Sociology and Anthropology
Chair: Sarah Warren
Administrative Coordinator: TBD
The disciplines of sociology and anthropology share common philosophical roots and concern for the social and cultural conditions of human life, although the two fields have developed independently over the past century. Historically, sociology dwelled more on the modernizing world, while anthropology focused on nonindustrial societies. Such distinctions of subject matter no longer prevail, and the line between sociology and sociocultural anthropology today is neither firm nor fixed.
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology builds on the overlapping concerns and distinctive strengths of sociology and anthropology. Instead of maintaining separate curricula in the two fields, the department has developed a single curriculum dedicated to providing solid preparation in social theories and qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The department is strongly committed to teaching a variety of methodological perspectives, including ethnographic fieldwork and interviewing; survey research techniques; texts, discourse, and the practices of representation; computer-mediated modes of inquiry; and historical methods. This methodological pluralism is in keeping with recent trends in both disciplines.
The department’s curriculum stresses the relationship between cultural formations and social structures set in sociohistorical context. Among the areas of emphasis in the department is the study of inequality and difference by race, gender, class, and region. Sociology and anthropology courses in the department draw heavily on cross-cultural examples. Students are encouraged, though not required, to participate in an overseas program. In addition to providing classroom study, the department provides majors and nonmajors opportunities to conduct field research in the Portland area, elsewhere in the United States, and abroad. All majors complete senior theses, many based on overseas work or local field research.
Resources for Nonmajors
The sociology/anthropology faculty see their charge as being broader than training professional sociologists and anthropologists. The department is committed to introducing sociological and anthropological perspectives on the world as a vital part of a liberal education. Students majoring in disciplines ranging from the arts and humanities to the natural sciences find sociology and anthropology to be an illuminating complement to their major fields of study.
The Major Program
The department curriculum leads to a joint major in sociology and anthropology. Students with particular interests in either anthropology or sociology may weight their electives toward the field of their choice.
Major Requirements
A minimum of 40 semester credits (10 courses), distributed as follows:
Core (Five Courses)
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One introductory course chosen from the following:
Introduction to Sociology Introduction to Cultural Anthropology -
One methods course chosen from the following:
Ethnographic Research Methods Quantitative Research Methods Reading "Texts": Discourse, Visual, and Material Analysis - SOAN 205 Research Theory and Design
- SOAN 300 Social Theory
- SOAN 400 Senior Seminar and Thesis
Electives (Five Courses)
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Five elective courses from SOAN courses numbered 202 through 499; ETHS 400, GEND 231, or GEND 440.
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A minimum of two of the five courses must be L&C SOAN courses*;
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At least two of the courses must be from advanced SOAN courses numbered 301 through 498 (excluding SOAN 444), ETHS 400, or GEND 440, and only one of which may be from outside the department*;
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Students may apply a maximum of 4 semester credit hours toward the elective requirement from the following list:
SOAN 244 Internship/Practicum SOAN 299 Independent Study SOAN 444 Internship/Practicum SOAN 499 Independent Study
*The department chair may make exceptions for students who entered the college as transfer students.
Internship/Practicum Program
The internship/practicum opportunities in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology are open to nonmajors and majors. Students enrolled in an internship seek placement from a variety of community organizations and social agencies. This experience allows students to test their sociological and anthropological understanding by applying it to the world around them.
While the internships are not designed to find employment for students after graduation, many students do find opportunities to continue with the internship or with similar agencies. For many students, the practicum/internship also becomes a testing ground for their suitability for a particular profession. Recent positions include city government, prisons, hospitals, community centers, schools, counseling centers, grassroots organizations, and social welfare agencies. For a full description of the program, consult the department.
Honors
The department grants honors to students with a 3.750 GPA in the major and an outstanding senior thesis. Theses considered for honors are reviewed by at least two faculty members.
Faculty
Sepideh Azarshahri Bajracharya. Assistant professor with term of anthropology. Political culture of violence, communal politics, memory, narrative, urban ethnography, anthropology of space, South Asia. PhD 2008 Harvard University. BA 1999 Wesleyan University.
Maryann Bylander. Associate professor of sociology. Development and globalization, migration, rural livelihoods, microfinance/credit, environment, gender, qualitative and quantitative research methods. PhD 2012, MA 2006 University of Texas at Austin. BA 2003 Rice University.
