Sociology
One of the most highly regarded departments in the world, Sociology at SOCL 101
Lancaster has played a central role in the emergence of this important field of INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
academic study and is renowned for its creative and groundbreaking research. Terms taught: FY
The Department offers a full range of challenging undergraduate and
Credits: 12 semester credits or 24 ECTS credits
postgraduate courses and provides an intense and exciting research
Also available: M only – 4 semester credits;
environment for research students, researchers and visiting scholars.
LS only – 8 semester credits
The Department is renowned for its innovative teaching, combining cutting edge courses This course offers a general introduction to
on sociological topics with new approaches from other disciplinary sources including sociological issues, ideas, concepts, evidence
cultural studies, science technology and society, and gender and women’s studies. and argument by examining some key aspects
of the contemporary world. The topic areas
Further information can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/ covered in the lectures include: privatisation,
identity, globalisation, city lives. A number of
different sociological skills are emphasised in
POSTGRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES order to provide basic tools for applying
MA in Sociology, MA in Society, Technology and Nature, MA in Sociological Research, sociological reasoning in relation to empirical
MA in Gender and Women’s Studies and Sociology, MA in Genetics and Society (by examples. It provides a general understanding
research), MA in Environment, Culture and Public Policy (by research); MPhil/PhD. of sociology for all and a foundation for more
advanced study.
FACULTY SOCL 206
Dr M Buscher, Dr R Coleman, Dr A Cronin, Dr T Dant, Dr B Diken, Dr A-M Fortier, INTRODUCTION TO SOCIO-CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
Dr G Gilloch, Prof R Jessop, Prof M Krätke, Prof M McNeil, Dr N Mookherjee,
Dr M Mort, Prof R Penn, Dr C Roberts, Prof A Sayer, Prof E Shove, Dr V Singleton, Terms taught: FY N/A 2010-11
Prof L Suchman, Dr B Szerszynski, Dr D Tyfield, I Tyler, Prof J Urry, Prof S Walby, Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
Dr C Waterton, Prof Bryan Wynne. Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; LS
only – 4 semester credits
ASSESSMENT Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
A 200- or 300-level course normally involves a mixture of coursework (essays 50%, The course addresses classical anthropological
other coursework 20%) and a three-hour examination (30%). Coursework generally themes with contemporary exploration of
these issues. The topics covered include the
consists of two or three substantial essays. In some courses it is possible to replace these history of anthropology and the role of the
forms of assessment with an 8,000 word dissertation which counts for 80% plus other other, an overview of fieldwork and
coursework for 20%. ethnography, witchcraft, political anthropology,
anthropology of gender, media, violence and
STUDY ABROAD ADVISER human rights, body, cyber ethnography.
Overall these themes situate anthropology in
Dr David Tyfield, email: d.tyfield@lancaster.ac.uk historical and political contexts – which show
how the change of the boundaries and
horizons of anthropology is itself a political
question for the discipline. This is examined
through the examination of specific text, the
complex relationship between the
anthropologist and her/his culture and that of
the people they work with.
SOCL 207
FRIENDSHIP, INTIMACY AND SOCIETY
Terms taught: LS To be approved
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
This course explores the role of friendship in
society. Classical and contemporary sociological
accounts often claim that social bonds have
been eroded or that personal relationships and
community have become less stable and more
‘liquid’. Sociology has focused most attention
on family ties and kinship in exploring these
questions. But a focus on friendship can offer
KEY TO SYMBOLS new perspectives on society. This course will
ask: What does friendship mean today? What
Note: Courses often last for more than one term. form of social bond is friendship? Has social
FY A course taught throughout the academic year. change impacted on friendship and vice versa?
M A course taught in the Michaelmas term (October - December).
SOCL 208
L A course taught in the Lent term (January - March) GENDER, SEXUALITY AND SOCIETY
LS A course taught in the Lent and Summer terms (January - June).
Terms taught: FY
S A course taught in the Summer term (April - June).
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
MorL A course taught in either the Michaelmas or Lent term.
