SOC 410: Senior Seminar in Sociology:
Social Problems in Global-Historical Perspective
WED 1-4 pm, Asbury 117
 DePauw University
 SPRING 2008
Professor Thomas Hall
 Office: 106 Asbury, x4519, email: thall@depauw.edu
 OFFICE HOURS:  Tu & Th 2 - 4 pm; W 4-5pm; & by appt
[I am usually in M, Tu, Th afternoons, 1-5 pm
please email to check first]

Welcome to Senior Seminar
Last Updated 1-14-08

Obviously, you got here! This page is to let you know a bit about this course. If you have questions bring them to the first day. You can email me, and I will answer any questions.

I will lay out much of this in our first half-meeting, 1-30.  Also see the course web page, here and on moodle.

Try to read the intros to all the texts BEFORE our first meeting, listed on Course Schedule page. 

Please think about the social problem you would like to study this term.  I will help you with this, but think in terms of some issue you find interesting enough to stay with all term.  Where you have more than one possible topic, pick one for which the library has good holdings.  No need to make the term overly difficult! If you want to get a solid jump on seminar also think about why this is a SOCIAL problem [e.g., that Jane/Joe Schmo is broke is a personal problem; BUT if there are significant number of people like Jane/Joe Schmo in out society, THAT is a social problem. Also think about for whom it is a social problem. In this examples, all the Jane/Joe Schmos and people like him, but it could be a social problem for middle and upper classes to in terms of lost productivity in the economy, increase social safety costs, etc. etc. Points, for whom and why something is a social problem is not always obvious, nor is the same for all people or identifiable groups.

We will begin our readings see Course Schedule

Seminar differs from other courses in that it emphasizes DOING Sociology or Anthropology rather than just reading about it. Still, we need a topic and some common ground. That is why we have common readings. We will move through these readings quickly. Here you are reading for ideas. Courtwright, Ehrenreich & Hochschild. Kerbo, and Rivoli provide examples of what a thesis might be like. So you read for big ideas as opposed to the kind of details you usually emphasize when you prepare for an exam. But even if the particular reading is not about "your topic" you should read it carefully for ideas and examples. I will talk more about this during in seminar.

Finally, seminar requires intense participation.  However, you will find that such participation will help you immensely in completing your thesis.

This term, Spring 08, seminar differs in yet another way: it is the largest seminar in the department since the early 1990s, with 18 participants. This is larger than S&A likes, but a variety of coincidences brought this about. This has a few important consequences, the most important of which, is that it will take time to schedule presentations. This gets even more serious because this is a SPRING term so that certification for seniors for seminar needs to be in early. I will say more about this as we proceed.

What is senior seminar?
Senior seminar is a CAPSTONE course. That is, it is intended to help you pull your sociological learning, and the faculty hopes, all your other learning together in a meaningful way. The seminar requires that you DO SOCIOLOGY, not study sociology. That is, you need to do some sort of research project, a THESIS. A THESIS is a paper which makes an assertion and backs that assertion with evidence. Since we are operating in a scientific discipline (or at least part of it aspires to be) the evidence must be empirical. For now think in terms of a long term paper (40 to 60 pages) focused on a specific issue with considerable empirical evidence.  Do NOT panic at the length. Think of 8 to 12 5 page papers, and you will realized you have don that a lot! See What is a Thesis for more information. I will discuss these more later.

The "doing sociology" is circumscribed in many ways. Obviously you must be done this semester, (for deadlines see the Course Schedule). This limits the resources with which you can work. The areas of sociology from which the thesis may come are quite broad: some sort of social problem. The one main restriction--which will be explained below--is that the problem must be analyzed in a global-historical perspective. Finally, this is a seminar, which means that in addition to individual requirements (the thesis) there are COLLECTIVE requirements. A seminar is a regular meeting in which people interested in a topic come to discuss that topic in an informed, intellectual manner. This means coming prepared--having done the reading, and even more important having done some thinking. To come in UNprepared is to insult your classmates, the instructor, and the entire idea of senior seminar.

What do you get out of seminar?
When finished you will have a paper that brings you a great deal of satisfaction. You will know a great deal about the social problem you studied. If you picked a problem in which you are deeply interested, you will have had a great deal fun along the way. These are the "obvious" results. Less obvious, you will have learned how to study a complex problem, from many perspectives, and develop an argument about what the problem is, what causes it, and what might be done about it. These are skills that transfer readily to many other types of activities, and which are "money in the bank" no matter what kinds of work you end up doing.

Social Problems in Global-Historical Perspective
You have already received a preliminary description of the seminar. In order for a seminar to function as a seminar, it needs a topic. Why this is so will become very clear in the first few weeks. In terms of many of the capstone goals, what the topic is does not matter: as long as there is one, and that it is sociological!

