The MA Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) is an intense, intellectually transformative one-year program. Students concentrate in Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science, Psychology, or Sociology. Some pursue interdisciplinary work in Comparative Human Development, Social Thought, or Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science. Many students also pursue a graduate certificate in Education and Society, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Geographic Information Science, Latin American Caribbean Studies, or the Institute for the Formation of Knowledge.
All BA/MA students take nine graduate courses, beginning in the Autumn Quarter of their fourth year of undergraduate study, selected from all University of Chicago departments and professional schools. Each student works closely with the program directors, our senior academic staff, and an assigned preceptor, designing a customized curriculum and defining an area of scholarly research. They work closely with their preceptor and Departmental faculty on the MA thesis.
Students must take MAPS 30000 Perspectives in Social Science Analysis, our core course, in the Autumn Quarter. In addition, students must satisfy a methods requirement by selecting among dozens of graduate alternatives in ethnography, historical methods, involved interviewing, network analysis, survey analysis, content analysis, game theory, rational choice, causal inference, statistics, interpretive methods, comparative case study, and others.
MAPSS offers preeminent training for those aspiring to go on to funded PhD study in the social sciences. THe program places a large number of graduates in funded PhD programs each year. Over the last decade, MAPSS has sent an average of 82 students into fully funded doctoral programs each year. Eighty-five percent of MAPSS students applying to PhD programs have been successful in their applications, with success defined as at least one fully funding offer. Because students are most successful in securing a PhD placement when they have completed the MA thesis and a year of graduate-level coursework at UChicago, students typically apply to PhD programs the fall/winter after they graduate from MAPSS.
MAPSS also offers an exceptional program of career placement, working directly with our Senior Director of Career Services and Employer Relations Manager, with weekly workshops, on-campus recruitment, and visits by leading alumni who provide mentorship in a variety of fields.
Students who wish to pursue a joint BA/MA degree should review the requirements and consult with their College adviser. They should also meet with the Assistant Dean of Students (Lindsey Weglarz, lweglarz@uchicago.edu) in the Autumn Quarter of their third year.
Please see the BA/MA Degree Requirements to review the eligibility requirements for the joint degree.
The dual BA/MA program is a four-year program and is distinct from the UChicago Advanced Scholars (4+1) program, which takes five years to complete.
MAPSS students must complete our core course, satisfy our methods requirement, and earn a minimum B as their cumulative grade over their nine graduate courses. Students must also submit a faculty-approved MA thesis.
Our core course, “Perspectives in Social Science Analysis,” examines the theoretical and methodological approaches that have been broadly influential across the social sciences, and helps students develop their MA thesis projects.
Because Perspectives is offered only in the Autumn Quarter, students may not begin the MAPSS program at any other time of year.
Students must also fulfill a methods requirement. MAPSS offers courses in historical, ethnographic, statistical, and interpretive methods. Dozens of other methods courses, including network analysis, game theory, involved interviewing, comparative case study, rational choice, comparative historical analysis, experimental methods, organizational analysis, survey research, and statistical methods are offered across campus each year.
Courses are selected with the guidance of a MAPSS preceptor. Students register for three graduate classes per quarter, beginning in the Fall and continuing through the Winter and Spring. They take graduate courses in all departments and professional schools of the University.
All MAPSS students must complete an MA thesis. Some students do their research and write the thesis in the Winter Quarter; most, however, do their research in the Winter Quarter and write the thesis in the Spring Quarter.
Some recent MA paper titles include:
"Class or Group Identity? Rethinking the 1967-69 Ocean Hill-Brownsville School Strikes for Left Coalitional Politics"
"Poisoned Futures: Pesticide Usage and Agrarian Suicides in Vidarbha, India"
"Stagnant Employees: Signals of Performance Decline over Tenure Length"
"Performing at Free Street: At-Risk Adolescents’ Experiences in a Dramatic Arts Program"
"Deepening Democracy or Diverting Attention? Participatory Democracy and the Community Council Movement in Venezuela"
"Pricing the Atmosphere: Commensuration and the Case of the Chicago Climate Exchange"
"Democratic Leadership in Athens and its Role in Thucydides’ Political Thought"
"Impact of Rural-Electrification on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from India"
"The Socialization of Math Anxiety: The Relationship Between Early Math Talk and Later Math Attitudes"
"Capacity and the Duty to Intervene: Considerations on the Agency Problem of Humanitarian Intervention"
"Neural Activity Reflecting Affective Impact of Addressee and Emotional Words in Speech Perception"
"Intimate Segregation: Gentrification and the New Landscape of Race"
MAPSS applicants must meet the formal requirements of the Graduate Social Sciences Division which are listed here.
Please see this page for current GRE policy in the Division. For those disciplines that require them, GRE scores are important but play a small role in our review. There are wide variations in the students we admit, and we are much more forgiving than the typical PhD program.
MAPSS offers tuition scholarships at the time of admission. Some financial need-based scholarships may be available through an application process after prospective students are admitted.
Joint BA/MA applicants pay graduate tuition rates, and are eligible to receive the same aid they had in College.
Applicant to the Division of the Social Sciences and the University of Chicago who do not meet waiver criteria must submit proof of English language proficiency. Please contact our Dean of Students Office with any questions: ssd-admissions@uchicago.edu
Part-time study is possible, but part-time students are not eligible for financial aid.
The application with instructions and deadlines, is available online at: https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/admissions/how-to-apply. Current students in the University of Chicago College may be eligible to apply through UChicago Advanced Scholars instead.
Qualified students in the College who wish to pursue a joint BA/MA degree should consult first with their College Adviser, then with the Assistant Dean of Students for Admissions in the Division of the Social Sciences ( Lindsey Weglarz ).
Prospective BA/MA students must meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies in their college major, filling out a form available through Lindsey Weglarz in the Dean of Students office, to confirm their eligibility for the BA/MA, to specify how many of the 9 graduate courses they would take will be double-counted to satisfy their BA requirements, and to assure that all BA requirements will be met no later than June convocation of their fourth year. That form, with the signature of the Director of Undergraduate Studies (or their designee), must be submitted as part of the BA/MA application.
For additional information about our program, please contact our Student Affairs Administrator, at 773-702-8312 .
Please also visit our website, at: https://mapss.uchicago.edu/
MAPS 30000. Perspectives in Social Science Analysis. 100 Units.
Perspectives in Social Science Analysis is an introduction to interdisciplinary social theory which aims to teach you how to read social science research at the graduate level and develop your ability to formulate and execute a successful master's thesis.
Instructor(s): Maximilian Cuddy, Natalie Dowling, Tori Gross, Hannah Hamilton, Alex Hoffman, Marshall Jean, Deirdre Lyons, John McCallum, Brianne Painia, Andrew Proctor, Juan Qian, Max Smith, Ella Wilhoit Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 30005. Graduate Practicum in the Social Sciences. 100 Units.
Students interested in gaining additional applied experience or writing an alternative or public facing thesis should consider taking the Graduate Practicum in the Social Sciences course. The practicum is a hands-on experiential course designed to enable students to apply and expand their knowledge in a career pathway based on their unique interests and improve their technical and applied writing skills, all while providing a useful service to a Chicago-based community partner. During the course, students work individually or in small teams to research a career pathway and identify and address issues/needs faced by a local community partner of their choice. Each student or team receives guidance from their instructor and community partner throughout the project. The experience culminates in a final project (report and formal presentation to the community partner and/or class).
Instructor(s): Robinson, Shelly Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): INRE 30005, MACS 30005
MAPS 30124. Computational Analysis of Social Processes. 100 Units.