Kim Cameron-Dominguez. Assistant professor of anthropology. Race/ethnicity, gender, affect theory, work and mobilities, urban/place-centered ethnography, discourse theory, U.S. and Latin America, Black diasporic populations. PhD 2018, MA 2006 University of California at Santa Cruz. BA 2004 Mount Holyoke College.
Jennifer Hubbert. Professor of anthropology. Chinese public culture, anthropology of the state, politics of popular culture and public protest, anthropology of policy, paradiplomacy. PhD 1999, MA 1994 Cornell University. MA 1987, BA 1986 Stanford University.
Sidra Kamran. Assistant professor of sociology. Gender and Sexuality, Digital Culture, Social Inequality, Qualitative Methods, Sociology of Work, Global Social Theory. PhD 2022, MA 2015 The New School. BS 2011 University of Lahore.
Oren Kosansky. Associate professor of anthropology, director of the Middle East and North African studies program. Political economy of religious experience, postcolonial nationalism and diaspora, textual culture, Morocco. PhD 2003, MA 1994 University of Michigan. MAT 1990 Binghamton University. BA 1988 Brown University.
Kabir Mansingh Heimsath. Assistant professor with term of anthropology, director of the Asian studies program. Visual anthropology, space/place theory, borderlands, tourism, cities and bodies. PhD 2011, MSc 2005 University of Oxford. MA 1996 University of Washington. BA 1992 University of California at Berkeley.
Bruce M. Podobnik. Associate professor of sociology. Environmental sociology, social theory, mixed methods, the sociocultural dimensions of activism, the social roots of happiness. PhD 2000, MA 1994 Johns Hopkins University. BA 1991 University of California at Santa Cruz.
Sarah D. Warren. Associate professor of sociology and department chair. Race and ethnicity, social movements, nations and nationalism, gender, Latin America. PhD 2010 University of Wisconsin at Madison. MA 2004 University of Texas at Austin. BA 2001 University of Arizona.
Courses
SOAN 100 Introduction to Sociology
Content: Sociological ways of looking at the world: how society is organized and operates; the relationship between social institutions and the individual; sources of conformity and conflict; the nature of social change.
Prerequisites: None.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 110 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Content: The concept of culture and its use in exploring systems of meanings and values through which people orient and interpret their experience. The nature of ethnographic writing and interpretation.
Prerequisites: None.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 200 Ethnographic Research Methods
Content: Exploration of the conceptual foundations of ethnographic research methods at the intersection of sociology and anthropology. Engagement with ethnographic practices including participant observation, field notes, interviewing, language analysis, and writing. Attention to ethical dimensions of research. Consideration of the productivity and limitations of ethnographic methods in addressing diverse research topics.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required. Declared SOAN major.
Usually offered: Annually.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 201 Quantitative Research Methods
Content: The survey research process, including hypothesis formation and testing, research design, construction and application of random sampling procedures, measurement validity and reliability, data analysis and interpretation. Philosophical roots and ethical considerations of survey research methods. Enrollment preference given to departmental majors fulfilling degree requirements.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required. Declared SOAN major.
