Self and Society

Catalog description

This course examines the dialectical relationship between self and society. Two primary questions guide the course: How am I, as a social being, created by society? And, in turn, how is society created and sustained by me? In contrast to biological or psychological explanations, this course provides a distinctly sociological analysis of the self. Drawing from multiple perspectives in sociology, the course focuses on the social character of the self, the process of its acquisition and the social influences that continually shape it. Related topics include the social construction of reality, identity construction, emotions, power and inequality, symbolic interaction, ethnomethodology, and impression management.