the class
boring, cliché-riddled introduction
In this class, I hope to introduce you to the pleasures of sociology, while doing my best to steer you around its pains. We venture through this introduction with the goal not necessarily of creating professional sociologists (as worthy as that goal is), but rather to be better-informed people, students, and citizens, since all these roles benefit from a sociological perspective. To accomplish that, we will be “kicking it back old school,” which means returning to the classic texts that emerged at the formative moments of the birth of sociology, which just happened to be at the same time as the birth of modernity. This is significant because the concept of modernity (and its spin-offs, like modernization and modernism and…) play a key role in how we define ourselves as subjects and understand the world around and within us. What does this all mean? Let’s find out… together.