I picked Social Problems in a Global-Historical Perspective for a variety of reasons:

• most important, this topic is sufficiently broad that it can accommodate each of your individual interests with sociology;
• "globalization" is on everyone's lips.  Underlying this, however, is a change in speed where the world IS becoming more interconnected.  In your lives, no matter what you do or where you live, knowing how to analyze problems globally will be a major asset for you throughout your life;
• many social problems are rooted in the social changes that have occurred in the last few centuries, and without historical depth, they cannot be properly understood -- to understand what something is changing INTO, you need to know something about what it is changing FROM;
• these are the reasons that I approach almost all sociology at a macro or global levels.   Because of this, I can best lead the seminar around these issues;
• students in past seminars consistently report they like this approach because it gives them leeway to pick a topic they are deeply concerned about.

AN EXAMPLE: Focus the Nation on 1-31-08, and for many people at other times, are concerned with global warming. It is clear now that human actions have contributed immensely to this change. What is less obvious is that humans have been changing the environment, typically in harmful ways to the environment and themselves, for at least 5,000 years! Further examination of this history shows that in most eras, there were people (usually called intellectuals) who understood and explained the issue. Typically they were ignored, or when heeded too little was done too late! Relevant to today in many ways. One key one is that capitalism -- while responsible for a good deal of global warming -- cannot be the sole culprit since it was happening long before capitalism became the dominant political-economic form. Also, today is much faster, much more intense, and now truly planetary.

The basic idea is to take ANY social problem -- you pick & define the problem and argue why it is a problem -- and place it in global perspective. A key point is defining and arguing why the problem is a social problem. Basically, you will need to research how the problem you pick is shaped, influenced, caused, reflects, or changes international and global forces, events, or processes. Or, rarely, why this is NOT so. How you do this will depend on the problem you pick to study. The readings and our discussions of them during the first part of the seminar will help set up several global perspectives. We will examine such processes as globalization (how things are becoming similar all over the world, or a bigmac is bigmac is a bigmac--no matter where you are), glocalization (how global processes manifest themselves locally, often in different forms), how & if the world-system is changing; how it is different from what came before. The readings will help you get started.

To help each of you individually, and all of you collectively, I will go around the room and have everyone talk about what "their problem" is, and how it develops into a thesis. I will do this every meeting for the first few weeks. This does several important things

• it allows me to see how you are doing, and help if you are stuck;
• it allows everyone to know what other seminar members are studying and how they are doing;
• it give each of you an opportunity to help others in the seminar, which means
• it provides help to each of you from your classmates
• often, it turns out that different topics connect and several students each are able to help the others and ALL do much better than any of them would have alone;
• finally, this is what makes the seminar fun!

SOME POSSIBLE TOPICS:
Changing family structures
Changing labor force participation
Changing gender roles
Changing roles of indigenous peoples in the world
Changing nature/manifestation or racial and/or ethnic groups
Changing nature of social movements
Changing nature of poverty
Changing employment structures and how they affect race & gender relations
Colonization
Decolonization
Drug Trade
Drug Use
Ethnic Conflicts (in US &/or elsewhere)
Environmental issues
Hunger: in the US or Globally
Immigration from the Third World
Migrations
Political Refugees
etc, etc, etc.

In short, you can address any topic you choose and place it in a global-historical context. The idea here, is to pull together everything you have learned about sociology, anthropology and in other courses in a way that is meaningful to you by studying a problem that YOU argue is important to study.

In brief, there are two "assignments" for the seminar. First, to write a thesis on a social problem which puts that problem in a global-historical perspective, (or in rare cases explains precisely why a particular problem is NOT global, but only local). The second is to determine how to develop a theory of social problems that is global-historical in its scope.

Seminar Policies & Attendance
I do not want to 'wave the big stick" around too much, but you must treat seminar as your most important class in all four years at DePauw. Keep in mind you can not earn a DPU Sociology B.A. without completing seminar. Every other class waits for it [not with respect to attendance, but with respect to which assignment you complete first, if you do not have time for all of them]. Among other things, because this class uses and helps you to use all the other classes you have taken. Also, if you put off seminar work to study for a midterm, write a paper etc. you will find yourself behind, and unable to write a good thesis. On evaluations I have often asked students at the end, "What advice would you give future students in seminar?" Invariably at least half the seminar says, "Start early, keep at it!" And some even add, "no matter how angry it makes them!" That is the advice from your peers!

If everyone comes prepared, seminar will be quite a bit of fun, and you will be able to "do" much of the work as part of class. A successful seminar will help you cement together your entire major so it will stick with you and so you can use this knowledge throughout your life. The usual expectations for students also apply. See DePauw's Academic Expectations for Students.

Now, that should not be too bad. We will have "covered" most of the collective material in the first few weeks before midterms and papers are due in other classes. After that you will be working on your own project. You will schedule meetings with me as needed. Then, in March we will resume meeting ALL together to start hearing results, critiquing, advising, clarifying, and finish with final presentations.

Attendance
Given both this structure, and that we meet only once a week, attendance at all seminars is mandatory. This also means you must schedule other activities, such as job interviews, rush, social meetings, etc. around the seminar. There are NO excused absences (other than for "official university business" or bona fide religious observations, when I am notified in advance IN WRITING OR BY EMAIL).  Keep in mind that missing one seminar is the same as missing an entire week of another class. During the presentations of theses we may run past 3:50 pm a bit [although I will try to avoid this] so plan on that now. 

Send comments or questions to thall@depauw.edu
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