Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• GRS SO 838: Seminar on International Migration
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing.
  The course will explore key themes in international migration. It will emphasize connections between current topics in immigration, and sociological theories that explain immigrant pathways, mobilities, and outcomes. Students will engage in analytical memo-writing that make these links, and write a final term paper. Throughout, the course will emphasize how the intersection of inequalities--of legal status, gender, race and class--shape immigration processes. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
• GRS SO 839: Seminar: State Building and Failure in the Developing World
  Considers the political significance of failed and fragile states in the developing world in the post-9/11 era. Students analyze historical patterns of state formation and its relevance in contemporary society.
• GRS SO 840: Seminar: Comparative Political Cultures
  Explores the "deep cultural" level behind the daily conduct of politics. A theoretical framework relying upon Tocqueville and Weber is developed and then applied to unveil the political cultures of the United States, Germany, England, Russia, China, Japan, and Mexico.
• GRS SO 847: Seminar: Global Sociology
  (Meets with GRS IR 748.) Examines different sociological perspectives on global social dynamics and processes.
• GRS SO 848: Culture, Markets, and Inequality
  This seminar examines commerce as a cultural process, focusing on cultural production and consumption practices in fields like fashion, music, and bodily goods and services. Traces the cultural construction and maintenance of gender, race, and class inequalities in markets.
• GRS SO 852: Contemporary Debates in Sexualities Research
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120).
  Engages sociological debates about sexual identities, politics, and practices. Students consider how sexualities are expressed and regulated through various institutions and how they intersect with race, class, gender, citizenship, and other domains of inequality. Also offered as CAS WS 452. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Writing-Intensive, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• GRS SO 859: Deviance and Social Control
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing.
  This seminar explores sociological explanations for why and how certain attributes and behaviors are defined as deviant, the consequences of deviant labels, and how rules and sanctions are created and enforced. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• GRS SO 860: Seminar in Economic Sociology
  Introduction to core theoretical perspectives and debates in contemporary economic sociology (structural/network, cultural, institutional/political, and performativity) with a special attention paid to morality of markets, commensuration and construction of value, money, credit and finance and inequality. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Critical Thinking
• GRS SO 890: Seminar: Global Health: Politics, Institutions, and Ideology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
  What is global health? Who are the main actors in global health debates? This seminar explores the politics of global health, providing students with sociological tools, concepts, and knowledge to help make sense of conflict in contemporary global health debates. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• GRS SO 897: Understanding Meritocracy
  Challenges students to sociologically evaluate the concept of meritocracy, its origins, its societal implications, and contemporary adoption as an ideal worth striving for. Reviews empirical research on perceptions around and explanations of social inequality. Explores how beliefs about inequality are mobilized in class and racial conflict and in what ways people's beliefs are or aren't likely to change. Fall term. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II and Critical Thinking.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Critical Thinking
• GRS SO 947: Dr Field Conc
  
• GRS SO 951: Professionalization Workshop
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: currently enrolled in Sociology graduate program.
  Provides an introduction to the professional culture norms and workings of the graduate program, familiarization with faculty's ongoing research and publications, and an overview of departmental, college, and area-wide resources
• GRS SO 952: Professionalization Workshop
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: currently enrolled in Sociology graduate program.
  Provides an introduction to the professional culture norms and workings of the graduate program, familiarization with faculty's ongoing research and publications, and an overview of departmental, college, and area-wide resources.
• GRS WS 650: Internships: Women, Gender, and Social Change
  A seminar which introduces students to the practices/ideas of social change organizations through local internships and weekly discussions related to class, race, sexuality, women and gender.
• GRS WS 700: Directed Study WGS
  Directed study in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.
• GRS WS 801: Theories and Methods in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
  Explores the variety and complexity of theories and methods in the interdisciplinary fields of women's, gender, and sexuality studies. Provides a forum for assessing research strategies used by gender and sexuality scholars. Required for the WGS Program Graduate Certificate.