Department website: http://soc.jhu.edu/
The Department of Sociology concentrates on two broad areas at the graduate and undergraduate levels: Global social change, which focuses on cross-national, comparative research; and social inequality, which primarily focuses on family, education, work, race, gender, policy, and immigration.
These concentrations trace back to the department’s founding in 1959 by renowned American sociologist James Coleman. The department has since earned a reputation as one of the most selective, personalized sociology departments in the U.S. and offers a uniquely intimate scholarly atmosphere in which faculty and students interact and collaborate frequently.
Scholars in the department share a wide variety of interests and interdisciplinary partnerships. Students are given flexible parameters for their study, and several faculty members have been honored with joint appointments in other Johns Hopkins University schools and divisions. The department shares a unique relationship with the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which offers faculty and students access to first-rate collaborations in fields such as population and demography, mental health and mental hygiene, and healthcare organization. The department is also proudly partnered with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and is committed to building and maintaining strong foundations in quantitative research methods.
Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) Honor Society
In spring 2006, the Sociology department was awarded a chapter of the AKD sociology honor society. The chapter welcomed eleven new initiates that year, two faculty members, two new graduate students, and seven undergraduates. AKD now has over 100 members.
AKD is an open, democratic, international society of scholars dedicated to the ideal of Athropon Katamanthanein Diakonesein or “to investigate humanity for the purpose of service.” AKD seeks to acknowledge and promote excellence in scholarship in the study of sociology, the research of social problems, and other social and intellectual activities that will lead to improvement of the human condition. AKD was founded at the University of Southern California in 1920 and affiliated with the Association of College Honor Societies in 1967. There are more than 97,000 lifetime members and over 600 chapters of the Society. These are persons with academic records showing excellence in sociology.
Initiates receive a chapter pin, a certificate of membership, and a membership activation form. Members who submit completed activation forms receive a one-year subscription to Sociological Inquiry, the official journal of the Society, the Alpha Kappa Delta Newsletter, election materials, and other services. In addition, the Society sponsors student paper contests, provides honoraria for initiation speakers, provides funds for student travel to regional sociological meetings, funds research symposia, sponsors a distinguished lecture series at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, and contributes annually to the ASA Minority Scholarship Fund. AKD members wear AKD honor cords at graduation ceremonies. AKD chapters are important in the academic, professional, and social lives of student and faculty members. They provide opportunities for initiating and sharing activities in keeping with the purposes of the Society.
To be eligible for membership, majors must have at least junior year standing, an overall GPA of at least 3.0, a sociology GPA of at least 3.5, and have taken at least four courses in sociology.
Election to Alpha Kappa Delta is without regard to race, creed, or national origin. For more information, interested students should contact the AKD Faculty Chapter Representatives.
James S. Coleman Award
This award was established by the Department of Sociology in 1994 in honor of Dr. James S. Coleman, first chair of the department. The award is for outstanding academic achievement by a senior majoring in sociology.
Facilities
Each resident graduate student is provided office or desk space to conduct their studies and research. In addition, the department has a computer lab with a network of computers and printers for graduate student use. Close working relationships exist with other JHU Centers & Programs which provide excellent opportunities for research training.
Financial Aid
The department provides five years of financial aid for all students who are in good academic standing.
The department has a number of assistantships that are awarded each year to graduate students in the Ph.D. program. Opportunities are also available for graduate students to work as salaried research assistants with members of the Sociology faculty and staff at associated research centers.
For current course information and registration go to https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/
Courses
AS.230.101. Introduction to Sociology. 3 Credits.
The course introduces students to the discipline of sociology. You will learn about (a) theoretical approaches in sociology; (b) some of the subject matters that sociologists study, including inequality, capitalism, labor, the state, social control, race, gender, sexuality, culture, religion, population dynamics, and health; and (c) sociological methods. Most importantly, you will learn (d) how to see the world as a sociologist. That is, you will become a sociologist.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.150. Issues in International Development. 3 Credits.
Is it possible to solve global poverty? For several decades the international development community has been trying to do so, with mixed results. In recent years many donor countries have dramatically reduced development aid, and there is need for new thinking on how to move forward. In this course we study what has been tried and what is being proposed now. Students leave the course with an understanding of economic development in Latin America, Africa, and Asia over the last century, as well as approaches to the study of development in different social science disciplines and an introduction to making a career in international development.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.175. Chinese Revolutions. 3 Credits.
This survey course situates China's political and cultural revolutions within broader transnational contexts from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It examines foreign influences and global entanglements through topics such as Christian missionaries and anti-dynastic revolutions, the contest between the New Culture Movement and the Confucian Revering Movement, Chinese overseas and federalist movements, and the international dimensions of Chinese nationalist projects between 1898 and 1949.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.202. Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 3 Credits.
This course aims to introduce you to key concepts, methods, and tools used in social science research. We begin with an overview of the logic of human inquiry and science, the link between theory and scientific research, and research ethics. Subsequently, we will delve into a few key elements of sociological research, including how to translate concepts into operational measures that are both reliable and valid. We will then cover the importance of sampling and sampling strategies. We will also introduce several modes of conducting empirical research, including experiments, qualitative field research, and survey research, giving attention to the relative strengths and weaknesses of each approach. You will learn how to conduct basic statistical analyses using secondary data towards the end of the semester. Throughout the course, we will cover important skills such as conducting literature reviews, designing research, and refining your ability to read and write social science research. The goal is to enhance your ability to critically assess social science research and to learn how to choose appropriate research methods for specific research questions.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.205. Introduction to Social Statistics. 4 Credits.
This course will introduce students to the application of statistical techniques commonly used in sociological analysis. Topics include measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability theory, confidence intervals, chi-square, ANOVA, and regression analysis. Hands-on computer experience with statistical software and analysis of data from various fields of social research.
Prerequisite(s): Students who are currently registered for or have completed AS.230.394 may not register this course
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.213. Social Theory. 3 Credits.
This course will focus on four classical social theorists whose ideas have greatly influenced how we study and understand society: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and W.E.B. DuBois. Much of the course is devoted to applying their theories to analyze current social issues, especially those involving social inequality, conflict, cohesion, and change.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.216. Disability and Society. 3 Credits.
Objectives of this course are to achieve an understanding of the social context of disability from the population level to the individual disability experience. Topics will include social versus medical models of disability; the spectrum of ability; the history of disability; civil rights perspectives; life course and aging aspects of disability; and the role of the environment. Attention will be paid both to theoretical understandings of disability and the role of policies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.228. Colonialism in Asia and Its Contested Legacies. 3 Credits.
This course examines the impact of colonialism on East and Southeast Asia from the long nineteenth century to the postwar era. Focusing on British Singapore and Hong Kong, and Japanese Korea and Taiwan, it explores colonial social and economic change, as well as postcolonial transformations. Topics include free-trade imperialism, capitalist exploitation, colonial modernity, Pan-Asianism, anticolonial movements, and nation-building in the Cold War.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.231. The Rise of Gig Economy Around the Globe. 3 Credits.
Digital platforms are becoming an indispensable part of our lives. We order food and groceries through DoorDash and Instacart, request rides from Uber and Lyft, and browse content created by Instagram and TikTok influencers. How do these platforms emerge and become so deeply intertwined with our daily lives? Who is investing in and working for these platforms, and why? How do platforms operate, and what are the consequences? How do gig platform worker feel about their work and life? What are the changes and continuity of gig work compared to other low-wage work in different times and spaces? Are there any alternatives to how platforms can be organized and operated in today’s world? This undergraduate seminar will introduce and discuss the main concepts and practices of the global platform economy with a particular focus on gig labor. We will critically examine: 1) how external political, economic, and social conditions shape platforms; 2) how platforms shape workers’ labor conditions and activism, and how workers’ actions in turn impact these platforms; and 3) how today’s gig work relates to other precarious work across different time and space, and what can be done to improve gig labor’s working conditions.Following an overview in the first week, the course will tackle different topics analytically, including the emergence and evolution of the gig economy, the social formation and working conditions of gig labor, gig labor’s collective actions, state interventions in gig labor, platform work in a comparative and historical perspective, and platform cooperativism as an alternative to today’s gig economy. The course is reading and writing intensive and will be conducted as a discussion seminar.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.232. Urban Rebellions. 3 Credits.
This course explores the social causes, impacts, and contexts of urban rebellions in the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on their relationship to social movements, urban social and demographic change, labor, economic decline, policing and imprisonment, and cultural and political change.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.239. Coffee, Tea and Empires. 3 Credits.
The course examines the modern transformation of social life from the prism of coffee and tea. It traces the mass consumption of these two caffeinated beverages from the expansion of Eurocentric capitalism from the long sixteenth century onwards. It shows the changes in the coffee and tea culture from their respective Asian contexts to the age of mass consumption at the turn of the twentieth century. The topics include cash-crop production, plantation and peasant economy, the public sphere, and food heritage and nationalism.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.241. Race, Place, and Space. 3 Credits.
