SOC 256S Self and Society

This course explores the multiple ways that identities are performed, shaped, and contested by experience in the social world. We will examine such issues as deviance, the meaning of social roles, the construction of situated identities, the social basis of motivation, and links between the psychological and the social in everyday life. These issues are used as prisms through with the class will examine the problem of social order and the emergent nature of social reality. Readings include Hewitt's Dilemmas of the American Self, Stearns's American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth Century Emotional Style, and selections from Hewitt's The Myth of Self-Esteem and classical interactionist works by Goffman, Blumer, Cooley, and others.
Requirements: several short papers and a final examination.
Prerequisities: None. Open to first-year students.

Hour: ROBBINS