How does the human social and cultural world develop and change? The focus of this course is on introducing computational methods for studying the evolution of phenomena over time, alongside relevant theories for interpreting these processes from fields such as History, Anthropology, and Sociology. Students will gain hands-on experience using the Python programming language to harness a diverse set of digital data sources, ranging from satellite images to social media posts. Additionally, they will learn to employ computational approaches, such as simulation and dynamic topic modeling, to study social processes over a variety of different time scales: from the short term (changes in social media network structures over the course of the past week), to longer term (the evolution of English language discourse over the past 100 years), to deep time scales (long-term settlement pattern dynamics over the past 10,000 years).
Instructor(s): Jon Clindaniel Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 30124
MAPS 30200. Readings: Social Sciences. 100 Units.
Individualized and independent reading course with selected faculty.
Instructor(s): Jon Rogowski Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Open only to MAPSS students.
MAPS 30205. Public Opinion Research in Practice. 100 Units.
This seminar provides an introduction to the evolving landscape of public opinion research in the digital age. It combines foundational theories and methods with an emphasis on how computational techniques have transformed the field. The goal is to equip students with a robust understanding of public opinion research, along with practical skills in data gathering, analysis, and interpretation, and insight into recent developments in data collection methodologies. We will focus on experimental methods, especially survey experiments, and on utilizing social media as a source of data and as a medium for recruiting respondents. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to produce an original public opinion research project, applying the techniques and methods discussed.
Instructor(s): Sanaei, Ali Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 30205
MAPS 30206. Qualitative Research: Impact & Insights for Industry. 100 Units.
What distinguishes impactful applied research from academic study? How can qualitative insights not just inform but transform decision making in private, public, and nonprofit organizations? This course is designed for students who are curious about the fields of market research, consulting, and related fields, offering a deep dive into the practical application of qualitative methods in solving real organizational challenges. Through real-world case studies, students will explore a spectrum of contemporary qualitative research techniques. These methods are not just academic tools but catalysts for strategic decision-making in marketing, business, and beyond. The course culminates in a final project where students apply their learnings to a genuine client challenge, transitioning from theory to practice. By centering the course on dynamic, results-oriented research in industry, this course sheds light on the ways that qualitative research is invaluable to organizational strategy and decision making. Students will gain exposure to how qualitative insights can be game-changing in areas ranging from brand equity to new product innovation.
Instructor(s): Kelly Kutas Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 20206
MAPS 30210. UX Research Foundations. 100 Units.
User Experience ("UX") is a professional field and practice that aims to understand the core needs of users to positively impact the experience and successful adoption of a product. How we define "product" in UX has great variation and can be physical, digital, or omnichannel-this makes the field of study highly nuanced, complex, and engaging. UX practitioners are present in a variety of industries including Tech, Automotive, Healthcare, Travel, and CPG (consumer packaged goods). UX Researchers specifically contribute to this field by deeply understanding and measuring user outcomes. We report both findings and actionable insights for product, design, insights, engineering, marketing, and business stakeholders. To do so successfully, many user research methodologies are leveraged (both qualitative and quantitative) and findings are socialized in a way that makes product (rather than pedagogical) impact. This course aims to lay a theoretical and methodological foundation for user experience research and reporting. The goal of this course is to equip students who are curious about UXR with the basic foundation needed to enter the job market. Students will gain a deep theoretical and historical understanding of the field of User Experience and its methods, learn basic design principles to help them communicate with colleagues in an applied context, and produce a final project (and supplementary research materials) that can serve as a professional portfolio piece/case study.
Instructor(s): Megan McLean Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 20210
MAPS 30230. Contemporary Democratic Theory: Realism, Deliberative Democracy, and Agonism. 100 Units.
What is democracy? Is democracy a matter of finding consensus or regulating dissensus? How might we go about making our own society more democratic? Should we strive for more democracy or is democracy merely a means to an end? What is the relationship between democratic theory and practice? This course will consider leading attempts in contemporary democratic theory to grapple with these questions and many more. We will consider both the foundational texts of contemporary democratic theory including Hannah Arendt, Carl Schmitt, Jurgen Habermas, and Robert Dahl, and then build from those texts to see how contemporary theorists have attempted to rearticulate, redefine, redesign, and revolutionize democracy in the past 25 years.
Instructor(s): Smith, Max Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 20406, MAPS 20230, PLSC 30230, DEMS 20235
MAPS 30233. Race in Contemporary American Society. 100 Units.
This survey course in the sociology of race offers a socio-historical investigation of race in American society. We will examine issues of race, ethnic and immigrant settlement in the United States. Also, we shall explore the classic and contemporary literature on race and inter-group dynamics. Our investigative tools will include an analysis of primary and secondary sources, multimedia materials, photographic images, and journaling. While our survey will be broad, we will treat Chicago and its environs as a case study to comprehend the racial, ethnic, and political challenges in the growth and development of a city.
Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett Terms Offered: Autumn Spring. Autumn quarter offered at the Undergraduate level only and Spring offered at the Graduate level only
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 20233, SOCI 20233, SOCI 30233
MAPS 30289. Intermediate Regression and Data Science. 100 Units.
This course is designed to provide intermediate-level training in research methods that would pick up immediately after traditionally introductory-level classes that end with multiple regression. This course is designed to be a standalone package of training that will provide tools of immediate use in students' own research or to make them more capable RAs in larger projects. I expect the course will provide the most utility to advanced BA and MA students that will not have time to complete many advanced, specialized courses. However, it would also serve as a useful bridge to more advanced statistical coursework. Students will also learn how to present findings in competent and accessible ways suitable for poster or conference presentations.
Instructor(s): M. Jean Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Applied statistics at the level of multiple regression
Note(s): Students are encouraged to bring a laptop to this class to follow along with certain lessons
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20289, EDSO 30289, SOCI 30289, EDSO 23089, PSYC 30289
MAPS 30290. Introduction to Applied Statistics and Data Science. 100 Units.
This class is a ground-floor introduction to statistics, with a focus on practical application. Students will learn how to describe populations and understand sampling, describe distributions of data, measure associations between variables, test the significance of associations and construct confidence intervals, and employ the main analytic workhorse of social science: regression modeling. This allows scientists to understand the associations between variables, controlling for the influence of confounding factors. This course is appropriate for anyone interested in getting started with quantitative analysis. Students will practice these techniques by analyzing social science data using R software, but it will not require prior coursework in social sciences. This course will not require matrix algebra or calculus.
Instructor(s): Jean, Marshall Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 30500. Computing for the Social Sciences. 100 Units.
This is an applied course for social scientists with little-to-no programming experience who wish to harness growing digital and computational resources. The focus of the course is on learning the basics of programming and on generating reproducible research. Topics include coding concepts (e.g., data structures, control structures, functions, etc.), data visualization, data wrangling and cleaning, version control software, exploratory data analysis, etc. Students will leave the course with basic programming skills for the social sciences and will gain the knowledge of how to adapt and expand these skills as they are presented with new questions, methods, and data. The course is taught in R. Requirements: At least one prior course that made use of a programming language (e.g., Python, R, Stata, SPSS, etc.) in some capacity. If you are unsure or had some informal exposure, email the instructor to see if the course is a good fit.
Instructor(s): Jean Clipperton Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): MACS students have priority.
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 20500, SOCI 20278, ENST 20550, SOSC 26032, PLSC 30235, MACS 30500, SOCI 40176, CHDV 30511, PSYC 30510
MAPS 30511. Methods & Problems in Moral History. 100 Units.
This is a new course that will split its attention between two related sets of methodological problems: 1) how do historians reconstruct ethical change in the past, 2) how do empirically-minded historians weigh in on ethical and moral problems? Is there a viable space to judge the past, or is it intrinsically ahistorical to introduce ethical evaluation into our interpretations? The course will be methodological in orientation, ranging over various topics, which are likely to include slavery and abolition, rules of warfare, and questions of political authority.