This course explores how structures and societies produce space, how groups engage in placemaking, and the relationship of space/place to processes of racial formation. How do social, structural, political, and economic relationships shape space? How do racial groups respond to spatial marginalization? We will examine communities in the United States and across the globe in order to understand how processes like colonialism, segregation, redlining, urbanization, urban renewal, migration, and gentrification have shaped space and place. Through it all, we will consider how spatial claims relate to struggles for justice, self-determination, and political autonomy.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.242. Race and Racism. 3 Credits.
Race has been important in social classifications and producing inequalities. This course is designed to provide you with a global understanding of how racial categories are created and maintained, how they change over time, and how they vary from place to place. It is organized in four parts. The first part introduces the concepts and analytical tools used by social scientists to study race. Of particular concern is power and the social construction rather than “natural” categories of race, as well as the general social processes involved in the maintenance and reproduction of these boundaries. In the second part, we will study the theories and dynamics racial category formation in the United States with attention to forms and processes of racial exclusion and oppression, and evidence of socio-economic inequalities based on race. In the third part of the course, we will compare these processes in the U.S. to those occurring in other countries. The fourth and final part of the course examines how race and racism shape political struggles and resistance movements.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.244. Race and Ethnicity in American Society. 3 Credits.
Race and ethnicity have played a prominent role in American society and continue to do so, as demonstrated by interracial and interethnic gaps in economic and educational achievement, residence, political power, family structure, crime, and health. Using a sociological framework, we will explore the historical significance of race and its development as a social construction, assess the causes and consequences of intergroup inequalities and explore potential solutions.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.250. Knowledge, Evidence, and Democracy. 3 Credits.
Fake news. Alternative facts. Follow the science. Misinformation. Disinformation. How can we understand the role of information, evidence, and scientific inquiry in politics? Where does information come from? How is it used? How can evidence, argument, and listening improve public conversations? This seminar will examine the connections between information, knowledge, evidence, and democracy, focusing mostly on the United States but with global examples as well.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.261. The Politics of Infrastructure. 3 Credits.
This seminar focuses on social science and historical research into how large-scale, socio-technical systems have become deeply embedded in the lived reality of modernity, paradoxically bringing us closer to people and regions at greater spatial distances, while also allowing us to operate without much cognition or thought toward these people or regions. The class will explore how these systems -- such as electrical grids, water management systems, transportation networks, and others -- operate and the kinds of sociality they enable.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.275. Revolution, Reform and Social Inequality in China. 3 Credits.
This course will examine various aspects of social inequality in China during the Mao and post-Mao eras, including inequality within villages, the rural/urban divide, labor relations, education and health policies, gender and ethnic relations, and the social foundations of elite groups. Each of these topics will be tackled analytically, but the goal is also to understand what it was and is like to live in China as the country has undergone radical social transformations over the past seven decades. The course is writing-intensive and will be conducted as a discussion seminar.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.300. War and Antiwar in America. 3 Credits.
This course will review the history of US foreign wars and antiwar movements and consider the relationship between the two. It is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.312. Education & Society. 3 Credits.
The education system plays an important and multi-faceted role in modern society. Schools socialize students, allocate rewards and status, promote national identities, train future workers, feed into the criminal justice system, and make some people a lot of money. Sometimes these roles work together and sometimes they are in direct conflict with one another. This course will provide a sociological perspective on the education system as a whole by examining the historical process of educational expansion, the role of formal education in society, and how the education system interacts with other social institutions, such as the courts and labor market.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.313. Space, Place, Poverty & Race: Sociological Perspectives on Neighborhoods & Public Housing. 3 Credits.
Recent national conversations about racial segregation, inequality and the affordable housing crisis raise many important questions—this course focuses on several of these questions, through the lens of urban sociology and housing policy. There are three main areas we will focus on in the course: 1) Understanding the role of racial segregation, neighborhood and housing effects on children and family life; 2) Research methods for studying urban poverty and neighborhoods; and 3) Programs, policies and initiatives designed to house the poor, alleviate concentrated spatial poverty, and increase residential choice. We will primarily focus on issues related to urban poverty in large cities, comparing the patterns of residential mobility and neighborhood characteristics for white and Black Americans. We will utilize archival data, qualitative interviews, census data, and quasi/experimental data to gather evidence about neighborhoods, housing, and policies, as well as their impacts. We will also explore interactive online applications that facilitate the study of neighborhoods (e.g. American Community Survey, GIS with Social Explorer). A statistics/public policy background is helpful, but not required.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.314. China and the Global South. 3 Credits.
This course combines theoretical frameworks with empirical case studies to examine the concept of the "Global South" and China's evolving role within it. Students will analyze the implications of China's development finance, foreign direct investment patterns, trade relationships, and cooperation initiatives with Global South countries. Through regional case studies, students will examine Chinese "Going Out" policies and strategies across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, exploring how these relationships are reshaping global economic and political dynamics. Students will develop strong analytical and research skills.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.317. Sociology of Immigration. 3 Credits.
In 2020 immigrant adults and their foreign-born and U.S.-born children counted approximately 85.7 million people, or 26 percent of the overall U.S. population. This course covers post-1965 immigration to the U.S. The inflows, stocks, and incorporation of immigrant generations make immigration one of the most important topics in sociology. Through in-depth readings, student-selected presentations, and student-led discussions, the course engages students in understanding and critiquing contentious perspectives in the potential impacts of immigration on the economic and social dynamics of American society.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.319. Sociology of Race and Medicine. 3 Credits.
The field of medicine has been a key site where race has been constructed, deployed, and contested. Race and racism have played a crucial role in the development of medicine in the United States, from the medicalization of Blackness to different racialized health indicators. Through this course we will ask: How has the field of medicine constructed race? And how have race and racism been challenged within medicine? This is an upper-level, reading intensive seminar course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.320. Education & Inequality: Individual, Contextual, and Policy Perspectives. 3 Credits.
What is the function and purpose of schooling in modern society? Is education the "great equalizer" in America, or does family background mostly predict where people end up in life? What can we do to improve educational attainment? This course is designed to tackle such questions and develop the ability of students to think critically, theoretically, historically and empirically about debates in the sociology of education. The course will also cover additional topics, including: racial and economic differences in educational attainment; school segregation; the rise of for-profit education; how college matters. In addition to reading empirical studies and theoretical work, the relevance of education research for educational policy-making will be emphasized throughout the course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.322. Quantitative Research Practicum. 3 Credits.
This course provides “hands on” research experience applying sociological research tools and a sociological perspective to problems of substance. Quantitative methods will be emphasized, including how to access publicly available survey data, data management, and the presentation of results. Each student will design and carry out a research project and write a research report. Juniors and seniors only. Sophomores require instructor's permission.
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.323. Qualitative Research Practicum. 3 Credits.
This course provides "hands on" research experience applying sociological research tools and a sociological perspective to problems of substance. Qualitative observational and/or interviewing methods will be emphasized. Students will design and carry out a research project and write a research report. Introduction to Social Statistics (230.205) and Research Methods for the Social Sciences (230.202) are prerequisites. This course is restricted to Juniors and Seniors only. Instructor permission required for prerequisite exemptions for all students (majors and non-majors). Sophomores require instructor permission.
Prerequisite(s): AS.230.202 AND AS.230.205
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.325. Sociology Research Lab. 3 Credits.
This course provides "hands on" research experience applying sociological research tools and a sociological perspective to problems of substance. Students will design and carry out a research project and write a research report. This course is restricted to Juniors and Seniors only. Instructor permission required for prerequisite exemptions for all students (majors and non-majors). Sophomores require instructor permission. This course is meant to be the culmination of sociology major’s training in research methods and an opportunity for students to get their hands dirty doing actual research and discovering new 3 things. Faculty instructors may emphasize different data sources and methods in different years, but the goal will always be to give students real world sociological research experience.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.330. Space, Society, and Social Change. 3 Credits.
What is the relationship between space and society? In this course, we will challenge the idea that space is a mere container of human interactions and activities. We will learn how top-down decisions about space (e.g., the dismantling of public housing, land dispossession, the formation of refugee camps) contribute to social hierarchies along class, gender, race, and caste lines. We will then consider how bottom-up movements use space to resist oppression and promote social change. We will draw on theoretical and empirical work from the social sciences and urban studies, and explore cases from several regions of the world, spanning the last few decades. Students in the course will also practice broader essential skills in the social sciences, including summarizing academic arguments, connecting empirical observations to theoretical debates, and making clear and concise arguments.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.334. Family Demography. 3 Credits.
