Sociology

College of Arts & Sciences

Who are we? How do we understand ourselves? From Mead’s theory of the “looking glass self” to the feminist mantra of “the personal is political,” sociologists have wrestled with how our identities are created and interpreted vis-à-vis our relationships and social context. In the digital age, with the explosion of new ways to interact with one another and to display, perform, and curate our identities online, identity has only become more salient. In this course, we will read canonical and contemporary sociological theories of identity. We will then consider how those theories can be extended to online contexts to develop a better understanding of identity in the 21st century. This is a writing-intensive seminar: class meetings will be discussion-based, and students will write several short essays throughout the term as well as a longer paper that will undergo a peer review and revision process.