Course info

SOCI 333/A (Winter 2024): POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY

 

Questions around power, inequality, and the structures that perpetuate or challenge power and inequality are central to many disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, history, theology, political science, and political theorists. While some other disciplines ask questions about the nature and origins of power and inequality, sociology presupposes that power and inequality have been inherent to all human societies throughout recorded human history, and asks questions about the structures, institutions, modalities, and operations of power in particular contexts. In this course we will learn how to ask smart sociological questions about power, inequality, and their socio-political implications. Which structures of hierarchy, discrimination, domination, oppression, and exploitation arise from the operation of power in particular historical and political contexts? What kinds of inequality do they construct? How are these inequalities reproduced? Do they change over time? In a world marked by inequality, how do people navigate and cope with power or instigate social change? Each week we will read foundational texts of political and sociological theory that delve into these questions. In most weeks these foundational texts are paired with a contemporary text that either poses similar questions or employs the respective theory in its search for answers.