Instructor(s): McCallum, John Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 30600. MA Writing and Research. 100 Units.
Student initiated research and writing for the MA thesis.
Instructor(s): Jon Rogowski Terms Offered: Spring Winter
MAPS 30620. The Trouble with Carbon. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Bright, Damien Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 30635. Advanced Reading in Ocean Studies. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Bright, Damien Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31101. Genealogies of Environmental Organizing and Activism. 100 Units.
This course explores how organizations-civic, private, governmental-working in the field of environmental advocacy construct, deploy and are shaped by distinct discourses governing relationships between nature and society. The environment is a field of social action in which organizations attempt to effect change in large domains like resource conservation, access, stewardship, and a basic right to environmental quality in everyday life. The work of effecting change in these complex domains can assume a variety of forms including public policy (through the agencies of the state), private enterprise (through the agency of the market), 'third sector' advocacy (through the agency of nonprofit organizations) and social activism (through the agency of social movements and community organizations). State, market, civil society and social movement organizations are where ideas are transmitted from theory to practice and back again in a recursive, dialectical process. These contrasting forms of organization have different histories, wellsprings and degrees of social power. Moreover, they bring different epistemologies to their claims about being legitimate custodians of nature-that is to say they can be understood genealogically. As such, organizations working to effect environment change are at once animated by and constitutive of distinct discourses governing the relationships between nature and society. The course explores how those distinct discourses are associated with a suite of different organizational realms of social action; the goal is trying to connect the dots between discursive formations and organizational forms.
Instructor(s): Mary Beth Pudup Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 21501, ENST 21501, GLST 21501, CEGU 31501, SSAD 41501, CEGU 21501, HMRT 21501
MAPS 31403. But Does It Scale? Ethnographic Inquiry in Virtual, Technical, and Speculative Worlds. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): Bright, Damien Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 31404. More than Human Ethnography. 100 Units.
In this course we explore the fields of more-than-human and 'multispecies' ethnography. We examine theoretical antecedents promoting the inclusion of non-human actors in ethnographic analysis and read examples of such work, including foundational texts on more-than-human engagements, exploitations, and dependencies by Deborah Bird Rose, Kim Tallbear, Eduardo Kohn, and Anna Tsing among others. We consider the role other species, 'actants' and assemblages played in early social science work and contemplate recent studies of "becoming with" animals, plants, fungi, bacteria-encountering complex symbioses, examining naturalcultural borders, and querying the role of decolonial thought and queer ecologies in the 'more-than' turn. Multispecies and posthumanist approaches encourage a decentering of traditional method; we couple ethnographic examples with literature by biologists, physicists, and philosophers. The is a discussion-based seminar with significant time devoted to logistical elements of 'more than' work-to querying how such studies are conducted in practice. The final paper takes the form of an exploratory essay based on observations collected during previous weeks.
Instructor(s): Wilhoit, Mary Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 33807, ANTH 21426, GNSE 21404, GNSE 31404
MAPS 31405. Neoliberalism, Self and Society. 100 Units.
Drawing on ethnography and cultural theory, this course examines the profound impact of neoliberal ideology on the everyday lives of individuals and communities across the globe. We will explore the ways neoliberalism, the idea that the mechanisms of free markets naturally precipitate economic growth and thus societal progress, shapes institutions, social norms, and, most importantly, individuals' understandings of themselves and others. Students will analyze the penetration of market logics into spheres of social life far beyond what used to be understood as "the marketplace," such as education, politics and governance, healthcare, and the family. They will reflect on the effects of market logics on lived realities, both in material and ideological terms. As unfettered global markets produce growing inequality and insecurity, neoliberal tenets valorizing competition and productivity tell those who suffer from and witness such negative effects that they are unavoidable; the result of some people working harder and being better than others. This course will question neoliberalism's normative assumptions, drawing on ethnographic accounts of contemporary life in various regions and contexts across the globe. Students will end the course with an understanding of neoliberalism as an ideology and the ability to engage in discussions on neoliberalism that have emerged recently in the qualitative social sciences.
Instructor(s): Gross, Tori Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 21405, ANTH 31405
MAPS 31450. American Spectacle. 100 Units.
Spectacles have shocked, awed, delighted, and horrified Americans for centuries-seemingly all at once. This class reexamines American history through the lens of spectacle in its many guises: the scientific, violent, technological, and political. We explore how these various iterations have not only coexisted over time but also intersected, reinforced, and-at times-complicated each other. We will ask how these overlapping spectacles shaped and continue to shape the United States by underwriting and innovating race, class, gender, and statecraft. Is spectacle foundational to the United States? How does it bridge individual lived experience and sociopolitical and economic abstractions? Running from the early modern Atlantic World to the present, we conclude by asking whether the digital age has made spectacle ubiquitous, and at what cost.
Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 38815, HIST 28815, MADD 28815, MAPS 21450
MAPS 31455. Crises in American Democracy. 100 Units.
This course will examine a series of crises in the history of American democracy, from the contested origins of self-government in the 18th century to the present. We will consider direct, existential threats to democracy on multiple scales, from the racist coup d'etat of Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 to the global antidemocratic insurgencies of the mid-20th century, along with subtler crises of intellectual confidence and self-justification within democracy. Readings will focus on concrete historical experience in the United States, but we will also make interdisciplinary forays into the political science of democratic deconsolidation and the normative theory of democracy, and will consider international contexts as crucial to the evolution of popular sovereignty in the United States.
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 31498. Historical Methods for the Social Sciences. 100 Units.
This interdisciplinary methods course explores the problems, questions, pragmatic concerns, and challenges that arise in "doing history," as well as the various historical methods that might be employed in all manner of social science research. We will read a range of scholarship from history, anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences theory to think about how various historical methods-such as working with archival sources, marginalization and erasure, materiality, crafting a narrative, and problematizing incomplete data, among other limitations-can be applied in both historical research and other social science disciplines. This course counts for the MAPSS methods requirement.
Instructor(s): Lyons, Dierdre Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 31499. If Books Could Kill: Methods for Critical Social Science Thinking. 100 Units.
This course has a basic premise: bad social science research abounds. At the same time ordinary Americans like to imagine academics as siloed in "ivory towers," the reality is that the public is constantly exposed to social sciences-often done poorly. This interdisciplinary methods class looks at examples of social science research gone wrong and its effects on the broader public that has swallowed it whole across a variety of fields, including history, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, and economics. Looking at "bad" research juxtaposed with exemplary work on the same topic, you will learn both how to sharpen your critical tools to read popular social science work against the grain and how to fix such work with disastrous social effects by bringing multiple disciplines together.
Instructor(s): Hoffmann, Alex Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 31500. Historical Methods. 100 Units.
This course is an exploration of interrelated questions, problems, challenges and provocations involved in the practice of "doing" history. We will explore a range of ways that historians have approached the practice over the past 40 years, utilizing prominent works of history as well as methodological and theoretical readings. The course seeks to provide students with a greater depth of knowledge about potential ways of practicing history and what determines the methodological choices we make. In the process, students will become more skilled at using the methodological, theoretical, conceptual and practical tools required to formulate and execute a substantial historical research project. Assignments will allow students to explore their subject of interest and begin developing a thesis project
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Open to MAPSS students only and undergraduates with consent.
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 21500
MAPS 31501. The Craft of History. 100 Units.
