Course description
| This course introduces you to the discipline of sociology in three ways. |
| First, we examine classic texts, theories and debates from the founding sociologists of the 19th and 20th century. This connects the historical formation of sociology to ideas you encounter elsewhere in the liberal arts college. |
| Second, we examine contemporary social issues and questions that expand, synthesize, and challenge the ideas and debates established by the founding sociologists. In this way, we will explore how current sociologists engage the classic tradition, rather than just read how they respond to it. |
| Finally, through discussion and writing we develop a more general "sociological imagination" to understand how sociology as a way of thinking can illuminate our lives and the world around us. |