In this class, we will examine changes in family/household behaviors and relationships from a demographic perspective. We will investigate how culture, economics, and population characteristics can shape family structures, how the role of families has changed in recent decades, and how families are important in people’s lives. We will study diverse familial forms in the U.S. as well as those in the international context. We will study important (and measurable) events in people’s family lives, such as cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and childbearing. We will study how family roles are changing for fathers, mothers, and grandparents. We will also learn about the health implications of various familial relationships. We will use demographic tools and data to compare families across time periods, across social groups, and (to some extent) across countries. You will be doing your own quantitative analyses. You will develop your skills at interpreting and critiquing demographic data that researchers use to support their arguments about the family. You will also develop your skills at making your own accurate and compelling arguments using demographic data.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.335. Medical Humanitarianism. 3 Credits.
Humanitarian organizations play life-preserving roles in global conflicts, and have front-row views of disasters ranging from the 2010 Haiti earthquake to the 2011 Fukushima tsunami in Japan. Yet even while they provide vital assistance to millions of people in crisis, such organizations are beset by important paradoxes that hinder their capacity to create sustainable interventions. They work to fill long-lasting needs, but are prone to moving quickly from one site to the next in search of the latest emergency. They strive to be apolitical, yet are invariably influenced by the geopolitical agendas of global powers. How do such contradictions arise, and what is their impact upon millions of aid recipients around the world? Drawing on case studies from South Sudan to Haiti, this course addresses these contradictions by exploring how and why medical aid organizations attempt, and sometimes fail, to reconcile short-term goals, such as immediate life-saving, with long-term missions, such as public health programs and conflict resolution initiatives.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.337. Global Crises: Past and Present. 3 Credits.
This course will compare the current global crisis with previous major crises of historical capitalism through a combination of theoretical and historical readings. Throughout, we will ask: What can a study of past crises tell us about the nature and future trajectory of the current global crisis? We will be particularly concerned to understand the ways in which social, economic and geopolitical crises intertwined, as well as the differential social and geopolitical impact of the crises. Which social classes bore the brunt of the disruptions in economic activity in each crisis? Which geographical areas or geopolitical groupings lost out (or benefited) from the crisis? What kinds of movements of protest emerged and how did they affect the trajectory of the crises? How have environmental and ecological challenges resurfaced in each crisis including today?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.338. Sociology of Social Reproduction. 3 Credits.
Social Reproduction is a critical theme in contemporary sociology. In our daily lives, social reproduction includes activities such as caring for children and elderly, performing household work, caring for the sick family members, schooling for children, to name a few. In other words, social reproduction refers to a wide range of activities that reproduce society and its members on a daily basis and generationally. Gendered division of labor is central to understanding institutions and social units through which social reproduction is managed in societies. For instance, women in general tend to do a lot more of unpaid ‘reproductive labor’ in households and communities. The course will focus on developing countries, which are incorporated into global capitalism differentially and unequally, to understand how capitalist relations shape the practices of social reproduction for various societies in the global south. The idea of ‘reproduction’ as separate from ‘production’ is specific to the history of capitalism. Therefore, by examining ‘social reproduction’ in context of developing world, the course will also offer a critical reading of expansion of capitalism itself, since it will engage with how marketization breaks down traditional ties, institutions, and networks that are instrumental for survival of communities outside the developed world. In short, this course will introduce students to theories of social reproduction and engage with ongoing sociological writings on the topic with a focus on developing world. By the end of this course, students should be familiar with key theories of social reproduction and be able to critically examine them in context of contemporary capitalism. Some specific themes that will be covered in the course include childcare, medical care, old age care, surrogacy, household work, schooling, mental health, and climate change.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.340. Human Rights Activism: Between Theory and Practice. 3 Credits.
The right to freedom from slavery. The right to movement. The right to healthcare. These rights, as described in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are typically pitched as a universal good. But are they truly universal? Or do human rights discourses reflect a particular set of priorities and values, articulated in particular times and places? This course will address this question by exploring both current debates surrounding human rights, and the real-life challenges that activists face in putting them into practice. However powerful they may sound on paper, how binding are human rights treaties in the public sphere? How can human rights advocacy prompt governments to protect women, refugees, and sexual and gender minorities? Secondly, do understandings of justice in the Global South ever differ from those articulated in the 1948 Declaration? Finally, do human rights discourses embrace all kinds of rights equally? For example, why have human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch historically prioritized civil and political rights, like freedom of religion, over economic rights, like the right to healthcare? And more broadly, what can human rights advocacy do in the global fight against capitalist exploitation? The emancipatory rhetoric of human rights, critics worry, cannot itself undo the grim realities of global inequality. In an unequal world, could human rights organizations compel corporations to pay livable wages to their employees? Or obligate governments to provide healthcare to their citizens? Drawing on global case studies ranging from pro-refugee activists along the Greece-Turkey border to anti-FGC (female genital cutting) activism in the Gambia, this course aims to provide students with the tools to think critically about rights as a vehicle for social change.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.341. Sociology of Health and Illness. 3 Credits.
Students will learn core concepts that define the sociological approach to health, illness and health care. Classes will involve a combination of lectures and examples, as well as weekly discussion sections.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.343. Refugees in Europe: Human Rights, Global Health, and International Law Perspectives. 3 Credits.
This course, taught in Madrid, will examine the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe today, focusing on such questions as: what legal, health-related, and economic challenges do forced migrants face after arriving in Europe? What must they do to persuade host governments to grant them protection? And what roles do race, ethnicity, and religion play in their likelihood of being granted asylum?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.348. Climate Change and Society. 3 Credits.
This course will focus on social scientific insights into the causes, consequences and potential solutions to the climate crisis. Drawing on global and interdisciplinary scholarship, we will address such issues as: the relationship between fossil fuels and capitalism; the relationship between social inequality and "vulnerability" to climate change; the politics of "adaptation"; the organization of climate obstruction; protest and climate justice movements; the challenge of energy transition in fossil fuel producing regions; and the political-economy and sociology of renewable energy and carbon capture. The course is reading-intensive and discussion-oriented.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.352. Chinese Diaspora: Networks and Identity. 3 Credits.
This course surveys the relationship between China and its migrants and their descendants from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. It highlights the transnational foundation of modern Chinese nationalism. It also compares the divergent formations of the “Chinese question” in North America and postcolonial Southeast Asia. Key concepts include transnationalism, diaspora, ethnic politics, racism, Orientalism, and “united front” work.
Prerequisite(s): Students may not have completed AS.230.217 previously.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.354. The City After Civil Rights. 3 Credits.
This course examines how American cities have evolved since the United States ratified the radically new vision of race promoted by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. We will study the changing geography of race and class in American cities and their surrounding suburbs and what that evolution has meant for inequality. We will also consider how this shifting geography of race and class affects current debates in metropolitan policies like gentrification and tax policy. We will look to the future to examine what issues might come about in the coming decades and how we might avoid similar problems to those in history.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.356. Power, Privilege, and Inequality. 3 Credits.
Race, class and gender are among key factors in systematic patterns of inequality in the United States (and globally). In this course, we examine the manner in which social inequality comes about and is maintained through a range of social institutions and daily social interactions. This class will examine how social institutions and daily social interactions structure the decisions individuals make and, in turn, how the decisions that individuals make serve to perpetuate or challenge existing social institutions and interactions. We will explore how the intersection of different forms of inequality, for example race and class or class and gender challenge traditional conceptions of inequality and provide insight into the processes that perpetuate inequality. We will use these sociological tools to develop what sociologist C. Wright Mills calls the "sociological imagination" and apply this imagination to contemporary debates in American society. We will discuss how the sociological imagination differs from the approach other disciplines in social science might take to study inequality.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.365. Public Opinion and American Politics. 3 Credits.
How does public opinion shape electoral behavior and the contours of democracy in the United States, and how have these relationships changed as techniques for measuring public opinion have evolved since the early twentieth century? To consider this question, the course introduces alternative perspectives on the features of a healthy democracy, including both historical perspectives and current arguments. Interweaved with this material, the course examines how public opinion is measured and interpreted by private pollsters, survey researchers, and data journalists. Emphasis is placed on the alternative claims that opposing analysts adopt, as well as how the technologies of data collection and analysis shape the permissibility of conclusions.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.230.224 OR AS.001.127 are not eligible to take AS.230.365.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.369. Sociology in Economic Life. 3 Credits.
This course introduces two approaches in the research of economic sociology: the emphasis on macro world-historical social change and the concern over the meso-level institutionalization of markets. Key concepts include division of labor, market, commodification, social and cultural capital, informal economy, migrants and business networks, globalization, and post-globalization.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.370. Housing and Homelessness in the United States. 3 Credits.
This course will examine the role of housing, or the absence thereof, in shaping quality of life. It will explore the consequences of the places in which we live and how we are housed. Consideration will be given to overcrowding, affordability, accessibility, and past and existing housing policies and their influence on society. Special attention will be given to the problem of homelessness.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.371. Development in the Age of Globalization. 3 Credits.
