This seminar examines theory and research design in contemporary sociological research. We will examine important theories in different areas of the discipline, and the empirical approaches taken to support or challenge them. We will emphasize important principles that are applicable in all kinds of sociological research including surveys, participant observation, experiments, interviews and quantitative analysis of existing data. Limited to graduate students in\u2026\n
This workshop is a venue to discuss and receive feedback on on-going experimental research projects. The work presented and discussed will range from projects in the early stages of design and conceptualization through fully drafted manuscripts.
\nThis workshop is a venue to discuss and receive feedback on on-going experimental research projects. The work presented and discussed will range from projects in the early stages of design and conceptualization through fully drafted manuscripts.
\nThis course approaches families as social arrangements shaped by broader forces and as arenas in which we make choices about our lives. As such, we will consider how family forms and relationships reflect wider systems of gender, race, class, sexuality, and state policy, as well as how they provide sites of resistance to dominant social norms. We will focus on contemporary studies of key aspects of family, such as: partnering and marriage, diversity of family forms and chosen family,\u2026\n
This seminar explores how culture has shaped Brazilian national identity. Drawing on ethnography, historical sources, song lyrics, film, and mass media, the course examines how cultural forms negotiate race, class, gender, regionalism, tradition, religion, and consumption. Emphasizing popular culture as a key arena of social conflict and creativity, we analyze how music, carnival, cinema, sport, and television have mediated tensions between modernity and tradition, nation and region,\u2026\n
In this course we will develop an understanding of how modern medicine and global health practices have been shaped by colonial histories whose structures and vestiges remain. Employing interdisciplinary approaches to a variety of global health problems since the nineteenth century, we will analyze how power is expressed in but also contested and reshaped by the medical encounter. Plague quarantines; sex and eugenics; the deployment of psychiatry to stem political resistance; economic\u2026\n
This studio course introduces students to the fundamentals of sculpture through an emphasis on materials, process, and making. Working across a wide range of substances, including plaster, wood, paper, resin, found objects, and unconventional materials such as food, students will develop an understanding of how things are constructed, transformed, and experienced in three dimensions. Through close study, material research, and hands-on experimentation, the course encourages play, curiosity,\u2026\n
A multidisciplinary introduction to fundamental aspects of human biology relevant to health. Why do we age, get sick, and die? How do we stay healthy? Why are some individuals and populations more vulnerable to disease and premature death than others? And, importantly, how can each of us evaluate confusing, conflicting, and constantly changing information about health? To address these questions without being prescriptive, this class will review how the human body evolved, explore how\u2026\n
This course studies expressions of alternate sexualities in Iberia and Latin America. It includes a wide variety of literary genres over a chronological span that ranges from the Middle Ages to the present and engages with current discussions in gender and LGBTQ+ studies. Many of the texts we will study are untouched by modern scholars but that nonetheless represent important historical and cultural moments in their respective countries, as well as unapologetic postures toward\u2026\n
\u201cWhat is love (baby don\u2019t hurt me)?\u201d pop culture keeps asking; in Latin America, one answer has long come in the form of tears, melodrama, and serialized romance. In the 1960s, the romance\u2011comic series L\u00e1grimas, risas y amor promised its readers an education in how to suffer, laugh, and love. This course takes that archive of \u201ctears, laughter, and love\u201d as a point of departure to explore how Latin American popular culture has taught its publics to feel from the nineteenth century to the\u2026\n
The Gothic has become an inescapable and proliferating presence in contemporary culture. The global expansion of the term, its rather astonishing plasticity, has led experts to distinguish between categories such as Urban Gothic, Rural Gothic, Eco Gothic, War Gothic, Southern Gothic, and Tropical Gothic, among many others. Despite the world-wide nature of the phenomenon, however, the Latin American Gothic tradition still awaits further consideration. When did it make its first appearance and\u2026\n
In this workshop-based class, students will explore and put to use the various, crucial components of poem writing, such as image, metaphor, line, form, aboutness, voice, sound, and, above all, emotional and intellectual endlessness and possibility. The balance, interconnectedness, and alliance that these parts achieve are the mark of a poem written with as much intention as instinct. Practicing different formal exercises and with observation of craft, students will write and turn in a poem\u2026\n
This course will consider the challenge of climate change and what to do about it. Students will be introduced to the basic science of climate change, including the radiation budget of the Earth, the carbon cycle, and the physics and chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere. We will look at reconstructions of climate change through Earth history to provide a context for thinking about present and future changes. We will take a critical look at climate models used to predict climate change in\u2026\n
This workshop is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss methodological or empirical work in progress in an interdisciplinary setting. The workshop features a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different fields and disciplines and includes occasional presentations by invited speakers. It is co-hosted by Harvard University's Department of Government and Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS).\u2026\n
This workshop is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss methodological or empirical work in progress in an interdisciplinary setting. The workshop features a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different fields and disciplines and includes occasional presentations by invited speakers. It is co-hosted by Harvard University's Department of Government and Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS).\u2026\n