Also available: M only – 4 semester credits;
N/A A course will not be taught in the year shown. It may be taught in future years. LS only – 4 semester credits
TBC A course which has not yet been finally approved by the university. Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
Additional syllabus information can be found at http://www.lusi.lancs.ac.uk/OnlineCoursesHandbook/ModuleCatalogue/Default.aspx
This course considers a range of feminist online and off. We’ll explore the history of sociological approaches to ‘nature’; second,
approaches to explaining transformations in automata, automation and work; artificial ways of incorporating ideas about nature and
sexual relations and gender formations over intelligence and robotics; cyborgs and the environment into your sociological thinking.
the last century. Topics covered will include technobodies; virtual sociality and digital
a selection from the following areas: Gender, identities; mobile technologies; geeks and SOCL 221
race and nation; sexual citizenship; gamers. The course will consider the new CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIETY
embodiment; growing up gendered; gender possibilities that the changing social
Terms taught: M
performativity; intersex; kinship and new infrastructure of digital technologies afford,
reproductive technologies; gender at work; while also learning to look at the rhetorics Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
sex work and the global sex trade; militarism and practices of the ‘network society’ with a Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
and gender politics. questioning and critical eye. Throughout the
In the last 20 years or so, climate change has
course we’ll be attentive to issues of gender,
moved beyond scientific and policy circles and
SOCL 209 race and other marks of sameness and
CONSUMER CULTURE AND ADVERTISING become part of everyday social discourse and
difference as they operate among humans,
social life. Climate change and global warming
and between humans and machines.
Terms taught: FY are now mainstream political issues, rarely
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits absent from political, policy and media
SOCL 211 agendas. More important for this course,
Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; INTRODUCING MOBILITIES
however, ‘climate change’ now signals, in
LS only – 4 semester credits Terms taught: M N/A 2010-11 everyday discourse, a phenomenon which
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits is considered to affect all of society, and a
Consumption and advertising are key to phenomenon in which all societies globally
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology are implicated. Climate change debates are
understanding contemporary society – they
mediate how we think about ourselves and Movement - of people, objects, ideas, shifting, and beginning to make much stronger
others, form social structures, and they information - makes sociality possible. It s links between a vast and complex planetary
organise resources and ideas. This course hapes the kinds of social relations we develop, perspective (a globe in crisis) and the private
introduces a range of theoretical perspectives and it also shapes the physical world. This sphere (the home, low-carbon lifestyles,
on consumer culture and advertising and course provides you with key conceptual and consumer demand, etc).The course will review
includes various case studies. Topics include: methodological resources with which to emerging sociological perspectives on climate
commodities and exchange; shopping and understand the role of mobilities and their change, aiming to give you an understanding
identity; class and lifestyle; advertising relationship with technologies, ideas, values, of: the politics of climate change science; the
agencies’ gender and advertising images; anti- and environments in past, present and global political economy of climate change;
consumerism and protest. emergent future societies. Topics include climate change and social change; climate
Speed: The emergence and effects of different change and social activism; utopias and
SOCL 210A transport systems, Away: Tourism, imaginative dystopias of climate change.
INFORMATION SOCIETY and virtual travel, NowHere: The relationship
between perception, action, ‘space’ and ‘place’ SOCL 225
Terms taught: LS FOOTBALL AND SOCIETY
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits SOCL 218
SOCIO-CULTURAL APPROACHES Terms taught: M
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology TO ADVERTISING Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
The Information Society is, apparently, upon Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
us. Sociologists, cultural theorists, economists Terms taught: M or L N/A 2010-11
and politicians have heralded the arrival and Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits The course examines the various sociological
convergence of new forms of information and approaches to the analysis of football. It
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
communications technologies as ushering in a explores both historical [figurative] and
This course introduces a range of debates contemporary and sociological approaches.
new 'Information Age'. This Information
about the social and cultural status and impact These theories will be probed across a range
Society, it is argued, is bringing about
of advertising. It explores: advertising in the of contexts, including issues of football and
fundamental changes in the ways in which we
19th century; the practices of contemporary violence, health, the media, local economic
conceive of ourselves and communicate with
advertising agencies; advertising regulation; development and changing stadia. The course
one another and organise our economies,
methods of textual analysis for advertisements; will also assess the relationships of football to
dramatic changes which are profoundly
gender and advertising; branding and globalisation, nationalism and politics. You will
altering our lives.
