SOCI 3353: Urban Sociology
News (Click refresh/reload each time you visit.) 03/15/10:Some of you were wondering about life in Levittown, PA today. Here's the Levittown site at AmericanTowns.com. And here's the 1958 "March of Time" program about Levittown that we watched in class today. 03/07/10: Fun in the urban landscape! Here's an opportunity for you and a friend to do a one-day "Amazing Race" style competition in a big city. Urban Dare is coming to Austin March 20th. 03/06/10: The city of Detroit is considering tearing down about a fourth of the buildings in town, and relocating residents from deserted neighborhoods elsewhere. 02/28/10: Here's an episode of the program Radiolab that addresses some of the ideas about the history of time and time reckoning that we're talking about in class right now. 02/24/10: Hazelton, ND: gemeinschaft vs. gesellschaft 2010. 02/16/10: NOTICE: Yesterday I posted the wrong set of questions for the first exam. The link is fixed now. There are four questions I'll be choosing from, not three. 02/16/10: Here are the questions that could appear on the first exam. 02/03/10: Astronomers monitor artificial light sources because they interfere with telescope research. But a side effect is that we get a nice sense of the scope of global urbanization. 02/03/10: Regarding our discussion of our hunting and gathering background, here's an interesting story about the earliest evidence of textile use in humans, dating back 30,000 years. The other day we were discussing what can happen when technologically dissimilar societies interact. Here's a news item about some North Sentinelese killing two Indian fishermen in 2006. And here's a bit of rare footage of some North Sentinelese. 01/25/10: Notice that the urban/rural distinction and the technology of the day for Spartacus and Joan of Arc was not so dramatically different, even though their lives were separated about 1500 years. 01/20/10: Regarding our comparison of human cities to other animals' social living arrangements, here's a video about the giant ant hill filled with concrete that I mentioned. Next, regarding our discussion of especially urban sports, here's a bit more information on parkour at HowStuffWorks. 01/19/10: Welcome! Your first assignment: write a two page (typed, double spaced) reaction paper to this news item. Think in terms of urban sociology. Due at the beginning of class Feb. 1st. Worth eight points. . |
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spring 2010 Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:30 - 1:50 p.m., Derrick 227, index 360956 Instructor Bob Price, Ph.D. www.txstate.edu/~rp27 office hours Mondays and Wednesdays 10:55 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. and by appointment Meet me IRL in Derrick 204 or in Second Life near this spot in Bobcat Village. My Second Life avatar's name is Darwin Yates. I do not check voice mail. Do not leave voice mail; I won't get your message. I check e-mail frequently: bobprice@txstate.edu. Graduate Assistant Mark Boehme office hours Mondays and Wednesdays 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. and by appointment Derrick 216, mb1207@txstate.edu Societies all over the world are moving into uncharted territory. We are living through a period of innovation in global economics, family patterns, education, media, forms of community, modes of work and housing, types of crime and recreation – transformations of all of our social institutions. The world’s cities are the sites of this innovation. In this course, students will examine cities as cause and effect of intriguing social phenomena. Topics will include:· the history of cities and why people built them in the first place · theoretical perspectives used in the study of urban life · the impact of cities on people’s sense of community or belonging · the transformations of urban life brought about by the introduction of technologies such as the clock and the automobile · suburbanization, sprawl, and the “new urbanism” · the social problems of cities · globalization and its influence on cities |