Community & Initiative

Comparing experiences of social change on individual and shared levels, this interdisciplinary course about group life and settlement in the United States brings students deep into social realities to appreciate intimately community initiative as a component of political democracy and tyranny across history; recognize the tension between the study of unifying culture and minority cultures; assess how social scientists inform social policy, including how they promote or criticize certain techniques of association.

Sociologists in the United States shaped their discipline as they were themselves shaped by 19th Century immigration and urbanization. This course on community highlights persistent preoccupations even as the immigrant experience has changed. Students will gain theoretical insights as they appreciate the cases of Chinese, Jewish, Polish, suburban, GI, Catholic, Black, Puerto Rican and gendered efforts in America’s cities to secure a stable foothold from which to strive individually and succeed collectively. Assessing the applicability of both classical and contemporary theory –especially as they relate to the situation in Poland today—will be essential work for students and faculty alike. Not only understanding Poland’s past experience with urbanization and settlement, industrialization and planning, but also recent, EU-inspired outmigration, circular migration as well as refugee resettlement place us alongside scholars shaping policy debates. These experiences reflect our own historical moment and our personal histories, thus our sociological imaginations. With opportunities to visit community sites in Warsaw, that connection can be even stronger.

Topics:

• Settlement

• Built Environment

• Interests

• Networks

• Institutions

• Collective Actions

• Individualism

books

Privatopia by Evan McKenzie (Yale U Press, 1994)

All Our Kin by Carol B. Stack (Basic Books, 1974)

National Performances by Ana Ramos-Zayas (U of Chicago, 2003)

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (Simon & Schuster, 2000)

articles

“On the Uses of Sidewalks” by Jane Jacobs (Penguin, 1961)

“Fortress LA” by Mike Davis (Verso, 1990)

excerpts from The Ghetto by Louis Wirth (Routledge, 1928)

“Chick and His Club” by William Foote Whyte (U of Chicago, 1943)

“The Chinese of Today: Why not the Jews of Tomorrow?” by Lida Nedilsky (1993)

“The Mothers of East L.A.” by Mary Pardo (Frontiers, 1990)

“Church Culture as a Strategy of Action in the Black Community” by Mary Pattillo-McCoy (American Sociological Review, 1998)

According to the assumptions of the lecture and according to the student's choice

Final exam, written or oral one