Usually offered: Alternate Years, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 204 Reading "Texts": Discourse, Visual, and Material Analysis
Content: A focus on developing skills for systematic analysis of textual, visual, and/or material data, including written documents (e.g., tweets, policy documents, memoirs, diaries), photos, audio or video data, and/or material objects (e.g., Instagram feeds, statues, collections). This course will use a range of inductive and deductive approaches and cover analytic skills that cut across sociological and anthropological traditions, including theme identification, code definition, content analysis, and object analysis. Students will work directly with data they have collected and apply these skills to their own independent projects.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required. Declared SOAN major.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 205 Research Theory and Design
Content: Theoretical underpinnings of social science as a foundation for the design of concrete research projects in sociology and anthropology. Exploration of philosophies, ethics, and epistemologies associated with qualitative and quantitative research. Methods include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, statistical analysis, and textual interpretation. Conceptualization, development, and writing of effective research proposals.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing. Declared SOAN major.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 214 Social Change
Content: Examines different approaches to social change, including topics such as protests, revolutions, online activism, migration/refugee dynamics, and other mass-movement responses to societal inequalities. Historical and contemporary case studies from various regions of the world are included.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 215 International Migration
Content: Global immigration dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Theoretical perspectives on the causes and consequences of migratory movements. Topics include neoclassical economic models, historical-structural models, family and network models, transnationalism, migrants' rights, citizenship and migration policies, borders and their enforcement.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 216 Social Power of Music
Content: Examines the role of music in modern identity-formation, consumer behavior, business outcomes, and dynamics of social contestation. Special topics include youth culture and shifting music tastes; tensions between independent and corporate music arenas; protest music and its impact in the United States and beyond. Qualitative case studies, cross-national comparative analysis, social network analysis, and quantitative approaches used.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 217 Ethnography of Jews and Judaism
Content: Exploration of the global diversity of Jewish social life and religious practice from ethnographic perspectives. Focus on the intersection of religion, ethnicity, gender, race, and nationality in contemporary Jewish history and experience. Attention to how Jewishness conforms to and disrupts conventional forms of identity and domains of practice. Students conduct ethnographic projects related to course material.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 221 Work, Leisure, and Consumption
Content: Historical, cultural, and organizational overview of work relations in the context of political economic systems. How technological change is related to the social organization of production relations. How work life influences relationships of authority and freedom in society. Changes in production relations related to daily life, consumption relations, and the meanings and experiences of leisure.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 222 City and Society
Content: The nature of urban social life. Studies ranging from the United States and Europe to cities in the Global North and Global South. The complementarity of ethnographic studies and of larger-scale perspectives that situate cities in relation to one another, to rural peripheries, and to global political-economic processes.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 225 Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective
Content: Sociological and anthropological analysis of how the notions of racial and ethnic groups, nations and nationalities, indigenous and nonindigenous groups, and states and citizenships have evolved cross-culturally. How they might be reconfiguring in the present context of economic globalization, mass migrations, and diasporic formations. Causes and consequences of the recent resurgence of ethnicity and the content, scope, and proposals of ethnic movements.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 236 Reproductive Justice: Bodies, Health, and Society
Content: Reproductive justice as a framework for analyzing issues of bodily autonomy and human rights. With emphasis on contemporary U.S. society, the course will survey the medicalization of birth, the spectrum of birth work, and the rights of pregnant and parenting people, acknowledging that reproduction is an experience that goes beyond the gender binary. The course centers scholarship and narratives of historically marginalized identities, particularly the sociocultural context of Black/African American women in reproductive politics. Reproductive justice is also a social movement that seeks equity beyond birth through the alleviation of social ills linked to institutional racism and other mechanisms of oppression, including heterosexism. This course situates the body and reproductive experience as one that is socially constructed and shaped by social location (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, citizenship status, age, ability, or religion) to regulate bodily autonomy.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 244 Internship/Practicum
Content: Community or campus experience combined with bibliographic exploration of relevant literatures. Working one-on-one with a faculty advisor, the student selects placement from a variety of community organizations, shelters, and social agencies. Writing reflects field experiences in the context of literature reviews. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing and consent required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 1-4.
