SOCI 174 - Introduction to Sociology: Swallowing the Red Pill

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
In this course, students will be invited to “swallow the red pill,” or as the radical sociologist C. Wright Mills once put it, to develop a “sociological imagination” by learning how to “make the familiar strange.” How does the structure of contemporary capitalism shape U.S. (and global) society? Which social groups wield the most power, and how? And crucially, how do these macro-level processes affect our daily lives? We will begin to answer these and other questions by applying concepts from classical and contemporary sociological theory to many of today’s pressing social problems, ranging from rampant inequality and the criminalization of poor people to the mental health crisis and the rise of digital surveillance.

This course is appropriate for new students.