‘promotional culture’. be encouraged to undertake research into
This course will introduce, detail and critically these phenomena as part of you assessment.
evaluate a number of these claims through an SOCL 220
examination of the debates surrounding the CRITICAL STUDIES OF THE SOCL 230
‘Information Society’, its history and its effects. ENVIRONMENT BODIES IN SOCIETY
The course will explore a range of topics from
Terms taught: LS Terms taught: LS
the digital divide, and surveillance to issues in
the transformation of gender, work, urban Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
space and identity. Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology
Is nature, or ‘the environment’, a matter of Social and cultural theories of the body have
SOCL 210B
VIRTUAL CULTURES sociological concern? How is it treated in transformed sociological thinking in the last
sociological thinking? Can sociological thinking two decades. Indeed, theories and accounts of
Terms taught: LS give us a ‘critical’ view of environment-society the body and embodiment have become a
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits relationships? In this course we will try to draw central focus of sociology. The course explores
out (often implicit) ideas about nature-society how social differences, such as gender, race,
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology relationships in a variety of ordinary social and class, impact in the formation and
This course explores the question of how practices. We will think, in particular, about experience of human bodies and identities.
information and communications technologies, the way that local/global nature is defined Through a focus on power relations,
in their multiple forms, figure in our everyday and redefined, or reworked, through issues of in/visibility, surveillance, social class, race,
lives. The aim of the course is to develop an identity, consumerism, the media, networking, ethnicity and disability, this course explores
appreciation for the range of experiences knowledge-making, activism, citizenship, and some of the theoretical, conceptual and
affected by digital media, including the inequality. Through lectures, readings, films, empirical grids through which bodies are
progressive expansion of life online and the popular and academic texts, and discussion, understood, perceived, imagined, expressed
increasingly intimate relations between life you will gain: first, an overview of various and lived.
www.lancs.ac.uk 121
This course will have a particular focus on we consider the so-called “three sources” of SOCL 306
social exclusion and on those bodies which Marxism: German philosophy, French politics HEALTH, LIFE AND BODIES
do not easily fit within dominant social and and English economics. The principal topics
cultural norms: those bodies which are covered in the course are historical materialism, Terms taught: FY N/A 2010-11
perceived to be ‘out of place’, abject or the critique of law and the state, class analysis Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
deviant and the ways in which under difficult and class struggle, the specificity of capitalism Also available: M only – 4 semester credits;
social conditions the body is imagined and as a mode of production, commodity fetishism LS Only – 4 semester credits
employed as a site of resistance and protest. and ideology, the nature of civil society and the
transition from capitalism to communism. The Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology
SOCL 243 course is taught through a combination of This course introduces you to contemporary
RACE RELATIONS AND SOCIAL CHANGE selected readings from Marx and Engels and health issues and the sociological questions
secondary literature. that arise from them: what is ‘health’ and
Terms taught: M N/A 2010-11
how do we try to achieve it in contemporary
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits SOCL 304 societies? why are some people healthy and
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology THE WORLD ACCORDING TO WEBER others not? what role do sex/gender, race,
Racial and ethnic distinctions have been central Terms taught: LS N/A 2010-11 ethnicity and class play in producing healthy
to the formation of modern nations and bodies and lives? We study contemporary
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits sociological work on a wide range of health
collective identities. This course focuses on
'race relations', racism and anti-racism in Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology issues, including smoking, genetics, HIV/AIDS,
Britain and the United States in both historical This course aims to provide an introduction to cancer and alternative therapies. We consider
and contemporary perspectives. Topics to the work of Max Weber from the viewpoint of theoretical issues around bodies and selves and
be considered include definitions of 'race', his social theory and as a committed ‘national think about how people form new relationships
histories of colonialism and imperialism in liberal’ intellectual committed to the interests around questions of health, including
relation to 'racial projects', migration and of the German state. Thus it seeks to locate relationships between patients and doctors,
transnational diasporas and postcolonial Weber’s work in relation to its intellectual and within families and between individuals and
theory, Black feminist theory and Third World historical context and the economic and the state. We also analyse new forms of
feminist theory as anti-racist projects of social political problems current during his lifetime. activism around health, illness and bodies.
