SOCI 386 - Nightlife: Place, Identity and Feeling Alive

Semester Offered: First Semester
Full Course
Credits: 4 credits
Attribute: 4SS

What does it mean to feel “truly alive” only at certain times and places? In this course, we consider the geographic places and cultural practices of nightlife. We will explore the ways nightlife’s risks and rewards are produced, distributed, and regulated to understand their seeming paradoxes: the same physical location can be hedonistic and someone’s daily grind, carnivalesque and tightly scripted, liminal and big business, criminal and completely quotidian. Nightlife shapes our identities and reproduces social inequalities, but these fleeting experiences also circumscribe the places we spend most of our time – work and home. Fieldtrips required.

Enrollment Limit: 25
Instructor: G. Mattson

Consent of the Instructor Required: Yes
Prerequisites & Notes: Introduction to Sociology or GSFS