Analyzes the causes and consequences of current social problems in the United States: race and ethnic relations, poverty, crime and delinquency, the environment, drugs, and problems of educational institutions.

Examines the role of meaning in social life, with a focus on how different theories of culture allow analysis of the relationship of culture to exchange, authority, solidarity, and domination. Analysis of key cultural artefacts (movies, texts, monuments, etc.) is combined with the study of theories of social performance, fields of cultural production, and semiosis. The role of culture in social transformation is also considered.

This course covers sociological approaches to death and dying. Topics include social theory and theorists as they relate to death, American culture history, and contemporary issues regarding death and dying.

Demography is the scientific study of human populations. We will emphasize fertility, mortality, and migration, and the social and economic factors that affect them.

This course will examine various types of inequality (race, class, gender) in the US and abroad. We will discuss sociological theories covering various dimensions of inequality, considering key research findings and their implications. We will examine to what extent ascriptive characteristics impact a person's life chances, how social structures are produced and reproduced, and how individuals are able or unable to negotiate these structures.

People often mistake ignorance as the mere lack of knowledge or that which we do not yet know. They fail to consider that ignorance exists in a variety of different forms, or that ignorance is often produced and maintained through sets of practices--whether intentional or not. This course investigates both ignorance and the consequences that particular forms of ignorance have upon our society.

Study of a comprehensive contemporary understanding of the history, struggle and diversity of the African-American community.

This study of the development of human societies explores the five major 'techo-economic bases' that have characterized our species' history (hunting-gathering, horticultural, agrarian, industrial and information/biotech) and examines how contemporary macrolevel trends affect our lives at the microlevel.

Comparison of family organizations in relation to other social institutions in various societies; an introduction to the theory of kinship and marriage systems.

Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation.  Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.