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to professional historical methods, with a dual focus on contemporary historiographical trends and hands-on practice with archival material. Students will read one recent book each week and will use classroom discussions to consider how the text fits into larger arguments and trends in the field. Students will also work collaboratively to examine published, digital, and manuscript archives relating to a cluster of topics to be determined in the first two weeks of the quarter. Advanced undergraduates, particularly students with a strong interest in archival research, may enroll with instructor permission.
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 31503. Sarah Baartman through Schitt's Creek:an Introduction to Gender and Popular Culture. 100 Units.
Throughout the twentieth century, scholars from Simone de Beauvoir through Judith Butler have argued that genders are learned, enacted and ascribed identities, worked out through interaction. As such, the production of 'gender' is carried out to some extent in relation to cultural models and artifacts that people use to make sense of, model and reject gendered identities, characteristics and roles. This course takes popular culture, including film, television, literature and social media, as a starting point for understanding the often taken-for granted characteristics deemed gendered in Western culture and elsewhere. Attending to race, class, sexuality, age and other social categorizations throughout, we will draw on representation and cultural theory as well as ethnographic works, mingling a close reading of theorists such as Erving Goffman and bell hooks with detailed attention to the latest reality show or trending hashtag. While we will focus primarily on the most widely disseminated and economically powerful imagery, we will also attend to alternative, resistant and activist media. This is an introductory graduate-level course; graduate students at all levels are invited to join, selected spots are reserved for advanced undergraduates.
Instructor(s): Mary Elena Wilhoit Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergrad cap at 5
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 31503, ANTH 32930, GNSE 21503
MAPS 31504. Ethnographic Approaches to Power and Resistance. 100 Units.
This introductory graduate course will examine understandings of power articulated by influential political theorists and ethnographers. We will explore key theoretical concepts, including discipline, governmentality, sovereignty, hegemony, agency, and resistance, as well as their application within textured, intersubjective, and affectively oriented ethnographic texts. Seeing power grounded in tentative and unstable practices, we will focus on the tensions between nation-states, informal networks, and the actions and aspirations of individual subjects. How are attempts to consolidate power articulated in performances, narrative histories, and acts of exclusion and violence? How are competing de facto and de jure powers negotiated in various spaces ranging from the institutional to the intimate? The centrality of both physical violence and the complacency born of the naturalized hegemony of political institutions and economic rationality will arise in our examinations of political mobilization and possibility. This course will give students opportunities to develop conceptual understandings of various modes of power that offer insights into the forces of colonialism, global interconnectivity, and violence that shape the 21st century world.
Instructor(s): Victoria Gross Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34730, ANTH 22765
MAPS 31506. The Anthropology of Bodily Modification. 100 Units.
From the urge to dye one's hair through the desire to reshape the body entirely, humans have desired to modify their corporeal forms throughout documented history. This is, in fact, one disposition or ability that seemingly sets humans apart from many cousin species. But our processes of bodily modification are also intrinsically cultural-one person's adornment is another's mutilation. In this class we examine bodily modification practices cross-culturally, studying the mundane and the extreme, from shaving to tattooing to neck-lengthening to medically unnecessary amputation. We examine gendered forms, from makeup to Botox to foot-binding, and we interrogate racialized and post-colonial practices, such as hair straightening, skin-bleaching, and plastic surgery. We will trace desires for bodily modification across time and space and consider the body as the earliest canvas, examining the very earliest evidence of bodily adornment, which appears to predate so-called cave painting. In short, we will attempt to historicize, contextualize and give meaning to cross-cultural behaviors of bodily modification, using ethnographic texts, cultural theory and historical and archaeological evidence.
Instructor(s): Mary Elena Wilhoit Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This is an introductory graduate level course; undergraduates are welcome with instructor consent.
MAPS 31508. The Collective Self: Critical Reflections on Coming Together and Breaking Apart. 100 Units.
This course will examine the historical contingencies and ideological underpinnings of concepts and practices of identity, understood most broadly as delineations between self and other. Starting with understandings of individual and collective personhood developed in enlightenment philosophical discourse, entrenched in the modern nation-state, and expanded through the violence of colonialism, we will trace the production and reproduction of interconnected forms of identity - ethnic, cultural, national, and religious - in practices of boundary making that always remain incomplete. Grounded in the humanistic social sciences and focused in particular on anthropology, this course will introduce seminal theories of identity and difference in order to provide a range of resources to help students interrogate allegiances articulated in the tones and textures of everyday life, as well as in modern-day eruptions of large-scale violence.
Instructor(s): Tori Gross Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31510. World War II: Knowledge, Power, and Decisions. 100 Units.
World War II claimed tens of millions of lives and mobilized the economic, political, and moral resources of every inhabited continent. A reasonable observer could call it the most complex event in history; the Regenstein Library lists 38,382 entries on the topic, in 78 languages. Yet for all its immensity the conflict unfolded in just 2,194 days. That is to say: writers with the benefit of hindsight have produced more than 17 books or reports for every day that the war lasted. How did people make sense of it in real time? This course focuses on problems of information and decision-making in the global catastrophe of the 1940s, with attention to the formation, authentication, and contestation of knowledge that informed the choices of everyone involved-from the commanding heights of Franklin Roosevelt's "map room" to the desperate calculations of refugees. Topics will include the assessment of totalitarian threats in the western democracies, the "socialist calculation problem" in the context of total war mobilization, censorship and propaganda, and the nature of moral knowledge.
Instructor(s): McCallum, John Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 37202
MAPS 31520. History and Social Scientific Explanation. 100 Units.
History is a literary art, a political pursuit, and a popular preoccupation. Is it also a science? This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the social scientific study of the past, with a focus on interdisciplinary efforts to explain the contemporary world in terms of the longue durée. The course is designed to offer MA students in history an opportunity to reflect on their discipline's place within social science, and to give students in other fields a chance to explore the temporal dimensions of their own research. The course is organized to run in parallel with "Perspectives in Social Science Analysis," and readings have been selected to be put in dialog with the themes discussed in that class. Non-MAPSS students are welcome to enroll with instructor permission, but will be encouraged to consult some additional texts.
Instructor(s): McCallum, John Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 31522. Education, Culture, and Power. 100 Units.
This course critically examines how power and culture operate within educational systems. This course will presume that education is not simply a neutral good that we must acquire to gain social mobility. Instead, educational systems are sites where power is enacted and where culture is learned (or suppressed). Thus, this course will ask important questions like: What type of education gets you power? What is the normative culture of education (schooling)? Do you need to perform a certain type of culture to accrue educational power? Who has power over educational systems? How is education wielded as a tool of power? Can educational systems be sites of challenging power? To answer these questions, we will read a range of educational scholars, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, and social theorists. We will pay particular attention to the many lines of difference that stratify educational systems, such as: race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, and disability.
Instructor(s): Cuddy, Maximilian Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 31522, SOCI 40264, EDSO 21522
MAPS 31527. Class Conflict: Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Marx. 100 Units.
Rising inequality, resurgent left- and right-wing populist movements, and the shifting political allegiances of various class groupings in American politics have left us once again to wonder about the relationship between class, politics, and civil conflict. This course will explore three foundational theories of class conflict, and their afterlives. We will look to understand both the primary sources and how these three theories have influenced how class is conceptualized and deployed in political debates. We will begin in the Greek world with Aristotle's attempt to provide a philosophical articulation of the class conflict and class interests which dominated in classical Greece. We will study Aristotle's diagnosis of causes and consequences of class conflict in Greece and his effort to offer a philosophically inflected solution for the declining Greek city-states. From there, we will turn to Niccolò Machiavelli's theory of the humors. His groundbreaking effort was the first to challenge the Aristotelian fear of class conflict and articulate a positive role for ongoing class-based dissension. Finally, we will turn to Karl Marx's epoch-making account of capitalism's effect on class politics. We will look beyond his famous account of the proletariat to consider his account of how capitalism transformed class in Europe, the place of class conflict in history, and whether this class analysis remains viable in given the transformations of capitalism.