change. We will conclude by looking at new The principal topics covered in the course are:
forms of racism and anti-racism in the context the specificity of the social sciences and the SOCL 307
MODERNITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
of European integration. The aim of the course hermeneutic method, Weber’s critical
is for you to gain an overview of various engagement with the Marxism of the Second Terms taught: LS
sociological approaches to explaining 'race', International, his analysis of capitalism and the Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
but also to gain an understanding of how such rise of rationalism more generally, class analysis
theories make a difference in the world today. and other bases of social stratification and Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology
conflict, his programmatic recommendations This course introduces and explores the
SOCL 244 for the modernization of the German state and writings of a number of key 20th century social
SOCIOLOGY OF ETHNICITY economy, his views on the Russian Revolution and cultural theorists, radical thinkers offering
and communism, and the (mis)appropriation perceptive and provocative critiques of the
Terms taught: M or L N/A 2010-11
of his ideas in mainstream sociology. The many ills of modern western capitalist society:
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits course is taught through a combination of environmental exploitation, pollution and the
Prerequisites: Two semesters of sociology selected readings from Weber and the destruction of nature; media supersaturation,
secondary literature. cultural commodification and ideological
This course is designed to examine the position
of ethnic minorities in contemporary British manipulation; violence, genocide and the
society and to focus specifically on the SOCL 305 perpetual threat of nuclear extermination.
LIVING WITH CAPITALISM Building on some of the theories and concepts
interconnections of gender, ethnicity and paid
employment. The course initially will examine a Terms taught: FY encountered in SOCL 200 Understanding Social
variety of theories of migration with particular Thought, this course provides an opportunity
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits for you to engage with some of the most
reference to post-war immigration into Britain.
The relationship between the migratory Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; stimulating and challenging perspectives in the
experience and structures of racism will also LS only – 4 semester credits social sciences, ones which interrogate our
be assessed as will the mediating role of the Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology common and comfortable assumptions about
family in the structuration of diverse ethnic the supposedly benign and beneficent
This course encourages you to examine character of contemporary capitalism, scientific
and gender experiences of paid employment critically sociological theories, debates and
in Britain. The course will then focus on the development, technological innovation and
evidence about contemporary social change affluent consumer lifestyles. In so doing, the
socio-economic situation of ethnic minorities in capitalism. It surveys some general theories
in Britain during the 1980s and particularly on very concepts of historical ‘enlightenment’,
of the social implications of capitalist economic ‘progress’ and ‘civilisation’ themselves are
the impact of unemployment. Specific topics organisation, particularly markets and
to be examined will be home working and the called into question.
employment, and its contemporary forms,
impact of affirmative action programmes in especially neoliberalism and globalisation.
the north west of England. SOCL 308
It further examines the rise of service and TERROR
servant employment, ‘people work’ and
SOCL 302 changes in men and women’s paid work. Terms taught: M
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MARX The course then develops an analysis of how Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
Terms taught: M N/A 2010-11 inequalities of class and status are generated, Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology
how they relate to other kinds of inequality,
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits The course analyses the relationship between
and how they are experienced. It explores
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology how the mechanisms of capitalist economic society and terror taking point of departure in
This course aims to provide an introduction organisation interact with other sources of the discussion of 9/11 and the political
to the work of Karl Marx considered both as inequality, not only producing an unequal responses it has provoked. Since 9/11 many
a social theorist and as a committed political distribution of resources and opportunities commentators have pointed out that terror has
activist and to place his ideas and actions but affecting the way in which people value social origins in globalisation, in economic and
in their intellectual and historical context. themselves and others. social injustice, that global society itself
Following a brief account of the Ancient Greek produces terror. Equally significantly, however,
and Enlightenment background to this thinking, today terror produces society.
