Teaching

Courses are designed to help students understand their place in the social world, examine structures keeping that world intact, and envision radical alternatives. Students interrogate how race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect to shape policy, culture, situated knowledge, and access to resources and opportunities, and learn to challenge, complicate, and build on their existing knowledge through scholarly texts and assignments that engage a diversity of voices.

Syllabi are available upon request. Course descriptions are provided below.

Terms taught: Summer 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Spring 2019 (University of Texas at Austin)

Punishment and Society

This course examines the social construction of crime and U.S. society’s responses to it. The course begins with an overview of sociological approaches to deviance, which is rule- or norm-breaking behavior, and social control, or how society prevents us from breaking rules/norms. Using a critical and historically informed lens, we apply these frameworks to various aspects of the U.S. criminal-legal system, including criminalization, policing, courts, and incarceration. Resistance and social change are also explored. Special attention is paid to how power operates through punishment and (re)produces inequalities at the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social class, and U.S. citizen status.

Terms taught: Fall 2022 (University of Texas at Austin)

Gender/Race/Class/Sexuality in U.S. Society

This course examines the intersection of gender, race, class, and sexuality in the United States. Drawing on sociological research and analysis, we investigate how these identities operate not only as ways of categorizing people, but as interrelated structures that shape our points of view, experiences, life chances, and social worlds. Intersections pertaining to body size, citizen status, religion, ethnicity, and disability are also addressed. Attending to the ways social construction (re)produces and rationalizes power imbalances in institutions (e.g., work, the family, education, the criminal legal system, the media) is a key focus. We conclude by discussing movements for liberation and social change.

Terms taught: Fall 2022 (Colorado College Block 4)

Qualitative Research Methods

This hands-on, project-based course covers how to do sociological research that attends to people’s words, narratives, practices, interactions, explanations, emotions, and identities. We first examine the kinds of questions qualitative methods are best suited to answer. Students assess the methods' strengths and limitations; unpack ethical issues and dilemmas; and explore how micro-level phenomena connect to broader social structures, institutions, and cultural meanings. Taking a practicum approach, students then conduct their own research using three methods: in-depth interviews, field/participant observation, and content analysis. Students conceptualize research questions and methodological design through a written proposal, gather and analyze their own data, and present their findings both orally and in writing.

Teaching: Resume