Instructor(s): Smith, Max Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 31527, MAPS 21527
MAPS 31529. Reading Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. 100 Units.
Karl Marx's account of "those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails" remains one of the most influential yet contentious theories ever committed to paper. Often invoked in times of turmoil, his name has come to mean different things to different people. Yet it is not always clear in fact just what his theory is, doubtless in part because his writings are quite challenging to read. In this course, students will engage fundamentally with Marx's writings to gain a clear idea of his theory for themselves. We will do so by reading volume 1 of Marx's Capital as well as selections from volumes 2 and 3 and Theories of Surplus Value. We will approach Marx own his own terms, considering context and comparison with other highlights from the history of political economy only where they are relevant. Topics which we will address include Marx's view of "alienation", "commodity fetishism", and "class struggle", but also labor, employment, money, capital, profit, and crisis. We will be reading Paul Reiter's new translation of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 (Princeton 2024), which students must bring to every class. The course will be held in English and there are no prerequisites. But students should read Marx's short essay, "Wage Labor and Capital", to prepare in advance of our first meeting.
Instructor(s): Daniel Burnfin Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MAPH 36425, PHIL 26425, GRMN 26425, PHIL 36425, GRMN 36425
MAPS 31535. Measuring Behaviour: Building and Analyzing Cognitive Tasks in PsychoPy. 100 Units.
This course will introduce students to using computerized tasks to measure aspects of cognition such as memory, attention, and decision-making. Using the free open-source software PsychoPy, students will learn how to build experiments, and collect and analyze data. Students will be introduced to PsychoPy's visual Builder view, as well as more advanced task coding and customization using Python. Hands-on practical sessions will allow students to collect cognitive task data with their peers. In the final section of the course, we will learn how to clean and analyze the data we collected. This course will provide students with transferable skills for future PhD programs or careers in clinical research. Previous coding experience in Python is an asset but not necessary.
Instructor(s): Ceniti, Amanda Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31555. Historical Methods: Silence, Erasure, and Archival Imagination. 100 Units.
This course, which is primarily geared toward MA students embarking on thesis projects, explores the problems, questions, pragmatic concerns, and challenges that arise in "doing history," with particular attention paid to the problem of archival silences, erasures, and other source limitations. We will read a range of classic and emerging historical scholarship and examine assigned texts to fully assess the authors' methods: how was this work actually done? What questions did the author develop to frame their research? What sources did they use and how did the author navigate the problems of the archive? How does the work connect to wider debates or answer critical questions in the author's field? This course also addresses the pragmatic concerns of embarking on historical research. Students will have the opportunity to locate and evaluate potential sources for their research and critically grapple with the relevant historiography related to their projects through course assignments.
Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 31705. Neuroscience of Reward and Motivation. 100 Units.
This course will provide an overview of the brain's reward system. Students will become familiar with historical and current theoretical constructs of reward, including facets of motivation, anticipation, and pleasure, as well as their underlying neurobiology. We will understand the diverse experimental approaches that can be used to study reward function, including animal models, task-based neuroimaging (fMRI), computerized behavioural tasks, and clinical questionnaires. We will also discuss how the reward system is differentially affected in mental health conditions such as depression and substance use disorders, and the emerging interest in using reward as a biomarker and treatment target.
Instructor(s): Ceniti, Amanda Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31750. Data Analysis for Social Research. 100 Units.
The purpose of this course is help students build a solid foundation of statistical methods for social research and become proficient in using computer software for survey data analysis. Techniques acquired in this class are essential for social scientific research, and in graduate programs in sociology and professional schools such as social work, as well as job market positions which require basic to intermediate quantitative skills. Topics of this course range from the nuts and bolts of probability distributions and statistical inference to multivariate regression and its diagnostics. This course is intensive and moves pretty fast, and students are expected to work hard to have these skills "imprinted" in their minds. Further, students will have the opportunity to conduct a mini-research exercise in the second half of this course.
Instructor(s): Muh-Chung Lin Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 31800. Interpretive Methods in Political Theory. 100 Units.
A graduate-level survey of salient interpretive approaches to contemporary political thought, with attention to the constitution of politics as an object of theoretical knowledge, the role of historical tradition, and questions of agency and normative grounds. The course provides an introduction to historical, analytical, and critical theory methods. We will consider both effective current deployments and major critiques of the interpretive methods in question, as well as the broader issue of what work in the discipline can (or ought to) accomplish.
Instructor(s): Dawn Herrera Helphand Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 31800
MAPS 31801. The Practice of Political Theory. 100 Units.
This course will introduce students to several leading approaches in contemporary political theory as practiced in American political science departments. The courses' primary goal is to facilitate the study of the methodologies behind various approaches to political theory. In the course we will study the philosophical presuppositions that undergird various methods, some of the foundational texts in them, and more recent works that exemplify the approach. Ultimately, we will ask how we, as political theorists, might use and improve upon these methods in our own research, and what these methods can tell us about how political theory is practiced today. The course will include sections on history of political thought, critical theory, normative political thought, comparative political thought, and post-modernism among others. The course is designed to fulfill the MAPSS requirement for methods for students focusing on political theory. The course is open to undergraduates and non-mapss students by instructor's consent. It is ideal for any student considering or writing a BA or MA thesis in political theory or pursuing graduate education.
Instructor(s): Smith, Max Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 22160, PLSC 32080, MAPS 21801
MAPS 31803. Game Theory in Political Science and Policy Analysis. 100 Units.
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to game theory and its applications in political analysis. Through the utilization of mathematical tools and formal models, students will analyze a wide range of topics in politics, including electoral competition, special interest politics, political parties, bureaucratic delegation, coalition building, revolution and regime change, and democratic backsliding. By the end of the course, students will have gained a solid understanding of how game theoretic models can be used to analyze complex political phenomena in both democratic and authoritarian contexts.
Instructor(s): Qian, Juan Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31805. Survey and experimental methods in political science. 100 Units.
This is an introductory research design and methods course for graduate students who are interested in quantitative research methods - particularly survey and experimental approaches. We will focus on the ways in which political scientists collect, analyze, and interpret survey and experimental data. Students will learn about the fundamentals of research design and quantitative analysis, including theory building, measurement, hypothesis testing, as well as data cleaning, management, and analysis. Prior coursework in statistical methods or coding is not required and will be covered as part of the course.
Instructor(s): Proctor, Andrew Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 31805, PLSC 21805
MAPS 31903. Chinese Politics. 100 Units.
This course takes an in-depth look into Chinese political institutions and behaviors through a comparative perspective. It is divided into four modules. Module one overviews the historical development of the Chinese state and explores how its imperial legacies have shaped political norms and practices in the modern era. Module two examines the roles and functions of the PRC's major political institutions, including the Party, the central and local bureaucracy, the people's congresses, and the judiciary. We hope to understand how those institutions engage with each other in policymaking and implementation, and when tensions will arise among different agencies. Module three investigates three major "paradigm shifts" in modern Chinese politics, namely Mao's socialist transformation in 1949, Deng's reform and opening-up in 1978, and Xi's power consolidation since 2012. We will discuss the political and economic challenges those reforms aim to address, and their effects and consequences. Lastly, module four explores major governance challenges facing the Chinese regime, including corruption, censorship and propaganda, the disputes over Taiwan, among many others."
Instructor(s): Qian, Juan Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 31903
MAPS 31904. Politics and Legacies of Mao's China. 100 Units.