Diverging from conventional courses on international development that often center around the golden age of development (1950s-1970s), this course shifts the focus towards the subsequent era—the age of neoliberal globalization, its promises and discontent, and its potential alternatives. Over the last four decades or so, the new global trends of deepening marketization, globalized supply chains, freer trans-border flow of capital, and technological progress have posed new challenges as well as opportunities to developing countries. This course will provide an upper-level undergraduate introduction to the studies and practices of international development in the age of globalization.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.372. Race, Class, and Decolonization Struggles. 3 Credits.
This course explores the complex interplay between race, class, and the politics of decolonization and national independence in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean and Latin America. Through diverse theories, primary sources, and comparative case studies, students will analyze how racialized and exploited groups have challenged systems of imperial and colonial domination while seeking to assert different meanings of freedom. The course moves beyond traditional decolonization narratives that restrict frameworks spatially to the boundaries of the nation-state and temporally to the post-World War II period. By historicizing decolonization struggles and emphasizing the transnational and comparative dimensions of the ideologies and practices of decolonization, we will explore how race and class dynamics within countries intersect with global power relations to shape the politics and processes of decolonization.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.375. Arrighi Center Undergraduate Seminar. 3 Credits.
The seminar involves discussions (including with visiting authors) of readings related to the Arrighi Center’s four thematic priorities: (1) Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism; (2) Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance; (3) Global Inequality and Development; and (4) Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles. Participants include faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) from a wide range of social science and humanities departments as well as visiting scholars from around the world. Undergraduates signing up under 230.375 will participate in both the main seminar with faculty and graduate students, followed by a special discussion session for undergraduates.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.675 are not eligible to take AS.230.375.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.376. Arrighi Center Undergraduate Seminar-Spring. 3 Credits.
The seminar involves discussions (including with visiting authors) of readings related to the Arrighi Center’s four thematic priorities: (1) Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism; (2) Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance; (3) Global Inequality and Development; and (4) Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles. Participants include faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) from a wide range of social science and humanities departments as well as visiting scholars from around the world. Undergraduates signing up under 230.376 will participate in both the main seminar with faculty and graduate students, followed by a special discussion session for undergraduates.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.377. Health disparities in America. 3 Credits.
This course evaluates contemporary health disparities in the United States through a sociological lens. In particular, this course examines how social positions, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status, shape health patterns in the U.S. population. Students will learn how health disparities are defined and measured, potential causes, and strategies to mitigate observed health inequities.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.230.378. Refugees, Human Rights, and Sovereignty. 3 Credits.
What is a refugee? Since World War II, states that have pledged to offer protection to refugees have frequently been drawn instead to the dictates of nationalism and communitarianism, which prioritize concern for their own citizens, rather than to the needs of forced migrants. As a result, even those migrants that have been formally recognized as refugees according to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention have not been assured of protection, and other migrants have been even less assured. In this course, we will locate the reasons for this reality in the legal, political, and historical underpinnings of political asylum. What is the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee? How has the refugee category been redefined and contested by international bodies since 1951? How are the ambiguities of real-life violence and persecution simplified in asylum adjudication interviews that require clear, factual narratives? What kinds of protections are offered to asylum seekers, whether by UN bodies, NGOs, or host governments, and how have such protections varied geographically and historically? Finally, what protections, if any, are afforded to those migrants who are fleeing not persecution but rather “merely” endemic poverty or climate-induced displacement? The course draws on literature from sociology, history, anthropology, and international refugee law in order to understand the capacity (or lack thereof) of human rights discourses and declarations to contravene state sovereignty in the name of protecting the rightless.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.386. The Making of the Asian Races Across the Pacific in the Long 20th Century. 3 Credits.
Focusing on the race-makings of the Asians across the Pacific in the long twentieth century, the course employs the reading materials that elucidate the constructions about the demographic categories of the Asian "races." We use prewar Japanese materials and Chinese nationalist thoughts to elaborate on the following themes: the internal distinction among the peoples grouped under the racial category of the Asians; the overall presentation about the generic category of the "Asian" peoplehood, as well as their alleged shared civilization and interests. The theoretical framework include concepts of capitalist reconfiguration of social boundaries through racism and the question of power behind the reproduction of racial hierarchy.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.387. Global Migration and Refugees: Applied Research and Practice Seminar. 3 Credits.
This course will introduce students to the cutting-edge debates on global migration and refugees and give them a first-hand look at the complicated interactions between research, politics, and policy-making. Each week, students will read the work of a featured scholar who will visit the class as a guest lecture, giving students the unique opportunity to directly engage with the scholar. In addition, policy makers, community groups, and activists dealing with migration will visit the class for guest lectures, and students will have the opportunity to learn exactly how, when, and why research is (and is not) applied on the ground. To highlight the global nature of the theme, the course will highlight issues of immigration and emigration, receiving and sending countries, in the global North and South. This course is offered in Washington DC and is available to students accepted to the Spring 2025 Hopkins Semester DC only.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.388. Caribbean Baltimore. 3 Credits.
Caribbean immigrants have long been an integral part of Baltimore’s rich and diverse Black community, shaping the city’s neighborhoods, politics, culture, and movements for justice. In this community-based learning course, students will explore the historical and contemporary experiences of Caribbean immigrants in Baltimore, with particular attention to migrants from the Anglophone Caribbean. Moving beyond the classroom, students will engage directly with Caribbean activists, educators, artists, and cultural workers whose lives and labor animate the city. Through oral history interviews, ethical and reflexive community engagement, and justice-driven archival practices, students will gain hands-on experience researching and co-creating an archival record of Caribbean immigrant life in Baltimore. This course is taught in partnership with Nati Kamau-Nataki of Everyone’s Place Bookstore and African Cultural Center.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.393. Global Health and Human Rights. 3 Credits.
Is access to healthcare a fundamental human right? If so, then which global actors are obligated to provide healthcare to whom, and for how long? How do meanings of health and illness vary across time and place? And finally, how are human rights principles translated into frontline practice in order to promote well-being? This course takes a critical interdisciplinary approach to these questions through a series of global case studies ranging from humanitarian aid in post-tsunami Sri Lanka to anti-FGM (female genital mutilation) campaigns in Ghana. How do international NGOs, UN bodies, and governments collaborate (or compete) to distribute healthcare in places beset by dire resource shortages? Do human rights principles carry legal weight across borders, and if so, could access to healthcare services and essential medicines be litigated in order to compel governments to provide it? And finally, what cultural assumptions do human rights discourses carry with them, and what happens if rights-based approaches are poorly received by recipient populations? Moving beyond the basic principle of healthcare as a human right, this course aims to bring this idea’s history and politics into focus by offering an in-depth exploration of its ethics and implementation.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.394. Social Statistics. 4 Credits.
The application of statistical techniques commonly used in sociological analysis. Topics include measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability theory, confidence intervals, chi-square, anova, and regression analysis. Hands-on computer experience with statistical software and analysis of data from various fields of social research.
Prerequisite(s): Students who are currently registered for or have completed any of the following courses may not register for AS.230.394: EN.553.111 OR EN.553.211 OR EN.553.230 OR EN.553.310 OR EN.553.311 OR EN.553.413 OR EN.553.420 OR EN.553.430 OR EN.560.435 OR EN.560.348 OR AS.280.345 OR AS.200.314 OR AS.230.205
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.395. Theories of Power and Resistance. 3 Credits.
How does power operate in contemporary societies? How is power reproduced, how is it resisted and under what conditions does resistance produce social change? This course will examine how social theorists have advanced novel answers to these questions as they grappled with the historical events and social concerns of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the failure of communist movements in the West, the rise and fall of fascism and Nazism, the consolidation of capitalist democracies, the emergence of anti-colonial movements in the "Third World," and the mutations and intersections of race, gender and sexuality as forms of domination. In addition to understanding and comparing theories, we will assess their usefulness for understanding our present conjuncture.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.396. Politics and Society. 3 Credits.
This seminar surveys key problems of political sociology including the rise of the modern state, the origins and nature of liberal democracy, sources of authority, the relationship between political and economic power, the nation-state and nationalism, states and war, ideology and political contention, collective identity, social movements, and social revolutions. Fulfills Comparative Politics for International Studies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.397. The Political Economy of Drugs and Drug Wars. 3 Credits.
In the United States, we spend more than $100 billion annually on illegal drugs—and the government spends more than $50 billion a year to combat their sale and use. These statistics raise important and complicated social questions. This course will examine the production, sale, use, and control of illegal drugs from a historical and sociological perspective. We will have three objectives: to understand the social construction of drug use and illegality in the United States and other rich countries; to uncover the political and economic consequences of drug trafficking in those countries that produce drugs, particularly in Latin America; and to examine the political economy of drug control through the so-called War on Drugs, both domestically and internationally.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.401. Science in Action: Expertise, Economy, and Authority. 3 Credits.