SOAN 245 Visual Anthropology
Content: Representation in the study of culture. Explore and evaluate different genres of visual representation, including museums, theme parks, films, television, and photographic exhibitions as modes of anthropological analysis. Topics include the ethics of observation, the politics of artifact collection and display, the dilemmas of tourism, the role of consumption in constructing visual meaning, and the challenge of interpreting indigenously produced visual depictions of self and other.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 247 Space, Place, and Landscape
Content: An anthropological approach to the tacitly accepted notions of place and space. Theoretical consideration of experience, meaning, and behavior in relation to our material surroundings stresses the social production of space. Key topics include wilderness, pathways, home, cities, buildings, monuments, and movement. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own background in consideration of these themes. The course provides conceptual, bibliographic, and methodological structure for students to imagine, design, and carry out individual research projects.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 249 The Political Economy of Food
Content: Situating food at the intersection of political economy, society, and culture, an exploration of how food is produced and consumed. Topics include the relationships between society and agricultural forms, technologies of food production and ecological impacts, commodity chains and the industrialization of foods, food inequality and hunger, food and the body (e.g., diets, health, obesity, anorexia, fast food vs. slow food, farmers' markets vs. supermarkets), and cultures of food - from personal identity to ethnic identity to cuisine tourism to utopian visions.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 250 Southeast Asia: Development, Resistance, and Social Change
Content: Exploration of how individuals and communities across Southeast Asia contend with the dynamics of development, globalization, and social change. Rather than a broad survey, the course considers a small number of specific "encounters" in detail, asking what specific moments of social change might tell us about cultures and societies in the region, as well as their relationships to broader socioeconomic dynamics. Topics may include industrialization, agrarian change, cross-border migration, urbanization, protests and counter-movements, the rise of authoritarianism, inequality, environmental politics, and shifting norms related to gender and sexuality. No prior knowledge or experience with the region necessary.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 251 Myth, Ritual, and Symbol
Content: Sociocultural approaches to the study of myth, ritual, and symbol. The nature of myth and ritual in a variety of cultures, including the United States. Introduction to analytical approaches to myth, ritual, and symbolic forms including functionalism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, interpretive and performative approaches.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 254 The Social Life of Money and Exchange
Content: An introduction to classical and contemporary perspectives about the relationship between the economy and society. How people act within the social and cultural context around them when negotiating their way through labor markets, exchanging goods, buying and selling, and calculating self-interest. Key topics include rationality, embeddedness, networks, markets and exchange systems, institutions, and social capital.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 255 Medicine, Healing, and Culture
Content: Culturally patterned ways of dealing with misfortune, sickness, and death. Ideas of health and personhood, systems of diagnosis and explanation, techniques of healing ranging from treatment of physical symptoms to metaphysical approaches in non-Western and Western traditions.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 261 Gender and Sexuality in Latin America
Content: Gender and sexuality in Latin America through an anthropological lens. Ethnographic and theoretical texts - including testimonial and film material - dealing with the different gender experiences of indigenous and nonindigenous peoples, lowland jungle hunter-gatherers, highland peasants, urban dwellers, and transnational migrants.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 262 Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Content: Exploration of contemporary dynamics related to gender and sexuality in South Asia at the level of the family, community, market, and state. Focus on work, marriage, media and cultural production, politics, contemporary social movements, global mobility, embodiment, the city, and climate change. Special attention to the interaction of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and caste in different cultural and religious contexts. Inclusion of academic research, memoir, and film dealing with cases in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Consideration of both femininities and masculinities in South Asia within global discourses of gender and sexuality.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 265 Critical Perspectives on Development
Content: Critical exploration of the invention, rise, and current moment of global development projects aiming to end poverty, improve living standards, and ensure the freedoms of individuals in the Global South, drawing largely on scholars from the region to problematize mainstream understandings of and solutions to social and economic development. First, an exploration of how "development" has been defined, measured, and understood over the past century, from colonial conceptions to post-development rejections of the term. Second, reading of several exemplary critical analyses of development thinking and practice, focused on questions of international aid, microfinance, cash transfers, and the global economic system.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 266 Social Change in Latin America
Content: Focus on historic and current forms of social change across a range of Latin American countries. Exploration of when and how social change occurs and the importance of mobilization for creating meaningful change. How global factors influence societal changes, with attention to immigration, violence and alternatives to capitalist expansion.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 281 South Asian Cultures
Content: The nature of social and cultural life in South Asia from an anthropological perspective. Caste, family, religion, language, region, and community in colonial and postcolonial contexts.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 282 Pacific Rim Cities
Content: Examination of urban life in Pacific Rim cities; how transnational networks connect social, cultural, demographic, and economic flows and practices. Topics covered may include urbanization, urban planning, sustainability, entrepreneurial cities, economic trade agreements, social disparity, and urban spectacles (Olympics, expos). Case studies may include Shanghai, Sydney, San Jose (Costa Rica), Seoul, and Portland. Students will engage in a semester-long, individual research project examining the linkages between Portland and the Pacific Rim to explore the diversity of global city-formation processes and examine how social, economic, and political processes of urban living are spatially linked.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 284 Anthropology of Print Media
Content: Examination of some of the main analytical frameworks through which print media and the mediation of culture have been examined. Using an anthropological approach, students will explore how print media as representation and cultural practice have been fundamental to the formation and transformation of modern social and political relations. Focusing on print media representations of China, in combination with the ethnographic literature on the subject, this course will think topically about China as news and theoretically about China in the news.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 285 Culture and Power in the Middle East
Content: Introduction to the anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa, with an emphasis on the relationship between global and local forms of social hierarchy and cultural power. Topics include tribalism, ethnicity, colonialism, nationalism, gender, religious practices, migration, the politics of identity.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110.
Usually offered: Annually, fall semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 299 Independent Study
Content: Independent reading and/or research in an area other than the normal course offerings of the department. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: None.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing and consent required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 1-4.
SOAN 300 Social Theory
Content: Classical origins of general methods, theories, and critical issues in contemporary social science and social thought. Early market-based social theories of Hobbes and Locke, Enlightenment social theorists such as Rousseau and Montesquieu, Burke's critique of the Enlightenment, Hegel's dialectical critique. "Classical" social theories of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Twentieth-century paradigms such as symbolic interaction, structuralism, critical theory, contemporary feminist theories. Enrollment preference given to departmental majors fulfilling degree requirements.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 303 Language, Culture, and Society
Content: Relationship between language, culture, and society within ethnographic research, particularly as the relationship is animated by the use of verbal and nonverbal communicative activities. The way social expectations are generated in language, how they become generalizable as knowledge through verbal repetition, and their dissemination in reading material and other mediated sources. Attention will be paid to the power disparities that result from hierarchical language use. Dialogue, agency, and uncertainty in everyday talk and narratives of cultural and political performances; engagement with reflexive research practices and methods of comparative language analysis.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 305 Environmental Sociology
Content: Research traditions and debates in the field of environmental sociology. How contemporary patterns of industrial production, urbanization, and consumption intensify ecological problems; why harmful effects of pollution disproportionately impact disadvantaged groups; what kinds of social movements have mobilized to protect ecosystems and human communities from environmental degradation. Introduction to basic concepts from urban sociology, theories of social inequality, environmental justice topics, social movements research.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Annually, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 307 Resilience in Disasters
Content: Examination of social, cultural, and inequality dimensions of historical and contemporary disasters, including pandemics, climate-related disruptions, and other crises. Strategies for building greater resilience to disasters at the individual and regional level. Specific topics will include the role of mutual aid groups in local communities, and ways that intersecting social inequalities impact disaster responses.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 309 Labors of Love
Content: Exploration of the types of labor typically associated with love, sex, passion, and care - sex work, care work, political work, creative work, craft occupations, intellectual labor, and athletic labor across different historical and geographical contexts. Investigation of how and when work becomes associated with pleasure and/or becomes a source of frustration. Critical examination of contemporary discourses related to the value of work. Particular focus on how dynamics related to gender, class, sexuality, race, and colonialism shape our experiences of work: What does it mean to love our work? Should we love our jobs? Who gets to love their jobs? What are the consequences of loving our work?
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 310 Religion, Society, and Modernity
Content: Anthropological approaches to religion in the context of modern global transformations, including secularism, capitalism, and colonialism. Advanced introduction to classic theories (Marx, Durkheim, Weber) in the sociology and anthropology of religion, along with their contemporary ethnographic applications. Critical ethnographies of the ideological, practical and embodied expressions of religion in contemporary context.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology or religious studies courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 321 Theory Through Ethnography
Content: This seminar-style class will focus on reading ethnographies as a means of analyzing and assessing contemporary anthropological theory; emphasis will be on reading and critical analysis of the latest works to examine the interface among the local production of knowledge, method, and global theory. Readings based on student input and will draw from regions around the world including East Asia, the United States, South America, and Europe.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 324 Anthropology of Violence
Content: An upper-level introduction to the anthropology of violence, including recent literature in the field as well as classical examples of the study of violence by anthropologists. Questions of control, responsibility/accountability, public-/private-sphere boundaries, ritual/symbolic meanings. Topics include possible biological bases of aggression; symbolic enactment of violence; nationalism and militarism; the politics of gender, race, class, and ethnic identity; state violence; human rights.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 325 Social Life of Policy
Content: What is policy? How can it be studied anthropologically and sociologically? Course examines policy as a sociocultural and historical phenomenon. Considers how policy develops new forms of governance, conceptualizes and shapes social boundaries and subjectivity, and regulates relationships of power. Topics may include trade, education, reproductive, soft power, economic, and human rights policy.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 331 Power, Privilege, and Inequality
Content: Examines core topics related to social inequality. Why do some people have more opportunities in life than others? What produces power differentials between people? Exploration of the structural factors that produce inequality (such as class, race, and gender); the material, cultural, and affective dimensions of experiencing inequality; and possible solutions to contemporary inequality.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Usually offered: Alternate Years, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 333 Altered States: Social and Cultural Dilemmas
Content: Exploration of social and cultural dilemmas posed by widespread practices designed to alter people's states of consciousness. Examination of historical and contemporary techniques used in shamanism, Judeo-Christian practices, meditation, and secular mindfulness circles; sociocultural impacts of the use of narcotics, psychedelics, alcohol, and other substances; carceral and harm reduction responses; contemporary experiments in psilocybin-assisted therapy and the decriminalization of many drugs.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 334 Anthropology of Suffering
Content: An anthropological perspective on the modern subject and experience of suffering. Topics include the role, experience, and representation of suffering in illness, addiction, grief, poverty, inequality, religion, globalization, and violence. The relationship that social, economic, political, and subjective perspectives on suffering have to practices and possibilities of healing, rights, pleasure, peace, resistance, and faith. The methods and ethics of studying and representing suffering in popular culture, modern social theory, and ethnography.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 335 Political Economy of Housing
Content: This course considers the dynamics of housing markets and neighborhoods and the public policies designed to regulate them. It will look at the role of housing in shaping people's quality of life with a specific focus on housing in Portland. We will consider what housing is-a consumption good, a social right, or an investment asset? Possible topics include public housing, the suburbs, comparisons across different countries, gentrification, segregation, and the shared economy.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level SOAN classes.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 342 Power and Resistance
Content: Theories of power and resistance, addressing relationships between culture, society, and politics. Case studies drawn predominantly from China and the U.S. Dynamics of contestation reflected in music, film, radical activism, mass social movements, and armed conflict bring a variety of theoretical approaches to life.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 347 Borderlands: Tibet and the Himalaya
Content: Investigation of the "borderland" nature of anthropology dealing with Tibet and the broader Himalayan region. Without clear state definition, scholastic inquiry is dispersed among distinct themes rather than a cohesive historical or cultural approach. Focus on ethnographies of non-state peoples, cross-border travel, marginalized lives, and international development and representation. Reading-intensive course with a series of literature review assignments leading toward a final project.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 348 Semiotics and Social Life
Content: What is the relationship between meaning, material things, and social life? Exploration of theoretical and ethnographic approaches to the material embodiment of human experience and cultural meaning in words, things, texts, and practices. Emphasis on semiotic approaches to culture as a system of signs that operates in fields of social power. Introduction to ontological approaches to ethnography as the engagement with different worlds and realities.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 349 Indigenous Peoples: Identities and Politics
Content: Indigenous peoples, indigenous identity, and social movements for indigenous rights. How indigenous identity is defined, constructed, and maintained, and the rights that indigenous people have and can claim. The relationship between international organizations, including the United Nations, and indigenous movements. Central focus on North and South America with some comparative cases from Asia. Sociological theories of social movements, identity politics, and racial formation.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 350 Global Inequality
Content: Issues in the relationships between developed and developing societies, including colonialism and transnational corporations, food and hunger, women's roles in development. Approaches to overcoming problems of global inequality.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 359 Topics in Medical Anthropology
Content: Focused examination of contemporary and seminal theoretical and ethnographic topics in the subfield of medical anthropology. Each semester will explore a given topic (e.g., structural violence, intersectionality, kinship and care, death and dying, body and pain, addiction, pharmaceuticalization, medical techniques and technologies, illness narratives). Particular emphasis on how subjective and phenomenological experiences of illness shape and are shaped by structural (sociocultural, political, historical, physical, material) contingencies. Students will engage in a semester-long ethnographic project. Topics will always be health studies related.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or 110. One 200-level sociology/anthropology course.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Annually, spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 360 Decolonizing Anthropology
