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Course Description—Fall 2004 Great Issues in the Social Sciences Professor M. Mullin, Department of Anthropology & Sociology How are people’s desires shaped by social forces? How do tastes and
values change over time? How do they vary among people with different
racial, class, and gender identities? How does something become popular
or old-fashioned? In this course we’ll consider such questions using
case studies drawn from a variety of social sciences, including history,
anthropology, psychology, sociology, and economics, covering a range of
historical time periods and geographical areas. 1. include material significantly removed from the students’ experience either by virtue of cultural or historical distance; 2. direct students to investigate their own cultural and historical moment from a perspective informed by their study of culture or history; 3. require students to explore the specific cultural context of
artifacts, to the extent that the course covers artifacts of a different
culture or from a different historical period” (Albion College Academic
Catalog, 2003-2004). We’ll cover all of the above. Readings are likely to include a
collection of articles by historians, mostly of the 20th-century U.S.
(The Gender & Consumer Culture Reader), an ethnography of a clinic
devoted to eating disorders (Feeding Anorexia: Gender and Power at a
Treatment Center), an ethnography of “youth sex culture and market
reform in Shanghai,” and works by social theorists (Thorstein Veblen’s
Theory of the Leisure Class and Georg Simmel’s “Metropolis and Mental
Life” and “The Philosophy of Fashion”). The course is conducted as a
seminar (i.e., the emphasis is on participation and discussion, with
little in the way of lecturing) and requires a series of 5-6 pp. essays,
some research, and a willingness to share ideas.
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