This is an upper-level seminar examining the relationship between scientific expertise, economic behavior, and state authority. The course will explore and critique how, following World War II, scientific knowledge has become increasingly linked to different regulatory functions of the modern nation state, especially as a means of mediating negative spillovers of economic and administrative behavior on human health and the environment. Themes that will be of central interest include the institutionalization of "impact science" within different state agencies; the rise and role of expertise in science-related decision making; understanding how scientists secure and maintain credibility, salience and legitimacy in the face of scrutiny from skeptical publics and ideological adversaries; and the increasing challenges to regulatory sciences (what many call a “crisis of expertise”) posed by the organization and proliferation of misinformation, media echo-chambers, and corporate lobbying. The course will end by reviewing emerging models for how science-based decision making can be made more pluralistic and accountable to the publics in whose name it is often made.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.413. Energy and Society. 3 Credits.
Framed by the escalating climate crisis, this seminar will focus on the social embeddedness of fossil fuels and the conditions of possibility for a renewable energy transition. Topics to be explored include the relationship between fossil fuels and capitalism; the character of previous historical energy transformations; climate denialism and the political power of the fossil fuel industry; the political and social challenges posed by fossil-fuel producing regions; contemporary proposals for a Green New Deal and "just transitions"; the challenges of siting energy infrastructure; and the social implications of various energy transition pathways associated with technologies such wind, solar, and carbon capture. Cases will be drawn from across the world. This will be a read-intensive seminar intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Prior experience in social science recommended. Students will produce a final research paper on a topic and case of their choosing.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.415. Social Problems in Contemporary China. 3 Credits.
In this course we will examine contemporary Chinese society, looking at economic development, rural transformation, urbanization and migration, labor relations, class structure, governance, and popular protest. The course is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduates should have already completed a course about China.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.416. Social Demography. 3 Credits.
This course is designed as a basic graduate level introduction to social demography, but will be open to advanced undergrad students. Sociology, as well as other social science disciplines, will be employed to facilitate the understanding of the interaction between social and demographic forces. We start with an introduction to basic concepts and data issues in demography. We then cover the study of three basic population processes: fertility, mortality and migration. Other selected topics include family demography, population composition and structure, population aging, and the intersection among population, policy, environment and economic development.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.418. Racial Capitalism: A Sociological Perspective. 3 Credits.
This course provides theoretical and historical approaches to examining the centrality of racism, imperialism, and colonialism to the origins and ongoing functioning of capitalism and the global political economy. We begin with the dominant theoretical frameworks used to study capitalism and carefully juxtapose these with theory and empirical analyses foregrounding capitalism’s connections to racial slavery/racialized labor exploitation, imperialism, colonialism, and gendered exploitation. Following this, we examine the unfolding of capitalism in the post-emancipation, post-independence, and neoliberal periods, paying close attention to inequalities produced within and between nations. We end by examining resistance to racial capitalism, as well as imagining alternative futures.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.419. Global Social Democracy. 3 Credits.
Can social democracy offer an alternative to neoliberal capitalism? This course begins with an investigation of the history of social democracy in Europe, from origins to crisis to reconstruction, and then globalizes this in three ways: first, by asking how colonial relations affected social democracy in Europe; second, by examining welfare states in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; and third, by considering the possibilities of global redistribution.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.619 are not eligible to take AS.230.419.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.420. Sociology Department Colloquium. 0.5 Credits.
The Sociology Department Colloquium is a speaker series that is required for all first- and second-year Sociology graduate students and faculty and is open to interested undergraduate sociology majors. The Colloquium takes place once a month and lunch is provided. For those interested in taking it for credit (graded P/F), in-person attendance is required.
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.426. World Systems Analysis. 3 Credits.
Students will read and discuss classical and contemporary works in the world-systems tradition, with a focus on theories of historical capitalism, global inequality, systemic crises, current social and ecological contradictions and limits, and possible alternative future trajectories.
Prerequisite(s): AS.230.213 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.428. Introduction to Computational Social Science. 3 Credits.
The rapid expansion of digitized data about human behavior has revolutionized social science research. These days companies and governments are creating and collecting data on just about everything we do. We can now observe behavior on a scale and with a level of detail never before imaginable. We can ask questions of whole populations that previously required expensive and time-consuming surveys. In order to take advantage of these new opportunities we need change the way we think about research ethics, study design, statistical inference, and the logic of inquiry. This course provides an introduction to these new approaches as well as a discussion of their risks and limitations. The focus will be on sociological logic of inquiry and how to answer questions about the social world. Coding experience will be helpful, but is not required.
Prerequisite(s): Students may only receive credit for AS.230.418 or AS.230.618.;AS.230.205 OR AS.280.345
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.430. Sociology of Policing and Resistance in Race-Class Subjugated Communities. 3 Credits.
Policing has become a primary way that many Americans see and experience government, particularly those from race-class subjugated communities, and has been a site of resistance and freedom struggles since the first Reconstruction. In this undergraduate seminar, we will survey key debates around policing and social movements, with a particular focus on research that takes institutional development, history, and racial orders seriously. A core preoccupation of this course will be to understand the ways in which policing “makes race” and how debates about crime, surveillance, and safety were often debates about black inclusion and equality. We will explore changes in the racial logics of policing over time, debates over how policing helped construct the racial order, and the consequences of several shifts in policing for communities. From broken windows policing in New York to the emergence of the new vagrancy-style banishment laws in urban Seattle to the men who live under constant surveillance in Philadelphia and to the large share of blacks in Ferguson with outstanding warrants for ‘failure to appear”, these policies and policing regimes have helped remake the government in the eyes of the urban poor. How does exposure to criminal justice interventions shape political learning, racial lifeworlds, and community social capital? The course will include a range of methods (ethnography, historical analysis, quantitative and qualitative).
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.431. Sociology of Gender. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the social construction and consequences of gender, covering such topics as work, care, sexuality, identity, politics and inequality. Readings will include the classics as well as newer works in the field. We will equip students with tools not just to add women and stir, but to take up the challenge of the sociology of gender and apply its deconstructive, profoundly egalitarian, critical perspectives to the practice of sociology writ large. The first half of the class addresses major theories of gender, while the second half considers particular sites or topics of particularly contemporary relevance. Throughout, in keeping with the theme of the course and of the sociology of gender generally, weak destabilize the white, middle-class, heterosexual, cis-gendered, etc. perspective with considerations of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, trans and queer social categories. Thanks in part to the profound insights of sociologists of gender, we know that no position is without its positionality, and we will continually invoke comparative work to illuminate the way this works to constrain and shape our vision.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.631 are not eligible to take AS.230.431.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.432. Global Migration as a Process. 3 Credits.
This course introduces migration as a social process rather than a singular event. Students will be introduced to historical and contemporary literature on global migration. In this course, we will evaluate the drivers of migration, the migration selection process, the short- and long-term effects of migration on destination and origin countries, and the politics of migration policies. This course aims to provide students with a foundation in theories and methodologies that shape contemporary debates in international migration.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.230.440. Port Cities and Historical Capitalism in Maritime Asia. 3 Credits.
This seminar examines inter-regional connections and diplomacy in maritime Asia (focusing on the region around the Straits of Malacca, the South and East China Seas, and the Taiwan Straits). In addition to a survey of the application of world-system theories on Asia, the reading materials include the roles of trading diasporas in world history, the maritime silk Road, the Chinese tribute trade system, the British free-trade imperialism, American open-door policy, Japanese pan-Asianism, Cold-war diplomacy, and the Beijing-centric belt-and-road initiatives. The goal is to explore the prospects and limitations of examining inter-Asian connections beyond political states.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.445. Sociology of Religion. 3 Credits.
This seminar tackles major issues in the classical and contemporary sociology of religion. We begin with Ibn Khaldun, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Mary Douglas, asking basic questions: What are religion and the sacred? Why do they exist? What is the relationship between religion and social structure? And what role does religion play in morality, solidarity, boundaries, exploitation, patriarchy, and macrohistorical transformations such as the rise of capitalism? Keeping this theoretical grounding (and its flaws and biases) in mind, we continue to probe the problem of religion in modernity through more-recent writings. Topics include the secularization debate (Are modernity and religion antithetical?); “religious markets” and rational-choice theories of religion; religious revivalism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and proselytizing movements; feminist and queer sociologies of religion; civil religion (Is standing for the national anthem a religious act?); embodiment and prayer; Orientalism and postcolonial interrogations of the secular; religious violence and nationalism; the intersectionality of religion with race, class, and caste; and religion and neoliberalism. Although dominant sociologies of religion have focused on Christianity in Western Europe and North America, this course applies a global lens, training significant focus on non-Western and non-Christian contexts.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.500. Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of special interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Sociology faculty, which results in a substantive paper or report containing significant analysis and interpretation of the topic.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.230.501. Research Assistantship. 3 Credits.