The 27-year rule of Chairman Mao Zedong (1949-1976) left a complicated and long-lasting legacy for modern China. How did Mao's political agenda and policies shape the modern Chinese state in the long run? Moreover, how did Mao's political legacies impact the political norms and institutions of contemporary China? This course aims to take a deeper look at major political campaigns and transformative policies in the Mao era, understand their objectives and consequences, and evaluate their long-term impacts on contemporary Chinese politics, economy, and society. By reading cutting-edge scholarly works by historians, political scientists, and economists, this course will guide students to contemplate whether Chinese politics in the reform era (1978 - present) marks a breakup from the pre-reform era, or a continuation of the latter. Overall, this course will enable students to gain a comprehensive understanding of the trajectory of Mao's China and its implications for the present era.
Instructor(s): Qian, Juan Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31906. The Search for Modern China: Statebuilding from the Late Qing Empire to the People's Republic. 100 Units.
This new course focuses on the statebuilding of modern China and its transformation from a traditional, multiethnic empire to a modern nation-state. Taking an institutionalist approach, we will examine how Chinese political elites in the 19th and 20th centuries attempted to build a centralized bureaucracy, manage and oversee local authorities, establish a nationwide tax regime, consolidate control over ethnic minorities and frontier territories, and foster a Chinese national identity. We will examine how these statebuilding efforts continue to influence the political landscape of contemporary China
Instructor(s): Qian, Juan Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 31910. Research Practicum: Labor and Identity Politics in the United States. 100 Units.
This research practicum is a "lab in the classroom" where students will execute a collaborative research project with Professor Proctor. The practicum is topically organized around the contemporary labor movement in the United States and the intersecting politics of sexuality, gender, and race. Students should have an interest in the topic. Together, we will come up with a research question, conduct a literature review, develop a theoretical framework, identify and analyze data to test the theory, and write an article length paper. The goal is to develop a co-authored manuscript for submission to a journal for publication, and students will have the opportunity to continue working on the project after winter quarter. Methodological training in qualitative or quantitative methods or concurrent enrollment in a methods course is ideal but not required. Preference is given to MA students but undergraduate and doctoral students are also welcome.
Instructor(s): Andrew Proctor Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent for enrollment. Quantitative or qualitative training pre-req or concurrent enrollment
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 21910, PLSC 31910
MAPS 31915. Representation, Power, and Identity Politics. 100 Units.
Are "identity politics" the new normal in American politics or has group conflict always formed the basis of democratic government? How do political parties represent diverse constituencies and demands? What is the relationship between a social movement and a political party? This seminar course will address these and other related questions, as we examine American political parties, representation, and the politics of "identity" in the United States. This course is designed to focus on the ways in which groups are represented in the American political party system; how inequality and marginalization are often entrenched and reinforced through political parties; and how political parties shape the mobilization of voters. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, class, religion and their intersections form the basis of what has come to be called "identity politics" by many pundits and politicians. In the first part of the course, we will engage an array of work in political science and other disciplines to learn about theories of representation, political power and collective action, and the structure and function of political parties, including how rules and reforms affect representation. We will also examine groups and identities as political and analytical concepts. The primary objective for this part is to develop a basic toolkit for understanding the inter-relationship between political parties and social groups.
Instructor(s): Proctor, Andrew Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 32000. Writing History: Methods of Narrative Analysis and Persuasion. 100 Units.
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to historical methodology, with an emphasis on the final stage of a research project: the escape from the archive and the transformation of empirical findings into narrative interpretation. Discussions will explore common strategies of revisionist argument, questions of genre and tone, methods of braiding thick description with causal analysis, and the fallacies and pitfalls that can derail historical work.
Instructor(s): McCallum, John Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 32201. Histories of Everyday Life. 100 Units.
Butts, birth certificates, pockets, cigarettes, parking spaces, franchises, light, shade, muzak: these are just a few of the seemingly banal things we come into contact with each day without much critical thought. And yet, each has become a conduit for how we see and make meaning from the world, especially in regards to race, gender, economics, and ecology. This course will examine the everyday for its radical meanings across corporeal, social, urban, and political landscapes.
Instructor(s): Hoffmann, Alexander Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 32900. Revising History: Modern American Case Studies. 100 Units.
How do historians change their mind? What kinds of evidence reverse old judgments, how is error diagnosed, and how do new interpretations take root? When does "revisionism" give rise to lasting controversies, and when do scholars simply shrug off old debates and turn to new questions? This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the bread-and-butter of the professional historian: the constant reconsideration of the past as a provisional body of knowledge. Readings will be drawn from modern U.S. history and will explore a series of major case studies including recent reevaluations of populism, immigration, race and empire, conservative thought, economic inequality, and environmentalism. This course is open to advanced undergraduates with instructor consent and can fulfill the methods requirement for MAPSS students.
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Autumn
MAPS 33002. Introduction to Machine Learning. 100 Units.
This course requires Python programming experience. The course will train students to gain the fundamental skills of machine learning. It will cover knowledge and skills of of running with computational research projects from a machine learning perspective, including the key techniques used in standard machine learning pipelines: data processing (e.g., data cleaning, feature selection, feature engineering), classification models (e.g., logistic regression, decision trees, naive bayes), regression models (e.g., linear regression, polynomial regression), parameter tuning(e.g., grid-search), model evaluation (e.g., cross-validation, confusion matrix, precision, recall, and f1 for classification models; RMSE and Pearson correlation for regression models), and error analysis (e.g., data imbalance, bias-variance tradeoff). Students will learn simple and efficient machine learning algorithms for predictive data analysis as well as gain hands-on experience by applying machine learning algorithms in social science tasks. The ultimate goal of this course is to prepare students with essential machine learning skills that are in demand both in research and industry.
Instructor(s): Wang, Zhao Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Python programming experience required.
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 23002, MACS 33002, PLSC 43505
MAPS 33007. Schooling and Social Inequality. 100 Units.
How and why do educational outcomes and experiences vary across student populations? What role do schools play in a society's system of stratification? How do schools both contribute to social mobility and to the reproduction of the prevailing social order? This course examines these questions through the lens of social and cultural theory, engaging current academic debates on the causes and consequences of social inequality in educational outcomes. We will engage these debates by studying foundational and emerging theories and examining empirical research on how social inequalities are reproduced or ameliorated through schools. Through close readings of historical, anthropological and sociological case studies of schooling in the U.S, students will develop an understanding of the structural forces and cultural processes that produce inequality in neighborhoods and schools, how they contribute to unequal opportunities, experiences, and achievement outcomes for students along lines of race/ethnicity, class, gender, and immigration status, and how students themselves navigate and interpret this unequal terrain. We will cover such topics as neighborhood and school segregation; peer culture; social networks; elite schooling; the interaction between home, society and educational institutions; and dynamics of assimilation for students from immigrant communities.
Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered autumn 2024
Note(s): This course is open only to students pursuing the MAPSS Education Certificate. This course is consent-only.
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 33006, EDSO 33006, SOCI 30298
MAPS 33009. Research Practice Partnerships in Education. 100 Units.
Research and data are vital for educational improvement, yet researchers often wonder why their findings are not used in practice while policymakers and practitioners long for useful information to guide their work. Research-practice partnerships provide a mechanism for producing research that is relevant to decision-making and useful to practice. They focus research on questions that are immediately pressing to practice, incorporate practitioner knowledge, and communicate findings in ways that are attentive to the broader political context in which educators work. In this class, we will examine the ways in which data and research are used in policy and practice. We will consider the various conceptual models that exist around the production and use of research, and the realities of how those models operate in practice. We will learn about different approaches to conducting research-practice partnerships, and examine particular examples of work-considering how the work was done, what was learned, and how the research was used in policy or practice. The course will also consider the challenges involved in developing and maintaining research-practice partnerships, and structures that can facilitate the work.
