SOCIOLOGY
Course Level: Undergraduate
Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.
Course Level: Undergraduate
Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)
Urban Lives
Since Max Weber's work on city-states, the city has been central to sociology as the locus of modernity and economic and political life. More recently and particularly in the United States, cities have come to represent immigrant gateways, diversity, and the extremes of wealth and poverty. This course looks at the contradictions of urban and city life through the voices/eyes of those who reside there through reading ethnographic studies. Students read ethnographic works on topics ranging from the financial district, the drug subculture, sex work, immigrant communities, to gentrification and public housing; analyze ethnographic work; and learn about the city's hidden and often silent voices.