This course enables a student to work directly with a member of the Sociology faculty as a research assistant on an existing research project. Scholarly research is work that involves scientific process/method, i.e. the collection of and analysis of data appropriate to the research problem.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.230.507. Internship. 1 Credit.
This enables a student to craft a research-oriented internship that addresses an issue of sociological interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Sociology faculty. This must conclude with a written reflection or presentation on the student’s experience and its relevance to sociology.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.230.511. Honors Research Seminar. 3 Credits.
This seminar is a workshop for Sociology majors writing senior honor theses. It is part of the two-semester Senior Honors Program. Students must complete an application to enroll in the Honors Program [https://soc.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2021/04/Sociology-Honors-ThesisApplication.pdf] before registering for this seminar. Typically, students first take the seminar and then enroll for the Honors Independent Study (230.512) with their thesis advisor in the second semester of the Program. The seminar is designed to assist students in the early phase of their honors thesis research and to provide a community of peers who are writing theses.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.512. Honors Research Seminar II. 3 Credits.
This course is the second semester of the Honors Program. Students register for this course with their thesis advisor to receive a letter grade for their solo-authored thesis. See handbook for details.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.;AS.230.511
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.598. Summer Internship. 1 Credit.
This course enables a student to craft a research-oriented internship that addresses an issue of sociological interest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Sociology faculty. This must conclude with a written reflection or presentation on the student’s experience and its relevance to sociology.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.230.600. Introduction to Social Statistics. 4 Credits.
This course introduces students to the principles of answering social scientific questions using quantitative data and teaches how to apply those principles in practice using real-world data. Topics include measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability theory, statistical inference and hypothesis testing, and prediction. Students will also be introduced to software tools to analyze and to interpret data to answer questions from various fields of social science.
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.601. Science in Action: Expertise, Economy, and Authority. 3 Credits.
This is an upper level seminar examining the relationship between scientific expertise, economic power, and state authority. The course will explore and critique how scientific knowledge, following World War II, becomes increasingly linked to different regulatory functions of the modern nation state, especially as a means of taming negative spillovers of economic and administrative behavior on human health and the environment. Themes that will be of central interest include the institutionalization of "impact science" within different state agencies; the rise and role of expertise in science-related decision making; understanding how scientists secure and maintain credibility, salience and legitimacy in the face of scrutiny from skeptical publics and ideological adversaries; and the increasing challenges to regulatory sciences (what many call a “crisis of expertise”) posed by the organization and proliferation of misinformation, media echo-chambers, and corporate lobbying. The course will end by reviewing emerging models for how scientific decision making can be made more democratic and accountable to the publics in whose name it is often made.
AS.230.602. Classical Social Theory. 3 Credits.
This course will focus on four classical theorists whose ideas have greatly influenced how we study and understand society: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and W.E.B. DuBois. The course is devoted to understanding, comparing and critiquing how each theorist understood the origin, structure and historical dynamics of modern societies.
AS.230.603. Contemporary Social Theory. 3 Credits.
This course will examine how important schools of social theory challenged and reconstructed the "classical" theories of Marx, Weber, Durkheim and DuBois as they grappled with the historical developments and social concerns of the 20th century.
AS.230.604. Linear Models for the Social Sciences. 4 Credits.
This course provides accessible but in-depth coverage of multiple regression with a focus on sociological problems and software applications. We begin with the basics of linear regression, including estimation, statistical inference, and model assumptions. We then review several tools for diagnosing violations of statistical assumptions and what to do when things go wrong, including dealing with outliers, missing data, omitted variables, and weights. Graduate students should have completed AS.230.600 or equivalent. Undergraduates admitted with instructor's permission and AS.230.205 or equivalent.
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences
AS.230.605. Categorical Data Analysis. 4 Credits.
This course introduces statistical analysis and supervised machine learning of data with categorical dependent variables. The course aims to apply statistical analysis and learning methods to social science research. The course starts with an intuitive understanding of the probability distributions and assumptions. It proceeds with applying estimators, model selections, and inferences to an example of social science research. It continues to address overfitting using LASSO and data complexity using tree classification, random forest, support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and neural networks.Categorical dependent variables can be binary, ordered-category, multi-category, and count (logit/probit, ordered-logit, multinomial logic, Poisson, negative binomial, loglinear and their corresponding lasso models). High-dimensional big data from sources including digital, administrative, complex surveys, and sensor data that provide covariates can be handled with supervised ML techniques. These models, methods, and techniques are accompanied with demonstrative instructions of empirical data analysis, including Stata code and substantive interpretations.
Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.608. Proseminar In Sociology. 1 Credit.
Individual one-hour presentations by faculty members will introduce students to the faculty’s substantive interests and research styles.
AS.230.613. Energy and Society. 3 Credits.
Framed by the escalating climate crisis, this seminar will focus on the social embeddedness of fossil fuels and the conditions of possibility for a renewable energy transition. Topics to be explored include the relationship between fossil fuels and capitalism; the character of previous historical energy transformations; climate denialism and the political power of the fossil fuel industry; the political and social challenges posed by fossil-fuel producing regions; contemporary proposals for a Green New Deal and "just transitions"; the challenges of siting energy infrastructure; and the social implications of various energy transition pathways associated with technologies such wind, solar, and carbon capture. Cases will be drawn from across the world. This will be a read-intensive seminar intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Prior experience in social science recommended. Students will produce a final research paper on a topic and case of their choosing.
AS.230.615. Panel Data Analysis. 4 Credits.
This advanced social statistics course introduces a broad range of models for panel data analysis. It includes a) continuous dependent variables in discrete time, b) categorical dependent variables in discrete time, c) panel data multiple imputation, and d) causal models for panel data. The course covers the intuition, specification, estimation, inference, and interpretation of each model, with applications to a real-world dataset.
Prerequisite(s): AS.230.604
AS.230.618. Introduction to Computational Social Science. 3 Credits.
The rapid expansion of digitized data about human behavior has revolutionized social science research. These days companies and governments are creating and collecting data on just about everything we do. We can now observe behavior on a scale and with a level of detail never before imaginable. We can ask questions of whole populations that previously required expensive and time-consuming surveys. In order to take advantage of these new opportunities we need change the way we think about research ethics, study design, statistical inference, and the logic of inquiry. This course provides an introduction to these new approaches as well as a discussion of their risks and limitations. The focus will be on sociological logic of inquiry and how to answer questions about the social world. Coding experience will be helpful, but is not required. Recommended Course Background: AS.230.604 - Linear Models
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.619. Global Social Democracy. 3 Credits.
Can social democracy offer an alternative to neoliberal capitalism? This course begins with an investigation of the history of social democracy in Europe, from origins to crisis to reconstruction, and then globalizes this in three ways: first, by asking how colonial relations affected social democracy in Europe; second, by examining welfare states in Asia, Latin America, and Africa; and third, by considering the possibilities of global redistribution.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.621. Seminar on Metropolitan Inequality. 3 Credits.
This course considers the sociological forces that shape modern metropolitan inequality. We will investigate the social and spatial patterns of inequality and how sociologists analyze patterns of inequality. As part of this inquiry, we will consider how sociologists (and related disciplines) use different methods to investigate topics of study. We will also consider how multiple levels of social action, from individual decisions to global political-economic relationships, affect the lives of residents in metropolitan areas.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.623. An Introduction to Causal Inference. 3 Credits.
This course introduces strategies for estimating causal effects from a counterfactual perspective, uniting the potential outcome model with causal graph methodology. After an examination of the primary features of the counterfactual perspective and criteria for causal effect identification, the course focuses on developing a deep understanding of data analysis techniques that can work in favorable circumstances, such as matching, regression from a potential outcome perspective, and inverse probability of treatment weighting. The course concludes with the vexing challenges posed by unobserved determinants of both the cause and outcome of interest, and it provides a review of specialized designs that can salvage a research project in these situations.
AS.230.624. Educational Inequality and Social Context. 3 Credits.
What is the function and purpose of education in modern society? Is college the "great equalizer" in America, or does education further stratify people by family background? What can we do to improve educational attainment? Where does work and career preparation fit in? This course is designed to tackle such questions and develop the ability of students to think critically, theoretically, historically and empirically about debates in the sociology of education and education policy.
AS.230.631. Sociology of Gender. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the social construction and consequences of gender, covering such topics as work, care, sexuality, identity, politics and inequality. Readings will include the classics as well as newer works in the field. We will equip students with tools not just to add women and stir, but to take up the challenge of the sociology of gender and apply its deconstructive, profoundly egalitarian, critical perspectives to the practice of sociology writ large. The first half of the class addresses major theories of gender, while the second half considers particular sites or topics of particularly contemporary relevance. Throughout, in keeping with the theme of the course and of the sociology of gender generally, weak destabilize the white, middle-class, heterosexual, cis-gendered, etc. perspective with considerations of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, trans and queer social categories. Thanks in part to the profound insights of sociologists of gender, we know that no position is without its positionality, and we will continually invoke comparative work to illuminate the way this works to constrain and shape our vision.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.431 are not eligible to take AS.230.631.
