Spring 2025
Refugees: Forced Migration in Global Perspective
Danilo Mandic PhD, Senior Associate Lecturer on Sociology, Harvard University
What does it mean to lose your home? Who are refugees? Why are there so many forced migrants in our world? How are they displaced? Where do they travel, and why? This course inquires into the nature, causes, and consequences of contemporary refugee waves in our globalized world. Students survey regional dynamics in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. We examine the particularities of refugees (compared to other migrants) and the changing nature of forced migration since the second world war. Students explore historical precedents to contemporary waves, learn about different host society approaches to asylum, compare government and criminal mechanisms of forced migration, and examine the reasons refugees are the object of increasing suspicion and hostility around the world. Particular attention is paid to the recent European Union crisis, the role of refugee camps in the twenty-first century, and alternative strategies for global asylum management by bridge and destination countries.
Spring 2025
Work and Culture
Rachel Meyer PhD, Lecturer on Sociology, Harvard University
This course looks at work and culture from both the bottom-up and the top-down. What does work mean from the perspective of workers versus employers, and when do these perspectives align or diverge? Under what circumstances are work cultures a source of identity, meaning, and fulfillment? How are they used for control and domination? We examine the varieties of culture at work by comparing corporate culture, craft culture, and caring labor. The course then turns to contemporary forms of work characterized by flexibility, contingency, and insecurity. We examine flexibility in working-class jobs and gig work alongside parallel developments among high-tech engineers and investment bankers. How does flexible labor shape workers' identities? What does it mean to be an independent contractor or entrepreneur in finance versus trucking? How is joblessness and unemployment experienced in different contexts? Lastly, we examine workplace collectivities and how they relate to conflict on the job. How do cultures of solidarity compare among factory workers, gig workers, service workers, tech professionals, and teachers? The course focuses mainly on work in the United States with some attention to comparative context. Throughout the course we explore class-based differences in work cultures, which at times are significant and salient and at other times seem to disappear.
Spring 2025
Introduction to Political Sociology
Danilo Mandic PhD, Senior Associate Lecturer on Sociology, Harvard University
Politics is about power and authority. But the production, conservation, and distribution of power and authority occur far beyond Capitol Hill; it features in family dynamics, neighborhoods, schools, welfare policies, social movements, nation-states, and the globalized economy. In this course, we examine such areas using the theoretical framework and analytic tools of political sociology. We ask such questions as: what is power exactly, and how can we measure it empirically? How do class, race, and gender affect power relations? Where did the nation-state as we know it come from? What kinds of social movements are there and how do they produce change? How does capitalism relate to the state and civil society? Where did the welfare state come from, and what kinds are there? Who are the elites and rulers, and how would we know? What are some forces of exclusion or discrimination in democratic society? What is globalization and how do we best explain it? The course is divided into five parts according to the following major themes: foundations, the nation-state, capitalism, democracy, and the big picture of global processes.