Additional syllabus information can be found at http://www.lusi.lancs.ac.uk/OnlineCoursesHandbook/ModuleCatalogue/Default.aspx
In the aftermath of 9/11 terror is no longer SOCL 311 SOCL 316
merely an ‘exceptional’ (real or imagined) DISASTERS: WHY DO THINGS SOCIOLOGY GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
GO WRONG
catastrophe but has become a dispositif, a Terms taught: LS N/A 2010-2011
technique of governance which imposes a Terms taught: LS
particular conduct, a new model of truth and Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
normality, on contemporary sociality by Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
redefining power relations and by unmaking Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology: two may be from cognate disciplines such
previous realities. In this sense, the course aims two may be from cognate disciplines such as anthropology or social psychology
at making sense of the symbiotic relationship as anthropology or social psychology
This course addresses contemporary debates
between terrorism and the politics of security. What counts as a disaster? Do disasters have in sociology and cinema together by focusing
a beginning, middle and end? Is it possible to on a single film each week. Its overall aim is
SOCL 309 make disaster-proof systems? Why do modern to employ cinema for the purpose of social
TELEVISION, SOCIETY AND MORALITY technologies fail or succeed? What can diagnosis. Hence it goes to Hollywood,
Terms taught: FY sociology teach us about these questions? This engaging with cinema as a ‘social fact’, but
course uses case studies of disasters (technical then comes back to Lancaster, to sociology,
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits and social) to explore these questions. linking together cinema (producing images of
Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; the social) and sociality (“socialisation” of the
LS only – 4 semester credits SOCL 312 image). Against this background, the course
SOCIOLOGY OF EMPLOYMENT seeks to broaden the range of topics for study
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology AND WORK
How does television contribute to morality in within Sociology.
the new millennium? With the decline of many Terms taught: FY N/A 2010-2011
traditional institutions that promoted ethics Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits SOCL 317
IMAGING THE BODY
and responded to moral issues, perhaps the Also available: M only – 4 semester credits;
media, and specifically television, have begun LS only – 4 semester credits Terms taught: M
to fill a void. This course will explore the Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
sociological ideas of ‘moral order’, ‘moral Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
culture’ and ‘postmodern ethics’ in the broad two may be from cognate disciplines such Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
context of philosophical issues of morality, as anthropology or social psychology two may be from cognate disciplines such
virtue, duty, good and evil. You will be This course involves two main elements. as anthropology or social psychology
encouraged to use these ideas to examine the The first presents an introduction to This course explores the relationship between
content of television programmes in various contemporary industrial sociology and focuses bodies and images. Its aim is to explore bodies
genres; ten programmes will be shown in on the 'new' economic sociology. It focuses not as represented in images but rather as
video sessions that will then be discussed in upon core debates in the field surrounding known, understood and experienced through
classes and provide the basis for assessed work. issues of deskilling and flexibility. The second images. Questions the course considers
section involves a series of field trips to places include: How are bodies known, experienced
SOCL 310 of employment (factories, supermarkets etc.). and produced through different kinds of
NATION, MIGRATION, These visits are used as the basis for the image? What do images do to our
MULTICULTURALISM development of a range of methodological understandings of bodies?
Terms taught: M or L N/A 2010-2011 and substantive areas of expertise by students
The course focuses on approaches which have
working in small groups.
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits attempted to unsettle the relationship between
bodies and images, for example theories of
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology: SOCL 314 ‘race’ and representation, feminine
two may be from cognate disciplines such FEMINISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE
spectatorship, windows and screens. It also
as anthropology or social psychology undertakes different ‘imaging bodies’ case
Terms taught: FY
‘Belonging’ to a nation is widely seen to be as studies on topics such as: the temporalities of
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
‘natural’ as ‘belonging’ to a family or a home. bodies in photographs; the surveillance of bodies
This course undermines assumptions about Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; in space; the imaging of bodies and space in
national belonging by introducing you to a LS only – 4 semester credits sculpture and; the modes of spectatorship
range of theoretical approaches and debates. Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology: encouraged through performance art.