AS.230.632. Global Migration as a Process. 3 Credits.
This course introduces migration as a social process rather than a singular event. Students will be introduced to historical and contemporary literature on global migration. In this course, we will evaluate the drivers of migration, the migration selection process, the short- and long-term effects of migration on destination and origin countries, and the politics of migration policies. This course aims to provide students with a foundation in theories and methodologies that shape contemporary debates in international migration.
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
AS.230.637. Seminar on Social Policy and Inequality. 3 Credits.
In the past few years, social inequality in America has become front and center in public and policy debates, especially concerns about poverty, racial segregation, housing, educational attainment and unemployment. This course will focus on evaluating evidence on the effectiveness of social policies aimed at reducing barriers to inequality and promoting social mobility in these key domains. Students will become familiar with quantitative, experimental and mixed methods research approaches to understanding how well social policies and interventions actually achieve their intended goals. The course will consider background research on social inequality as it informs policy interventions, policy and evaluation design elements, causal inference and discussion of intervention implementation.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.639. Sociology of Culture. 3 Credits.
Course Goals1. To survey the literature in the sociology of culture, with an emphasis on current approachesto culture2. To stimulate ideas for empirical work in cultural sociology3. To offer cultural tools for application to empirical research in social science and beyond
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken Sociology of Culture - AS.230.659 - are not eligible to take AS.230.639.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.643. Sociological Analysis. 3 Credits.
This class is to introduce students to a range of issues and approaches in research design in sociological inquiry. Discussion will be based mainly on examples of high-impact studies in the discipline. Through intensive engagement with the readings, which are composed of classics as well as more recent works that help shape respective fields of sociology at large, students are expected to develop critical appreciation of different sociological research covering variegated substantive issues and employing diverse methodological strategies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.647. Agrarian Change. 3 Credits.
This course will explore questions related to historical and contemporary trajectories of agrarian change. It begins with classical theoretical debates on the distinctiveness of peasantries and their prospects under capitalism. It will then turn to major themes of agrarian change in the twentieth and twenty-first century: agrarian transitions to capitalism, agrarian transitions to and from socialism, peasant revolutions, moral economies and everyday resistance, rural industrialization, gender, political ecology and global food systems. The course will be structured as a reading-intensive seminar.
AS.230.650. Macro-Comparative Research. 3 Credits.
The course examines methods of studying long-term, large-scale social change. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are covered.
AS.230.651. Political Sociology. 3 Credits.
This seminar surveys key problems of political sociology including the rise of the modern state, the relationship between political and economic power, the origins and nature of liberal democracy, the nation-state and nationalism, states and war, sources of authority, identity and political contention, social movements, and social revolutions. This is a graduate level class that will meet together with “Politics and Society”, an advanced undergraduate class.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.654. Fieldwork: Interviewing, Ethnography, Participant Observation. 3 Credits.
This hands-on qualitative-methods course aims to turn the graduate student into a skilled, systematic, and confident fieldworker. Emphasis is on ethnographic observation (including participant observation) and interviewing. We will learn primarily by doing and secondarily by discussing and reading.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.659. Theories of History. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the ways that social theorists have thought about time, temporality, and historical change. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and revisiting classic texts as well as more recent scholarship, this course is open to PhD students in both humanities and social sciences. Readings may include, among others, Marx, Du Bois, Benjamin, Bloch, Hunt, Koselleck, Scott, Anderson, Adam, Postone, Steinmetz, Sewell, etc.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.661. In-depth Interviewing. 3 Credits.
A general introduction to the social science research method of in-depth interviewing. Students will review paragons of the craft, practice different types of interviewing, and discuss core debates in ethics, analysis and claims-making.
AS.230.662. Participant Observation. 3 Credits.
This is a graduate-level course in participant observation. Participant observation is qualitative field research conducted in the time and place of “subjects” rather than the observer. In this class, we will learn by doing. Students will pick a local field site within the first week of the course (and should thus enter the semester with a firm idea or two). They will then conduct participant observation at least twice a week every week for twelve weeks. Seminars will be devoted to presenting preliminary findings, commenting on each other’s field notes and discussing issues that arise in the field. Reading will be minimal, and largely practical and ethical in nature. Students will write a mid-semester literature review and produce a final paper based on their findings.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.664. Global and Transnational Sociology. 3 Credits.
This course will introduce graduate students to the field of global and transnational sociology, surveying different theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of global and transnational processes. Topics can include global institutions and governance structures; international political economy and global value chains; imperial/colonial and anti-imperial knowledge production; immigrant and diasporic experiences; and transnational social movements, among others.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.675. Arrighi Center General Seminar-Fall. 3 Credits.
The seminar involves readings and discussions related to the Arrighi Center’s four thematic priorities: (1) Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism; (2) Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance; (3) Global Inequality and Development; and (4) Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles. Participants include faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) from a wide range of JHU departments as well as visiting scholars from around the world.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.230.375 are not eligible to take AS.230.675.
AS.230.676. Arrighi Center General Seminar-Spring. 3 Credits.
The seminar involves discussions (including with visiting authors) of readings related to the Arrighi Center’s four thematic priorities: (1) Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism; (2) Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance; (3) Global Inequality and Development; and (4) Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles. Participants include faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) from a wide range of social science and humanities departments as well as visiting scholars from around the world.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.230.682. Economic Sociology. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar covers major themes in classical and contemporary economic sociology.
Writing Intensive
AS.230.685. TRP Seminar I. 3 Credits.
This seminar includes all members of the second year cohort of sociology graduate students. Class meetings will provide feedback and guidance as students develop and complete their Trial Research Papers. The course will also include a series of professional development seminars. For Sociology PhD students only.
AS.230.690. TRP Seminar II. 3 Credits.
This seminar includes all members of the third year cohort of sociology graduate students. Class meetings will provide feedback and guidance as students revise the final drafts of their Trial Research Papers. For Sociology PhD students only.
AS.230.800. Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
This course enables the student to pursue individual investigation and reading in a field of specialinterest, under the direct supervision of a member of the Sociology faculty, which results in asubstantive paper or report containing significant analysis and interpretation of the topic.
AS.230.801. Research Assistantship. 3 - 9 Credits.
Research assistants may register for this course. See handbook for details.
AS.230.802. Dissertation Research. 10 - 20 Credits.
Students working on dissertation research may register for this course. See handbook for details.
AS.230.804. Research Apprenticeship. 3 - 9 Credits.
Students working as a Research Apprentice should register for this course. Full-time sociology faculty may sponsor research apprenticeships. See handbook for details.
AS.230.810. Dissertation Fellowship Semester. 10 - 20 Credits.
Students who are completing their dissertation fellowship semester should register for this course. See handbook for details.
AS.230.811. Teaching Assistantship. 3 - 9 Credits.
Teaching assistants are required to register for this course. See handbook for details.
AS.230.815. Trial Research Paper I. 3 - 9 Credits.
Students should register for this course during their first semester working on their Trial Research Paper. See handbook for details.
AS.230.816. Trial Research Paper II. 3 - 9 Credits.
Students should register for this course during their second semester working on their Trial Research Paper. See handbook for details.
AS.230.817. Trial Research Paper III. 3 - 9 Credits.
Students should register for this course during their third semester working on their Trial Research Paper. See handbook for details.
AS.230.825. Summer Research. 9 Credits.
Students conducting summer research may register for this course. See handbook for details.
Cross Listed Courses
Center for Africana Studies
AS.362.102. Anti-Racism 101. 3 Credits.
What is Anti-Racism? How do we identify racism’s presence and effects, and how do we direct social and civic resources to end it? In this Freshman Seminar, students will learn from a series of faculty experts and invited guests about the history, workings, and legacies of racism. They’ll also study present-day and past approaches – attempted and theorized – to abolish racism in the modern world.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.362.115. Introduction to Police and Prisons. 3 Credits.
This introductory course will examine policing and prisons in the United States and beyond, with a focus on racial inequality. It will consist of three parts. First, we will define key concepts in police and prison studies. Then, we will explore the contemporary state of prisons and policing in the United States and look at debates around the rise of “mass incarceration” and aggressive forms of policing in the final third of the 20th century. Third, we will explore policing and prison in other parts of the globe in the contemporary moment, highlighting similarities and differences from the U.S. case. What can studying the instruments of social control in other societies reveal about our own? Students will develop an understanding of major trends, keywords, and debates in the literature on policing and prisons, with particular reference to race and racism.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.362.219. Black Movements in America. 3 Credits.
This course explores Black social movements in the United States to better understand social inequality, social structures, oppression, agency, and power across time and space.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.362.315. Black Against Empire. 3 Credits.