Instructor(s): Elaine Allensworth Terms Offered: Spring. Offered 2021-22
Prerequisite(s): It is recommended that students take Introductory Statistics or a research methods course concurrent with or prior to this course.
Note(s): Students will find it helpful to have prior knowledge of education policy, and a basic understanding of research methods and policy evaluation.
Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 33009, EDSO 23009
MAPS 33501. Gender, Sex, and Empire. 100 Units.
This course examines the complex and contested relationships between gender, sex, sexuality, social organization and power in histories of (primarily British) imperialism and colonialism from the early conquests in the New World through the twentieth century. Employing insights from gender history, postcolonial studies and feminist theory, we look at a broad range of historical case studies to explore themes such as the intersectionality of race, class and gender; the instability of gender ideologies; how power was articulated through the categories of gender and sexuality; the politics of intimacy; and the regulation and 'improvement' of colonial bodies. Our goal is to better understand the ways that gender, sex, sexuality and Western imperialism were co-constitutive in distinctive colonial contexts, and the ways that techniques of power were borrowed, adapted and homogenized across the Western imperial world in response to changing political and economic imperatives.
Instructor(s): Darcy Heuring Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25706, HIST 23308, GNSE 33501
MAPS 33502. Gender, Sex, and Culture. 100 Units.
This introductory graduate course examines the social construction of gendered identities in different times and places. We study culturally-specific gendered experiences, 'roles,' rights and rebellions around the world, discussing the individual and social consequences of gender and the interrelationships between gender and other categories for identity including race, class and sexuality. While focusing on the global diversity of gendered experience and expectations, we also examine gender in the US, taking a critical approach to understanding gendered inequality and gender-based and sexual violence both abroad and at home. Finally, we examine the role of gendered expectations in Western science, the relationship between gender and 'globalization,' and the contemporary movements affecting change in gendered norms, especially in the arts and media. Advanced Undergraduates admitted with Instructor consent.
Instructor(s): Mary Elena Wilhoit Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Advanced Undergraduates admitted with Instructor consent.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 25216, ANTH 32925, GNSE 23506, GNSE 33506
MAPS 33506. Ethnographic Research Methods. 100 Units.
This introductory graduate-level course examines the principal methodologies of ethnographic research. We study the development of ethnography over the last 150 years and practice varying methods of ethnographic analysis, including participant observation, structured and unstructured interviewing, life or oral history, and thematic coding. We examine emergent forms of ethnographic representation including film ethnography, sensual and aural studies, and graphic ethnography, and devote significant time to exploring the traditions of testimonio and autoethnography. Lastly, we examine the advent and affordances of digital ethnography and consider and the application of ethnographic research and writing outside the academy. Discussion will center ethical engagement and intersubjective meaning throughout, as we consider both the 'stakes' of ethnographic work and how ethnographic information is inductively analyzed and used to craft and substantiate arguments. Beginning in week one, students will design their own research project, which they will collect data towards weekly; the final paper in the course will ideally involve analysis of this data.
Instructor(s): Mary Elena Wilhoit Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 30321
MAPS 33508. Anthropology of Power, Status, and Performance. 100 Units.
This introductory graduate course examines the nature of power and status through the theoretical lens of performativity. We will engage with notions of performativity, articulated by influential theorists of linguistics, gender, and religion, that demonstrate the abilities of performances to effect change in the world. Thinking with performativity, we will interrogate practices of negotiating power and status in a broad range of social, political, and geographical contexts. How is the power made and unmade through particular acts? How is status, a particular type of power differentiation, created collectively and individually through acts of saying and doing? Such questions will animate our explorations of power and status in recent ethnographies focused on Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
Instructor(s): Victoria Gross Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 22770, ANTH 34735, ANTH 22770
MAPS 33510. The Sociology of Racism. 100 Units.
This course seeks to give students a rigorous introduction to the sociological subfield of the study of race over the last roughly 100 years - with a specific focus on how scholars have theorized racism(s). Moving chronologically, we will begin in the early to mid 20th century with ideas of race relations and race as a social construction, move to ethnic assimilation and racial formation, racial attitudes, and then to racialized social systems and colorblind racism. Alongside this trajectory, we will read critical scholarship that troubles the more mainstream scholarly understandings of racism in each period. We will end by exploring contemporary ways scholars are pushing the subfield forward.
Instructor(s): Cuddy, Maximilian Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20603, RDIN 33510, SOCI 30603, RDIN 23510
MAPS 33550. Theme Park America. 100 Units.
Since the colonial era, Americans have obsessively created recreational themed spaces that manifested historical myths and memories in the built environment. This course considers the evolution, functions, and ethics of the American desire to visit the past as a form of leisure. Starting with early themed spaces such as world's fairs, amusement parks, and cityscapes, we examine how scholars have read cultural phenomena for their radical contemporary significance. We then apply these tools to examine how Disneyland combined, redefined, and heightened its themed space antecedents and to what ends. We will learn how to decode Disneyland's messages about race, gender, capitalism, and the American experience that are embedded within the park's design, architecture, attractions, shows, sounds, and smells. How did such views of the past, present, and future speak to the social, political, and economic needs and wants of Cold War Americans, and why do they continue to resonate today? How should we understand themed spaces as a lens for U.S. history as experienced by contemporary Americans? By interrogating the themed space form, we will explore the nature of historical memory, the responsibilities of public history, and the ethics of constructing a recreational past. In doing so, we will learn how to take the seemingly frivolous matters of history seriously-and the dire stakes for doing so.
Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MADD 18814, CHST 28814, HIST 38814, HIST 28814
MAPS 33555. Empires and Colonies of the Atlantic World. 100 Units.
This graduate-level reading colloquium explores classic and emerging scholarship that examines the rise and consolidation of European overseas empires and colonies in the early modern Atlantic world (c.1400-1850). While we will analyze transatlantic European imperial structures, the course will pay particular attention to the perspectives of the colonized peoples (such as enslaved and freed people of African descent, creole populations, and Indigenous peoples) and places (such as the Caribbean, West Africa, Latin America, and North America) in the Atlantic World. Among the thematic topics we will discuss include: colonization; the rise of slavery and the slave trade; cross-cultural and political connections; the consolidation of race; gender, sexuality, and the family; the environment; the plantation complex; work and economy; social life; anti-colonial and anti-slavery struggles, revolution; abolition; and the reconstitution of colonial and imperial structures after slave emancipation. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.
Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 46455, HIST 29107, ANTH 26455, HIST 39107
MAPS 33600. War, Law, Norms: Violence and Its Limits. 100 Units.
Violent contention is ubiquitous in the human past, but so are ethical norms and legal rules which seek to put limits on permissible attacks against others. Do they work? Can scraps of paper, or collective conscience, put the brakes on a dynamic of destruction which would otherwise lead to unconstrained killing? This graduate colloquium will look at this fundamental question through the lens of a rapidly evolving historical literature on the laws and ethics of war, ranging from the arbitration of blood feuds in the Icelandic Sagas through the surprising influence of the much-derided 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war on the unfolding of 21st century history.
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergraduates by consent
MAPS 34512. Ethnographic Writing: Practices of Research and Representation. 100 Units.
