Sample Lectures

Who Cries at Weddings?
In Western societies people usually express sadness at funerals and happiness at weddings. What happens if someone does not feel happy at a wedding and does feel happy at a funeral? There are many rules about how to feel and act in different social situations. What are some of these rules, to what extent are they followed or broken and with what consequences? Is managing our bodies and emotions a full-time activity?

Therapy, Self-Help and Daytime Talk Shows: The Talking Cure
From psychotherapy to online therapy, from TV talk shows such as Ricki Lake and Geraldo to confessional autobiographies like Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, ours is the age of confessional therapeutic culture. According to many sociologists and historians, what we now see occurring is a shift in the language away from confession as anchored in religious or strictly medical settings and its redeployment as a kind of public psychological therapy. Radio talk-back, TV talk shows and cybertherapy are all at the core of this restructuring of the ‘talking cure’ through the twin forces of popular culture and the communications revolution. How are we to assess this recent cultural turn towards the therapeutic imperative? Do we now live, as authors such as Foucault have suggested, in a society of therapeutic conformity? Or does therapy culture also contain more promising possibilities for the self?

Sociology and Culture
What do we mean when we talk about culture? This lecture examines the way humans are cultural beings who give meaning to their lives. It examines the essential components of culture: signs and symbols, signifiers/signified, cultural classifications and identity markers. It asks how youth construct their identity in a rapidly changing world.