This course will examine the confrontation of Black social movements with imperialism in the twentieth century. How, we will ask, have key Black internationalist thinkers conceptualized and defined diaspora, capitalism, imperialism, war, and the global? What have been the effects of war and repression, as well as economic growth and globalization, on Black internationalism? Readings may include texts by W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis, Frantz Fanon, Ashley Farmer, Claudia Jones, Robin D.G. Kelley, Claude McKay, Huey P. Newton, Walter Rodney, Malcolm X, etc. Students will complete a research paper on a topic of their own choosing related to Black internationalism in the twentieth century.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.362.335. Unlocking Knowledge: Theorizing Prison from the Inside. 3 Credits.
What can we learn about mass incarceration, and social life in the USA more broadly, when we listen to incarcerated people themselves? This course centers the voices, experiences, and expertise of the incarcerated and will combine scholarly readings on life inside prisons with a range of writings by incarcerated people. Topics of discussion may include censorship, rehabilitation, Covid-19, solitary confinement, sexuality, racism, etc. Students will learn to probe primary-source collections to amplify silenced and overlooked voices, while completing a multi-stage research project. Prior course experience on mass incarceration preferred.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
Center for Economy and Society
AS.197.210. Global Capitalism. 3 Credits.
We examine how capitalism has unfolded as a system over the past century around the world, with the goal of understanding whether there are realistic alternatives to our current social order. We ask what communism was, and why people fear it; why there is more poverty and inequality in the U.S. than other developed countries; how some developing countries have managed to become rich; and the recent rise of “neoliberalism.”
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.197.330. Social Networks. 3 Credits.
The well-known saying, “It is not what you know, but who you know,” captures the importance of social networks in our everyday lives. However, social networks shape not only individuals but also society at large. From protests to epidemics, market performance of innovations to culture wars, and election results to dating and marriage, this course will explore how social networks shape society through their impacts on individuals, institutions, and structures. We will start by learning key network concepts, measures, processes, and analyses. We will then move on to thematic explorations of how social networks emerge, evolve, and influence various individual and social outcomes. Finally, we will conclude by applying social networks as a theoretical lens for understanding society.This course satisfies the "research lab" requirement for Moral and Political Economy majors.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
East Asian Studies
AS.310.329. Women, Patriarchy, and Feminism in China, South Korea, and Japan. 3 Credits.
We will try to get a quick overview of the recent history of patriarchy in China, South Korea, and Japan from the mid-twentieth century to our present and then compare the initiatives of feminists to transform the lives of women throughout these three societies. We will also debate whether or how it makes sense to adapt the Western notions of patriarchy and sexism as well as the Western political program of feminism to the non-Western context of East Asia by reading books by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.310.331. Islam in Asia. 3 Credits.
You will learn about the efforts of ordinary, non-elite Muslims to shape the relation between their communities and the state as well as to (where applicable) the non-Muslim majority through collective organizing over the last forty years. We will read and discuss books by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists studying Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.310.332. Ethnicity in China. 3 Credits.
Ever since the Chinese Empire fell in 1911, Chinese have tried to think of themselves as modern and to build a modern Chinese state. Among the Western concepts that Chinese appropriated to define and comprehend themselves were the notions of ethnicity, culture, nationality, and race. We will try to answer the following questions: What was the allure of arcane and elusive Western categories on culture, ethnicity, and race for Chinese scientists in the 20th century, and how did these categories come to underpin the rule of the Chinese state over its enormous population since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949? How have the Chinese state’s policies on nationality and ethnicity shaped the minds of American China scholars as they study ethnicity and nationality in China?
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.310.336. Rebellion and Its Enemies in China Today. 3 Credits.
On 13 October 2022, a middle-aged upper-middle class Chinese man staged a public political protest on an elevated road in Beijing. Peng Lifa, or “Bridge Man,” as he has become known in allusion to Tank Man from the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989, demanded elections and reforms. How have urban Chinese been able to be so content or even happy despite their lack of political freedom? The class readings will introduce you to different kinds of activists who have confronted the authoritarian state since the late 1990s, among them human rights lawyers, reporters, environmental activists, feminists, religious activists, and labor activists. We will ask whether freedom, an obviously Western notion, is useful as an analytical category to think about China. Does freedom translate across the West/non-West divide?
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
First Year Seminars
AS.001.133. FYS: Hot Topics in Education. 3 Credits.
As a public good, public schooling is often the focus of attempts at purposeful change. Politicians, for example, make policies for fixing schools (public) that never would be entertained for fixing families (private). Parents also make demands of schools, as do a host of other interested parties. Together these stakeholders make up part of the external environment to which schools adapt. But the institutional agents of schooling have interests too—e.g., teachers’ unions, associations of school administrators, the faculty of schools of education—and they too often try to shape the direction of school reform. This First-Year Seminar examines timely, often controversial, issues of education policy and practice through a sociological lens. We will address these topics with discussions of a documentary film on the history of American public schools, readings in contemporary social science, and our own research into specific policy debates.
AS.001.136. FYS: Cults, Communes, and Conspiracies. 3 Credits.
Cults, communes, and conspiracies are unusual social and ideological organizations. How should we understand their origins, structure, and functioning? In our First-Year Seminar, we will assess the value of alternative explanatory concepts from the social sciences, such as charismatic leadership, organizational ecology, network structure, status competition, social influence, and belief propagation. We will then interpret cases in comparative perspective, asking, for example, how cults differ from religious sects, how communes differ from political movements, and how organized crime groups differ from legal businesses.
AS.001.146. FYS: Democracy is Hard. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar will investigate the American democratic experiment from multiple angles, including by exploring the differences between democratic and alternative forms of governance; the founders' democratic ideals and blindspots; their debates about design; historical shifts in conceptions of democracy and citizenship; and the ever-present social and cultural challenges (and joys!) of practicing democracy and forging a common life across our religious, economic and other differences.
AS.001.265. FYS: Who is Baltimore? Applying a Sociological Lens to Charm City. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar will introduce students to Baltimore by investigating various populations and institutions in their adopted hometown. Students will explore questions like: How has immigration shaped the city over the past 300 years? Who is trying to change Baltimore and how are they doing it? Who has power in Baltimore and how do they use it? We will learn about and apply social science research methods, such as analyzing survey data, mining university archives and special collections, and walking the streets of Baltimore observing and interviewing locals. We’ll also investigate research on Baltimore undertaken by Hopkins faculty to help students identify possible courses or research to pursue in the future.
AS.001.280. FYS: Spilling the Tea - The Political Economy & Ecology of Tea. 3 Credits.
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, with almost 7 million tonnes grown, harvested, processed, and packaged annually. Whether you use loose leaf or tea bags, drink green tea or black, add sugar or cream, use it to stay awake or go to sleep, or consume it in solitude or with friends to share gossip, you are participating in the worldwide consumption of tea, which has created economic relations (and wars), new ecosystems for plants and animals (and humans), and is culturally significant in public and private spaces. In short, tea organizes people’s homes, government meetings, economies, investment markets, and landscapes. In this First-Year Seminar, we will examine the history and present-day production of tea and how it creates and recreates social relations and environments. In addition to learning about tea (and tasting different kinds), students will be exposed to research methodologies in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and communication studies. By the end of class, students will have an understanding of the different kinds of teas (and how to prepare them), the role tea plays in society, and how tea functions within ecosystems.
Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies
AS.361.623. LACLxS Reading Seminar: Caribbean Worlds. 3 Credits.
This interdisciplinary graduate seminar examines the Caribbean as a dynamic and multifaceted region shaped by its diverse populations, colonial entanglements, and enduring struggles for sovereignty and self-determination. Emphasizing the Caribbean’s role as a site of political, economic, and cultural innovation, the course engages major themes including indigeneity, slavery and colonial domination, race and racism, gender and sexuality, diaspora, and contested models of “development.” These issues will be analyzed through the writings and perspectives of Caribbean thinkers—both historical and contemporary—who have critically shaped regional and global discourses. Rather than positioning the Caribbean as simply “peripheral,” this course foregrounds the region as a generative space of intellectual, cultural, and political resilience with profound relevance to broader conversations in Latin America and the Global South.
Political Science
AS.190.437. Race and Ethnic Politics in the United States. 3 Credits.
Race has been and continues to be centrally important to American political life and development. In this course, we will engage with the major debates around racial politics in the United States, with a substantial focus on how policies and practices of citizenship, immigration law, social provision, and criminal justice policy shaped and continue to shape racial formation, group-based identities, and group position; debates around the content and meaning of political representation and the responsiveness of the political system to American minority groups; debates about how racial prejudice has shifted and its importance in understanding American political behavior; the prospects for contestation or coalitions among groups; the “struggle with difference” within groups as they deal with the interplay of race and class, citizenship status, and issues that disproportionately affect a subset of their members; and debates about how new groups and issues are reshaping the meaning and practice of race in the United States.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive