Exploring Society

Description

Soci 111 introduces you to the discipline of Sociology. Sociology explores people and society. It examines our social institutions; our families, the state, and social relationships like gender and ethnicity, to help make sense of how we both experience and interpret our rapidly changing world. As you can see from the lecture schedule, sociological interest in life is wide ranging. In Exploring Society the topics covered include: gender, sexuality, sport, food, families, animals, health, death, moral panic, consumerism, and everyday technologies like mobile phones and facebook.

There are many sociologies. In this course, you will be introduced to a version that is concerned with understanding and explaining the different types of social relationships that constitute diverse social worlds, ranging from music and food to the welfare state and death. Sociologists use a variety of methods to gather information and analyse anything from major world events to seemingly mundane everyday practices. As you attend lectures and workshops in Soci 111 you will hopefully begin to grasp some of the excitement of this process of analysis. You will be involved as both participants and contributors in analysing some of the major trends and events of our time. You will be asked to make use of and extend the basic sociological method – asking questions – about taken-for-granted social worlds, activities and events. In the process, you will be introduced to critical ways of thinking, and we will encourage you to develop sociological imaginations. Such imaginations will allow you to make connections between personal experiences, and the social and historical contexts within which such experiences are produced. They will hopefully provoke you to raise questions that enable you to critically reflect on both the connections, and how you make sense of them. Whether you intend continuing in sociology or not, we hope you will find the course to be rewarding.