Fall 2018  |  SOC 3090 Section 001: Topics in Sociology -- Justice, Health & Good Life in the 21st Century (34406)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
Topics Course
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/04/2018 - 09/24/2018
Tue, Thu 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, East Bank
Blegen Hall 110
 
09/25/2018 - 12/12/2018
Tue, Thu 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, East Bank
Blegen Hall 335
Enrollment Status:
Closed (30 of 30 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Topics specified in Class Schedule. prereq: 1001 recommended; soc majors must register A-F; cr will not be granted if cr has been received for the same topics title
Class Notes:
Click this link for more detailed course information: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?asalamha+SOC3090+Fall2018
Class Description:
What does it mean to have justice, health, and the good life in this world? In our attempts to imagine and reimagine the contemporary globe, we examine the challenges to justice, health, and the realization of the good life. We ask questions that affect many in the contemporary world: How is it possible for a person to physically torture another? Why do people obey orders to kill? Why do people discriminate? How do we get our identities? Why do we feel helpless? Why are we humans aware of our ability to cooperate, and yet are alienated from one another? Why is there a rise of mental illness in industrial societies worldwide? Around the world, there are reports of genocide, torture, racism, inequality, crime, poverty, and authoritarian rule. These conditions have sweeping effects on the health of the globe's populations. Drawing on sociological and humanistic perspectives, we seek to answer these questions and explore the possibilities for social change and the realization of the good life for peoples worldwide. The course seeks to examine how social order is produced, and how individuals and groups knowingly - and also unknowingly - enable the emergence of the very threats to life, health, and justice that they fear. We examine how social conformity creates social stability yet also perniciously enables torture, genocide, and inequality, and mental health crises. The course invites learners to explore the multiple ways that human beings can cooperate to mutually enable individuals to express and participate in beauty, truth, love, and health. Throughout the course, you will be asked to discuss how society individually impacts you, and how society contributes to the perpetuation - as well as degradation - of the good life. Students will write a strategy memo connecting justice, health, and the good life and are anticipated to participate in a simulation of the United Nations Security Council and the World Health Organization.
Who Should Take This Class?:
Any student who is interested in any one of three themes of justice, health, or the good life would find this course relevant. The course is meant to increase knowledge about the mutual relationships between justice, health, and the good life. The idea behind the course is to show how thinking about the combination of justice, health, and the good life surprisingly facilitates a deeper understanding of each separately.

Students of nursing, medicine, social work, law, ethics, sociology, public health, political science, psychology, and policy (and other related fields) are expected to find this course helpful in advancing their thinking on issues and questions that preoccupy their specific field. The hope is that the course provides students an opportunity to think in new ways about familiar issues within their field.
Learning Objectives:
To reveal the inextricable connections between justice, health, and the good life.
To explore strategies to advance social justice, medical health, and the good life.
To ask why individuals and groups behave in ways that interrelatedly promote injustice and health crises.
To understand how individuals, groups, and organizations produce global problems.
To imagine new ways to link justice and health to further the good life.
Grading:
30% Participation (includes attendance, blog discussion, polls, individual in-class discussion of readings, and general participation)
20% Debate (Simulation) (4-7 minute speech)
20% Strategy Memo (class discussion of memo ideas, the sharing of comments, and grading based on honor).
30% Simulation of the United Nations Security Council and the World Health Organization

*This grading scheme is not final, as the instructor intends to consult with students in the beginning of the course.
Exam Format:
There are NO exams in this course.
Class Format:
The course is discussion-based. It includes lectures, blogs, activities, and in-class discussion.
There are no textbooks in the course. All readings are anticipated to be available on Canvas.
Workload:
20-30 Pages Reading per Week (excluding the last weeks, and weeks when the strategy memo and the simulation takes place)
1 Debate
1 Strategy Memo
1 United Nations Security Council Simulation
1 World Health Organization Simulation
15-50 words of Blog Writing Per Week
15-20 Polls to respond to (There are no correct answers).
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/34406/1189
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
12 May 2018

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