Summer 2013

Identification of the distinctive elements of sociological perspectives on society. Readings confront classical and contemporary approaches with key social issues that include power and authority, culture and communication, poverty and discrimination, social change, and popular uses of sociological concepts.

Discussion of the logic and procedures of social science research and standards for the critical evaluation of that research based on a careful reading and analysis of significant studies exemplifying the use of different kinds of social science data and methods (field observations, historical archives, surveys, and experiments). No mathematical or statistical background is required.

Using classical texts about cities (do they still work for us?) and on the diverse new literatures on cities and larger subjects with direct urban implications, we will use a variety of data sets to get at detailed empirical information, and draw on two large ongoing research projects involving major and minor global cities around the world (a total of over 60 cities are covered in detail as of 2008). Global Core.

This course examines writings on "new media" and "social media." The focus will be on the ways that information technology has changed our social relations and experiences. We will examine different kinds of social collectivities, including "virtual communities," "crowd sourced" collaboratives and other kinds of social networks. Particular attention will be paid to the production and consumption of information and image, especially the making of cultural objects.

This course examines major innovations in organizations and asks whether innovation itself can be organized. We study a range of forms of organizing (e.g., bureaucratic, post-bureaucratic, and open architecture network forms) in a broad variety of settings: from fast food franchises to the military-entertainment complex, from airline cockpits to Wall Street trading rooms, from engineering firms to mega-churches, from scientific management at the turn of the twentieth century to collaborative filtering and open source programming at the beginning of the twenty-first. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between organizational forms and new digital technologies.