Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

“...learning must be understood as an experience that enriches life in its entirety.”

bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

As a Black feminist and sociologist, the words of bell hooks resonate deeply with my philosophy of teaching. I was drawn to sociology precisely because of its promise to provide the tools and history necessary to understanding my experience as a Black trans person, as well as the massive social shifts happening all around me. As such, my approach to teaching sociology has always been oriented towards learning outcomes that extend beyond the classroom--focused on teaching students mechanisms and processes that they can use. I desire to make what I teach “an experience that enriches life in its entirety.” I believe that sociology best inspires students when they are part of crafting it into a toolkit for evaluating and engaging the world. 

Prepared Courses

Collective Behavior

Study of behavior of human crowds and masses in extraordinary circumstances, including crowd panics, mass scares, collective protests, riots, revolutionary situations, ecstatic and revivalist gatherings, crazes, fads, and fashions.

Race and Ethnicity

Functions of the social definitions of race and racial groups. Analysis of racial conflict, oppression, and other forms of ethnic stratification. Models of ethnic interaction and social change. Emphasis on racial relationships within the U.S.

Gender

Analysis of biological, psychological, cultural and structural conditions underlying the status and roles of men and women in contemporary society, drawing on a historical and comparative perspective.

Immigration

Social and demographic analysis of immigration: motives and experiences of immigrants; immigration and social mobility; immigration, assimilation, and social change; multicultural societies. Detailed study of immigration into the U.S., with comparative studies of Europe, Australia, and other host countries.

Sociological Theory

Origins of modern sociological thought. Special emphasis on four major theorists from the early sociological canon: Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Emile Durkheim.

Industrialization and Social Change

Selected technological and social factors. Preconditions of economic development and industrialization. Social, political, and cultural issues at various levels of economic development. Major historical differences and major current trends. Emphasis either on highly industrialized countries or on less developed countries.

Violence and Inequality

How systems of social inequality organize the practice of violence. Definitions of violence and issues affecting the social capacity for violence. Analysis and comparison of different forms of violence associated with race, class, gender relations and social organization.

Qualitative Research

This course is broken into three parts, each an essential area of qualitative research. We’ll discuss crafting a research project, then two major areas of qualitative research methods. The first will be focused on field methods (utilizing things like ethnography, interviews, and focus groups). The second will focus our attention on evaluating historical and archival data from a qualitative perspective.

Race & (Trans)Gender Construction

This course is designed to introduce students to the co-construction of racial and gender norms within the United States from a sociological perspective. In particular, we examine how racial categories like whiteness and blackness are situated alongside expectations of biological sex and gender expression. 

Feminist Theory

An investigation of selected feminist theories on a variety of topics and from a variety of disciplines and social locations, such as feminist epistemologies, feminist narrative theories, and political theories from feminists of color. Issues such as intersectionality of oppressions and the dynamics of power involved in maintaining oppressions, as well as resistance to oppressions. 

Social Movements

Analysis of several aspects of social movements: mobilization, forms of organization, ideology, recruitment, leadership, strategies and tactics, development, effects. Frequent use of sound and film materials.

Sexual Stratification and Politics

Analysis of origins, dynamics, and social implications of sexual stratification. Examination of classical and contemporary theorists such as Engels, Freud, J.S. Mill, de Beauvoir, Juliet Mitchell, D. Dinnerstein. Attention to selected issues in social movements for and against sexual equality.