{"id":53,"date":"2010-05-24T20:15:46","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T20:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/sociology\/?page_id=53"},"modified":"2020-02-13T16:06:17","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T21:06:17","slug":"sociology-at-bates","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/about\/sociology-at-bates\/","title":{"rendered":"Sociology at Bates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be\u00a0understood without understanding both\u2026 The sociological imagination\u00a0enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the\u00a0two in society.&#8221; <em>C. Wright Mills, 1959<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-style: normal;\">&#8220;It is through the illusion of freedom from social determinants\u2026 that\u00a0social determinants win the freedom to exercise their full power\u2026 And so,\u00a0paradoxically, sociology frees us by freeing us from the illusion of\u00a0freedom.&#8221; <em>Pierre Bourdieu, 1990<\/em><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-style: normal;\"><em><span style=\"font-style: normal;\">C. Wright Mills has offered one of the most succinct and often-quoted descriptions of\u00a0sociology in his 1959 book, <em>The Sociological Imagination<\/em>. According to Mills, the promise\u00a0of sociology lies in its unique insistence on recognizing both biography and history resisting\u00a0the temptation to view individual biography outside of social and historical\u00a0context, but also resisting the temptation to analyze social and historical context without\u00a0recognizing its &#8220;meaning for the inner life and external career of a variety of individuals&#8221;\u00a0(Mills, 1959). Bourdieu echoes a related theme in his 1990 book, <em>In Other Words: Essays\u00a0<span style=\"font-style: normal;\"><em>Towards a Reflexive Sociology <\/em>(translated by Matthew Adamson). He highlights sociology&#8217;s\u00a0potential for challenging social determinants by recognizing and analyzing them, a point\u00a0with clear implications not only for understanding society but also for social action and\u00a0social change.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>These two quotes capture key aspects of a sociological perspective, and it is this\u00a0perspective that the curriculum in sociology at Bates is designed to help students explore.\u00a0Core courses for the major in sociology focus on developing the skills and\u00a0tools necessary for the application of a sociological perspective to a broad array of social\u00a0phenomena, while the electives allow students to explore many of the specific topics and\u00a0issues that sociologists study. While the core courses provide crucially important tools for\u00a0the development and application of the sociological imagination, most students are drawn\u00a0to the discipline by interest in one or more of its many substantive subfields.<\/p>\n<p>The various substantive areas of sociology addressed within the Department\u2019s curriculum represent the teaching and research specialties of its faculty. These include race, class, gender, criminology, health, urbanization, immigration, political sociology, and economic sociology. Many majors in sociology select courses that cut across these areas, but some students prefer to focus primarily on one area. In addition, majors explore topics beyond the specific interests of the faculty. This, too, is welcome and supported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":50,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_prepend":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append_before_footer":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-53","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1595,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions\/1595"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/sociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}