Introduction to Sociology

Sociology starts from the idea that the things you experience as personal — your job, your gender, your sense of belonging — are actually shaped by structures bigger than you, and this course gives you the conceptual toolkit to see that. You'll read primary texts from Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and later thinkers like Wallerstein, Butler, and Stuart Hall, working through them in weekly discussions, three homework-and-quiz cycles, a midterm, and a final essay. It's a required first-/second-year course for PSPA students and functions as the conceptual backbone for everything downstream on power, stratification, and social change — less about memorizing theorists than learning to read society critically.