How are the nation and national belonging two may be from cognate disciplines such
socially constructed? How is the nation as anthropology or social psychology SOCL 318
defined? Who belongs, who doesn’t? The EVERYDAY LIFE AND SOCIAL
This challenging course investigates gender INTERACTION
course will focus on nation formation in inequalities within society, through a focus on
relation to debates about multiculturalism historical and contemporary debates in feminist Terms taught: FY N/A 2010-2011
and migration. It will explore what everyday theory and activism. It has an `intersectional`
practices, discourses and representations reveal Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
focus that means we will consider gender
about the ways we think about, and inhabit, inequalities as bound up with other forms of Also available: M only – 4 semester credits;
the ‘nation’, ‘diversity’, ‘multiculturalism’, discrimination and marginalisation, particularly LS only – 4 semester credits
‘migration’? Although we will focus on the racial and ethnic inequalities, disability and Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
example of Britain, the issues raised will be social class. What feminism means today is two may be from cognate disciplines such
of interest to all students concerned with the examined through a consideration of key as anthropology or social psychology
effects of nationalisms and ideas of belonging aspects of feminist thought and activism from
and entitlement, in the context of the The course aims at introducing you to a
the late 1960s onwards. Taking the feminist significant area of study within sociology, namely
‘Age of migration’ (Castles and Miller 1998). manifesto as a central document, we explore those approaches which focus upon everyday
Lecture topics include: ‘We the people’: the the contemporary resonance of ideas such as interaction, particularly Symbolic Interactionism
forging of nations; A country idyll; Migrant `the personal as political`, consciousness raising, and Ethnomethodology. These perspectives
belongings and transnational connections; feminist, black feminisms, art activism, and argue for the 'naturalistic' study of social life in
Consumer culture, diversity and ‘eating the backlash. The second term will explore key an attempt to discover the principles according
other’; Multiculturalism and the hybrid nation. feminist debates and interventions in practices to which persons in their daily lives socially
of gender inequalities. We will consider: self organise their experiences and methodically
care, health and medicine, paid and unpaid construct interactions into mutually oriented
work, sex work and prostitution, domestic schemes of action and activities. In particular
labour, childcare, health and medical we will consider: the naturalistic study of social
interventions. organisation; the formal elements of
www.lancs.ac.uk 123
international events; conversational analysis; Economic inequalities show little sign of SOCL 340
some descriptive parameters of social activity; reducing in advanced capitalist countries and NEWSPAPERS, JOURNALISM
substantive applications as in socialisation, AND SOCIETY
yet many people are reluctant to acknowledge
deviance, cognition, scientific work and so on. the existence of class. The course analyses how Terms taught: LS
inequalities of class and status are generated,
SOCL 320 Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
how they relate to other kinds on inequality,
THE CITY AND MOBILITY and how they are experienced. It explores Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
Terms taught: FY N/A 2010-2011 how the mechanisms of capitalist economic two may be from cognate disciplines such
organisation interact with other sources of as anthropology or social psychology
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
inequality, not only producing an unequal This course explores the social and cultural
Also available: M only – 4 semester credits; distribution of resources and opportunities significance of newspapers. It examines a
LS only – 4 semester credits but affecting the way in which people value range of themes including the historical
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology: themselves and others. Linking social structure development of newspapers, journalists’
two may be from cognate disciplines such to personal experience, the course applies practices, the role of print media in creating
as anthropology or social psychology social theory, particularly that of Pierre a public arena of debate, the newspaper as
Bourdieu, to the interpretation of everyday commodity, studies of reception or readership,
The course focuses on how different forms
life, and to what people think about class. and an analysis of case studies of controversial
of mobility are related to the changing nature
of the city and how mobility can be theorised newspaper stories. Focusing on the Euro-
from a sociological point of view. It also SOCL 332 American context within both 19th century
THE CHINESE CENTURY? and contemporary parameters, the course
explores how mobility can contribute to the
discipline of sociology through its relation to Terms taught: LS draws on analyses from within the disciplines
topics such as the changing forms of social of media and cultural studies, journalism
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits studies, and sociology.
