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Courses - Spring 2025
SOCY
Sociology Department Site
Open Seats as of
01/30/2025 at 07:30 AM
SOCY407
Explaining Social Change: Fact and Fiction in Understanding Why Our World Looks the Way it Does
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
Prerequisite: 6 credits in SOCY courses or permission of Sociology Department.
Credit only granted for: SOCY498Y or SOCY407.
Formerly: SOCY498Y.
Examines large-scale processes of social change that have produced durable and defining aspects of our contemporary world and asks, How did we get here? It focuses on four key issues: how markets and the pursuit of profit came to organize virtually all aspects of material life and restructured societies around social classes; how democratic forms of governance emerged to direct states and the persistent challenges presented by authoritarian rule; how social revolution erupts and what kinds of changes it yields; and how warfare between states can produce varieties of change not necessarily comprehended in the foregoing domains.