Fall 2009

SOC 321k • Surveillance and Social Control

Course Description

This course will provide an overview of theories in the sociology of social control, with a focus on race, gender, power, ethics and surveillance. We will examine historical transformations in social control and the distributions of power in U.S. and global contexts, with a focus on populations within the African diaspora. Course topics include: the Trans-Atlantic slave trade; prisons and punishment; the gaze, voyeurism and reality television watching; the Internet; travel and state borders; biometrics and the body.

Texts

Shoshana Magnet and Kelly Gates (ed), The New Media of Surveillance,Christian Parenti, 2005
The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America, From Slavery to the War on Terrorism, Basic Books: New York
Additional readings will be posted on blackboard

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