FALL 2025
SOCI 5001 – PROSEMINAR
Professor Jeremy Pais, Mondays 11:00am-12:00pm
Part one of a required year-long seminar for all M.A. candidates in the first year of study. Provides an orientation to graduate education and offers students opportunities for professional development. Topics include strategies for successful graduate education; advice on mentoring and networking; starting a thesis project, presenting research, applying for grants, and publishing. Reviews various career opportunities for professional sociologists and provides guidance on how to best prepare for the job market.
SOCI 5005 – Writing Sociology
Professor Christin Munsch, Mondays 12:20pm-3:20pm
Furthers the development of students’ sociological writing skills and enhances their ability to generate clear, concise and effective sociological arguments and analysis through engaged discussion of writing goals and strategies, instructor feedback, and peer review.
SOCI 5201 – The Logic of Social Research
Professor Mary Bernstein, Thursdays 12:20pm-3:20pm
This course provides an overview of major research designs and research techniques that constitute the core of contemporary empirical inquiry into social phenomena. The structure of the course moves basically from the issues involved in (1) asking revealing and answerable questions, (2) conducting a literature review, (3) measuring the concepts about which one wants to generalize, (3) finding an appropriate sample of some population to which one wants to generalize, (4) and drawing inferences about causality from any relationships one might find. Sociologists employ a diverse set of research strategies and the course will foster some familiarity with a diverse range of methods. Thus the focus of this course is on developing your insights into the implications of methodological choices, your constructively critical thinking about diverse methodologies, and your confidence in your ability to discuss, evaluate and learn from work of many types.
SOCI 5251 – Core Theorists
Professor Beatriz Aldana Marquez (BAM), Tuesdays 12:20pm-3:20pm
An examination of the original writings of the major figures in sociological theory: Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Simmel. The course focuses upon the theories of these major figures, their relations with contemporaries, their interconnections, and their influence upon subsequent theory and theory groupings.
SOCI 5315 – Topics in Deviance and Crime (Criminology)
Professor Ryan Talbert, Tuesdays 3:30pm-6:30pm
This course is a graduate level seminar on sociological criminology. This course focuses on major theories, concepts, and research pertaining to the study of crime, criminal law, and the criminal legal system. Edwin Sutherland defined criminology as the study of the making of laws, the breaking of laws, and society’s reaction to the breaking of laws. Thus, criminology is the scientific study of the creation of criminal law, the causes and dynamics of criminal behavior, and society’s attempt through the criminal legal system and other efforts to prevent, control, and punish crime. The first half of the course will examine perspectives and theories that explain criminal law and criminal behavior. The second half of the course will examine reactions to the breaking of laws and the implications of various social control methods. Mainstream and critical theories of crime and punishment will serve as a foundation to understanding trends in police stops, arrests, and incarceration, as well as the collateral effects of current policies and practices on individuals, families, and communities. Throughout the course, we will learn theories, concepts, and terminology in sociological criminology through student-led presentations, critical engagement of the research literature, and interactive discussions.
SOCI 5613 – Theories of Intersectionality
Professor Nancy Naples, Mondays 3:30pm-6:30pm
Analyses of theories that simultaneously take into account dynamics of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, ability, and other dimensions of social inequality and difference. How scholars research intersectionality, the limits and possibilities of different approaches, and the types of methodologies that are most effective for intersectional analysis. Also offered as WGSS 5613.
SOCI 6203 – Quantitative Research II
Professor Simon Cheng, Thursdays 12:20pm-3:20pm
Advanced quantitative methods of social research. Topics include generalized linear models, including binary logit and probit, multinomial logit, ordered logit and probit, and count data; censoring, truncation, and sample selection; panel data; and correlated errors.
SOCI 6231 – Qualitative Research II
Professor Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Thursdays 3:30pm-6:30pm
This course deepens knowledge in the implementation and analysis of sociological qualitative research; it also engages contemporary theoretical and epistemological debates in qualitative methodology. As the second of a two-semester sequence designed to train students in qualitative methods, this course connects data collection and analysis to theory. Whether conducting fieldwork, interviewing, or analysis of archival research, the course will engage research ethics discussions, proper fieldwork documentation, and clarifying the relationship of research questions to techniques of data collection; it also incorporates less explored research areas such as community-based participatory research/applied research. Students will have opportunities to evaluate -through peer review- the application of qualitative methods in each student’s individual research projects. The end goal is to learn to interpret data, analyze it, and present it in written form (a conference presentation, a draft of an article or book chapter; in some cases, it may be a proposal for conducting future research).