Content: Exploration of the relationship between colonialism, knowledge production, and power in anthropology and associated fields. Critical approaches to the study of imperial ideologies, colonial representation, colonial resistance, and postcolonial identity. Consideration of how anthropology has variously operated as a tool of colonial control and a critique of continuing forms of colonial power. Recent and contemporary efforts to redress enduring colonial aspects of anthropological methods, theories, and aims.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 366 Indebted Lives: Debt & Inequality in American Society
Content: Examination of the role, meanings, and consequences of various forms of (financial) debt in contemporary society, drawing primarily on the work of sociologists and anthropologists, but also including historical, legal, and political-economy perspectives on debt and indebtedness. Analyzes various forms of financial debt including how credit/debt relates to broader social institutions, its social consequences, and the links between debt and inequality. Themes explored will vary each semester but may include student loans, mortgages and the mortgage crisis, race and racial inequalities enacted through finance, debt as a development solution, credit cards, bankruptcy, debt collection, pawnshops, and legal debt.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 367 Anthropology of Tourism: Travel in Asia
Content: Investigation of key themes in the study of tourism, including economic and social inequality, race, "the gaze," authenticity, commodification of place and culture, heritage, identity, and performance. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own backgrounds in consideration of these themes. Focus on ethnographic studies of tourism in Asia. Provision of theoretical and methodological tools to imagine, design, and carry out a required individual research project.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 373 Political Economy of Black Labor
Content: Focus on Black diasporic labor as a central component in the development of Western hemispheric political and economic systems. Historical, sociocultural, and transnational examination of Black people's encounter with capitalist relations of production; slavery; internal and diasporic labor migration; class mobility and racialized work; Black responses to exploitative systems via labor and social movements; cultural practices and performance; representation of self and community on the internet and via social media. Consideration will be given to leisure as well as work and how these construct/frame identity and belonging. Students will read from works in anthropology, sociology, and the humanities with emphasis on those produced by authors of color; part of our work will be to ask how race and labor figure into authorial intent, knowledge production, and professional expertise.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 OR SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 390 Cyborg Anthropology
Content: Cultural practices surrounding the production and consumption of technoscientific and biomedical knowledge. Articulation between different constituencies, both inside and outside the scientific community, and the asymmetries that shape their relations. Heterogeneity of science, including contrasts between disciplinary subcultures and different national traditions of inquiry. Political economy of science, including the allocation of material and symbolic resources. Networks of associations that link human and nonhuman allies, such as medical prosthesis, robotics, information. Representation of science and technology in popular culture.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 393 Affect Theory and Feminist Inquiry
Content: Introduction to anthropological and sociological scholarship that uses affect as a theoretical device to explore social meaning in emotions, the body, and spoken language. The course is oriented through feminist intellectual traditions that problematize perceptions of objective knowledge production. Literature will include theoretical articles, programmatic essays, and ethnographic monographs. Case studies will emphasize affect in the production of racial, gendered, classed, and laboring identities within a framework of neoliberal social, economic, and political restructuring.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Usually offered: Alternate Years.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 395 Anthropology of the Body
Content: The body in society. How bodies are the loci of race, class, and gender. The body as a way of examining health and healing, symbols and politics, discipline and resistance. Social and ritual functions of reproduction (including new technologies) and of adornment, scarification, other forms of bodily decoration in classic and contemporary literature, film, dance.
Prerequisites: SOAN 100 or SOAN 110. Two 200-level sociology/anthropology courses.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 400 Senior Seminar and Thesis
Content: In consultation with faculty, selection of a thesis topic; further reading in the disciplines and/or field research in the local area. Substantial written document demonstrating mastery of theory and methodology and the ability to integrate these into the thesis topic.
Prerequisites: SOAN 205. SOAN 200, 201, or 204. SOAN 300.
Restrictions: Senior standing required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 4.
SOAN 444 Internship/Practicum
Content: Same as SOAN 244 but requiring more advanced work. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: None.
Restrictions: Junior standing and consent required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 1-4.
SOAN 499 Independent Study
Content: Advanced-level independent reading and/or research in an area other than the normal course offerings of the department. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisites: None.
Restrictions: Junior standing and consent required.
Usually offered: Annually, fall and spring semester.
Semester credits: 1-4.