through exploration of sociological theory. Through service learning, reading, writing and classroom discussion, students will critically examine social theory to explain stratification in the United States as well as responses to structural inequality. Counts toward SOC and ANSO theory-intensive requirement. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

SOC 176: DOCUMENTING LIVES, 3 credit hrs.
This theory-intensive course will draw on a broad range of disciplinary perspectives to consider questions concerning how to document, understand, and interpret the life experience of human beings, primarily in the contemporary United States. We will focus in particular on the documentation of women's lives. Documentary film, popular culture, documentary writing, ethnography, feminism, psychology, anthropology, sociology literature, and memoir will be considered in exploring how to represent the ways that such axes of difference as race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class, age, and disability shape individual and group identities. Course materials will focus on the ways that society organizes categories of identity and treats people differently based on such categories, as well as how such aspects of identity shape individual conceptions of self. Counts toward SOC and ANSO theory-intensive requirement. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

SOC 177: GENDER AND VIOLENCE, 3 credit hrs.
This course examines gender and violence, including the social construction of the problem, interdisciplinary theoretical explanations, and the social and cultural contexts. This course also explores how media, politics, and popular discourse impact policy for intervention and prevention, and individual understandings of gender and violence. Prereq: SCSA 2-25 or SCSS 1-25 or SCSS 075/ENG 075/WGS 075 or instructor consent. May be used as part of Women's and Gender Studies Concentration.

SOC 179: MASS INCARCERATION, 3 credit hrs.
The rate of imprisonment has rapidly increased since the 1970s with the implementation of the War on Drugs, making the United States the world’s leader in incarceration. This course will examine mass incarceration in the United States, its origins, trends, and the laws and policies that have directly and indirectly contributed to it. We will explore the effects of mass incarceration on society and attempt to answer the following questions: How did we get here? What led to the U.S. leading all nations in incarceration? How has racial and class inequality in incarceration become so glaring in incarceration? What are the consequences of high rates of incarceration and what can we do about it?

SOC 181: DEATH AND SOCIETY, 3 credit hrs.
How do we respond to death and why? Using a sociological lens, this course examines historical and contemporary perspectives on death, dying, and bereavement. Students will explore variations in attitudes and rituals concerning death, dying, funerals, and memorialization. Though the experiences of death, dying, and bereavement are intensely personal, they are shaped by social, political, legal, and cultural forces. These experiences also vary by culture, social class, age, race, gender, and religion. Other topics include the politics of death and the influence of the funeral industry. This course is reading and writing intensive. Prerequisite: one entry-level sociology or anthropology course or instructor consent.

SCSS 196: TRAVEL STUDY SEMINAR, 1-6 credit hrs.
The course combines focused domestic and/or international travel and critical inquiry themed by social and cultural questions specific to the site/s visited. Student work typically includes pre-trip course assignments, in-trip lectures and discussions, and post-trip completion and submission/presentation of written work. The seminar is led by faculty who design, oversee, and direct the course and evaluate student work. Students are required to reflect on themselves as observers of the social cultural sciences, artifacts, and peoples encountered, and they are asked to consider the implications of their presence and participation in the inquiry for the nature of the information they produce as well as the ethics of that production and subsequent use. No prerequisites.

SOC 197: INDEPENDENT STUDY, 1-3 credit hrs.
Directed independent study and/or research in a problem area selected by the student and not otherwise provided for in a regularly scheduled course. Prereq.: Sociology major, senior standing, overall GPA of at least 3.0, completion of not less than 18 hours of sociology courses, instructor's consent and department approval.

SOC 198: INTERNSHIP, 3 credit hrs.
The internship provides an opportunity for practical application of theoretical and research issues in approved work situations, with faculty supervision, guidance and evaluation. Prereq.: Sociology major, completion of 15 hours of sociology courses and 60 hours of college credit with overall GPA of at least 2.75, instructor's consent and department approval. The internship is graded and may be counted toward major.

SOC 199: SENIOR SEMINAR ON COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, 3 credit hr.
Senior sociology majors complete their Senior Capstone requirement by enrolling in SOC/SCSS 199 in conjunction with a flagged Senior Experience Course. Senior Experience Courses are identified in the schedule of courses for each semester. In consultation with the instructor of the Senior Experience Course, students design their Capstone Experience. All students completing their capstone during an academic year participate in the planning of an annual colloquium and present their papers/projects/ experiences at this public event. Prereq.: Senior sociology or anthropology/sociology majors.