SOCI 307: Social Movements and Political Protest

SOCI 307-001: Social Movements and Political Protest
(Spring 2022)

01:30 PM to 02:45 PM MW

Hanover Hall L003

Section Information for Spring 2022

In terms of excitement, nothing else measures up to the energy of a rising social movement. In such times, a sense of possibility pervades society. No wonder social researchers across a wide range of fields reference social movements and sometimes make them objects of study. But what are social movements, really? Where do they come from, what do they do, where do they take us? And what do they have to teach us about our societies in general? This course provides students with a comprehensive curriculum on social movement research and theory, taught by a professor with decades of experience working within, researching, writing about, and publishing on social movements. Our discussions will proceed in three stages. First, we will introduce you to the kinds of questions posed and concepts applied by social movement scholars in their research, examining particular cases as we do so. Next, we turn to three significant traditions in social movement theory - contention, identification, and praxis - and their implications for both academic research design and actual movements. Finally, as this course is intended to develop your capacity to produce research that matters, we will together take up the challenge of organizing students and the education sector in the 2020s; you will help to devise strategies for building powerful movements.

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Explores processes for organizing resistance to current social and power arrangements, from terrorism to nonviolent civil resistance to create alternative institutions, policies, or leadership that promote human rights and social justice. Uses historical and contemporary case studies of local and global change to explore, how, why, and to what effect individuals have organized to protest the status quo and create social change. Limited to three attempts.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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