stratification, citizenship, social movements
and identities as well as the transition from Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
industrial to post-industrial society and the two may be from cognate disciplines such SOCL 362
as anthropology or social psychology TECHNOLOGIES AND PRACTICES
nature of globalisation. The overall aim of the OF EVERYDAY LIFE
course is to introduce and develop skills of In the wake of the great financial crash of
methodological reasoning, interpreting 2008, there is much speculation regarding Terms taught: M or L N/A 2010-2011
comparative studies of different societies the rise of China. Yet Chinese society is Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
(western and eastern Europe, North America, undergoing one of the most rapid and
and the Middle East) and critically assessing dramatic transformations in history, Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
competing theories and empirical evidence questioning straightforward extrapolation two may be from cognate disciplines such
through texts, presentations and discussions. of current trends, quantitative and qualitative. as anthropology or social psychology
How is Chinese society changing? What are This course focuses on the social organisation
SOCL 323/324 the tensions and conflicts involved? And how of some of the more ordinary aspects of
MEDIA IN THE GLOBAL AGE will a more globally influential China shape every day life. Bringing together sociological,
and affect life elsewhere? This course will anthropological and historical studies of
SOCL 323 N/A 2010-2011 explore these questions by examining Chinese specific practices like eating, drinking,
Terms taught: M or L society and its interaction with processes of cleaning, washing, heating and cooling,
globalisation and geopolitics in the 21st it raises and engages with key questions
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits century. Topics include: governance reform; about the nature and character of routine,
China and globalisation; Chinese nationalism; convention, and habit. The course considers
SOCL 324 N/A 2010-2011 the relationship between individual households
guanxi and ‘civil society’; the environment;
Terms taught: FY science, technology and innovation; and the and the social and technical systems of which
Credits: 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits ‘Chinternet’. they are a part. What are the environmental
implications of ‘normal’ practice? What might
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
SOCL 333 institutional and infrastructural change in
two may be from cognate disciplines such SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND water and electricity supply mean for the
as anthropology or social psychology GLOBALISATION cultures and conventions of daily life?
This course is designed to introduce you to the The course reviews alternative ways of
increasingly complex and interactive world of Terms taught: M
conceptualising choice, change and demand.
communication media. It combines classic Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits How do novel technologies become normal,
theories of media sociology with recent Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology: which areas of everyday life are subject to
developments in cultural analysis and the two may be from cognate disciplines such rapid transformation, and how might we
general area of mediated communication. The as anthropology or social psychology explain patterns of global convergence and
approach is both institutional and micro-analytic, persistent cultural difference? Theories of
The increasing influence of science, technology
looking at wide-ranging patterns of economic, material culture, consumption, and
and innovation (STI) on almost every aspect
political and regulatory aspects of contemporary technological change will be introduced
of daily life is frequently observed to be
mass media while also examining the increasing and evaluated.
developing in parallel with processes of
interactive involvement of individuals and local
globalisation. But how do these processes
audiences in the output of the media industries.
condition each other and interact? What are
The emphasis of the course is on structures of
the implications of growing capacities for STI
power, both in Britain and globally, forces which
beyond the rich Global North? What do these
are beginning to merge telecommunication,
developments reveal about the relationship
television and computer technology into a single
between ‘knowledge’ and ‘power’? This
powerful element of all modern societies.
course draws on a broad inter-disciplinary
literature, including science & technology
SOCL 330
LIVING WITH CAPITALISM: CLASS, studies, political economy, social theory and
DISTRIBUTION AND RECOGNITION the mobilities paradigm, to explore these
questions. Topics include: the global
Terms taught: M or L N/A 2010-2011 commodification of knowledge; China, India
Credits: 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits and other new ‘science superpowers’?; STI,
global risk society and global mobilities; the
Prerequisites: Five semesters of sociology:
(alleged) importance of the life sciences; and
two may be from cognate disciplines such
constructing global science democracy.
as anthropology or social psychology
Additional syllabus information can be found at http://www.lusi.lancs.ac.uk/OnlineCoursesHandbook/ModuleCatalogue/Default.aspx