This course gives students opportunities to develop their own craft of ethnography through hands-on research and writing and in-depth explorations of recent ethnographic work. Ethnography, "the writing of a people," by definition, refers to groups of people as its object and to processes through which an ethnographer attempts to represent such groups. It also refers to academic texts that are the product of an ethnographer's representational efforts. In this course, students will engage with ethnography multivalently - as research practice, analytical generalization, and literary product. We will reflect upon processes of representation through which ethnographers apply their findings to groups (implicitly or explicitly) and the choices and interpretations they make along the way. Some questions we will ask are: How does the ethnographer deploy particular signifiers, such as modes of communication, spatial and architectural configurations, and historical contexts to make arguments? How is language used to represent experience convincingly? With these questions in mind, we will approach book and article-length ethnographies focusing on four expansive themes - migration, global interconnectivity, nation-states, and neoliberalism. Our readings will inform students' development of their own ethnographic practices. This course will be especially helpful to MA and advanced undergraduate students engaged in the production of ethnographic theses.
Instructor(s): Victoria Gross Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 25720, ANTH 35720
MAPS 34513. Theoretical Approaches to Political Anthropology: Sovereignty, Authority, and Refusal. 100 Units.
This course will explore understandings of power and its production articulated by ethnographers and political theorists whose work has been influential in anthropology. We will focus on competing claims to sovereignty and authority that reveal the tentative, emergent, and contingent nature of power. Spanning various regions, the course content will elucidate the tensions between nation-states, informal/illegal networks, and the actions and aspirations of individual subjects. Some of the questions we will raise include: What are the roles of performances, narratives, and acts of exclusion and violence in the making of sovereignty and authority? How are competing de facto and de jure forms of power negotiated in various spaces ranging from the institutional to the intimate? The centrality of both physical violence and the complacency born of naturalized political institutions and economic rationality will arise in our examinations of political mobilization and possibility. This course will give students opportunities to develop conceptual understandings of various modes of power that offer insights into the forces of colonialism, global interconnectivity, and politics that shape the 21st century world. As this is a methodology course (fulfilling the MAPSS requirement), students will spend substantial class time reflecting upon the theoretical approaches of contemporary ethnographers and developing their own theoretical approaches to their thesis projects.
Instructor(s): Gross, Victoria
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 22750, ANTH 34725
MAPS 35000. Artificial Intelligence, Human Condition, Human Capacities. 100 Units.
This seminar course will engage students from multiple disciplines in critically reflecting upon the current advancements in artificial intelligence with their implications for the human condition and human capabilities. The first group of readings will incorporate classical works by thinkers such as Hanna Arendt, Norbert Wiener, and Karl Jaspers on the human condition, and Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's works on human capacities. The second group of readings will include contemporary research papers from computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, anthropology, economics, and philosophy. Students will be asked to develop their own perspective and methodology to engage with and relate the two groups of readings, further develop their literature on the topic, and write a final research paper on the human condition in the age of AI.
Instructor(s): Eugene Yu Ji Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 25002, FNDL 25004, KNOW 35002, COGS 35000, COGS 25000, MAPH 35000
MAPS 35503. Sex and the Ethnographic Tradition. 100 Units.
This course examines the role sex has played in the formation of ethnographic knowledge, with particular attention to how studies of sex have challenged static notions of identity and illuminated the complex relationship between social behavior and gendered sense of self. We will consider interest in sex as a motivating factor in the ethnographic enterprise and, reading studies on everything from desire, kink, and play to procreation, heritance and power, will examine complex and social construction of sexed, gendered, and raced selves and Others. How has ethnographic research contested the ubiquitous salience of male/female dichotomies, of patriarchy, and of the cross-cultural, trans-historical applicability of concepts like 'third gender? We will also take a methodological eye, querying how sex has moved from a supposedly 'taboo' category of social inquiry to a focal topic in ethnographic work of all kinds. This is an introductory graduate level course with select spots for advanced undergraduates.
Instructor(s): Wilhoit, Ella Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 33168, ANTH 25222, GNSE 23168, ANTH 35503
MAPS 36001. Computational Methods Using Online Social Media Data. 100 Units.
This course will discuss a broad range of computational social science topics that leverage large-scale data from online communication platforms to gain insights into social issues. We will start from collecting and processing data from social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, IMDB, Airbnb, Yelp), and then introduce computational research topics that include but are not limited to: sentiment analysis, deceptive marketing, recommendation system, fake news detection, spam detection, bot detection, demographic inference, public health, political attitude analysis, personality and behavior analysis, and cyberbullying. We will use version control techniques (e.g., git, Github) to keep track of the class projects. The ultimate goal of this course is to provide a broad introduction of computational social science research areas and train students to be familiar with the pipelines of doing computational research.
Instructor(s): Wang, Zhao Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 26000, MACS 36000
MAPS 36035. Approaches to Social Science Research Design. 100 Units.
This course explores critical foundations of social science research design. The course will place emphasis on how social scientists identify and create data to empirically examine social phenomena. The course will cover the relationship between research questions, design, and generating data across different methodological and epistemological approaches in the social sciences.
Instructor(s): Proctor, Andrew Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 26035, SOCI 28099, GLST 26035, SOSC 26035
MAPS 36405. Biopsychosocial Approaches to Depression. 100 Units.
Depression is a common mental health condition that is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Using a biopsychosocial lens, this course will discuss the etiology, presentation, and treatment of this condition with a focus on clinical research principles and experimental design in psychiatry. Students will become familiar with relevant neurotransmitter systems and brain structure/function; psychological and cognitive correlates; and social contributors. We will discuss the substantial heterogeneity of depression, as well as recent efforts in precision psychiatry to identify subtypes of depression that share similar characteristics and may respond to treatment in similar ways. Finally, students will become familiar with current and emerging treatment strategies, including pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and neurostimulation.
Instructor(s): Ceniti, Amanda Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 36450. Marriage and Family. 100 Units.
Marriage and the family are two important building blocks in many societies. Marriage and the family not only constitute essential parts of an individual's inner world, shape his or her perspectives towards life and the outside world, they also have far reaching effects on an individual's well-being, ranging from physical and mental health, income and wealth, to his or her integration to the social network and community. This course aims to introduce students to the sociological literature on marriage and the family. We will cover stages through which a romantic relationship evolves over time, from dating and courtship, sexual relationship to cohabitation and marriage, as well as divorce and widowhood. We will also discuss socioeconomic differences in childrearing practices, kinship, and social stratification and the family. This course focuses largely on patterns in the contemporary U.S. society, and yet we will also explore their historical roots and international differences.
Instructor(s): Muh-Chung Lin Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 36450
MAPS 36455. Relationships and Health: The Need to Belong. 100 Units.
This seminar will explore the theory that the need to belong is a fundamental human motivation. In our discussions of relevant psychology journal articles, we will examine the connections between relationships and health, how the need to belong is related to empathy, reactions to rejection, and substitutes for belonging.
Instructor(s): Hamilton, Hannah Terms Offered: Autumn Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PSYC 36455, MAPS 26455, CHDV 36455
MAPS 36601. Watergate and American Democracy. 100 Units.
Contemporary American history begins with the Watergate crisis and the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency. But how does Watergate fit into the wider fabric of American history? This course considers the implications of Watergate for American democracy in a wider chronological perspective, beginning with the revolutionary generation's ambivalence about monarchical power and ending with the legacies of Nixon's scandal for his successors
Instructor(s): John McCallum Terms Offered: Spring
MAPS 37201. Interrogating the Archive(s): Research Methods for Historical Thinking. 100 Units.
This seminar interrogates the concepts, theories, and practices of the archive from a historical perspective. History is in many ways a discipline defined by a set of questions rather than a singular approach. We will begin by analyzing how historians do the work of interpreting sources to construct historical narratives and arguments. Examining archival theory, its lapses, and its possibilities, we will determine what characteristics make an archive and how we can historicize it as an object of inquiry in its own right. We will then tackle a representative sample of the types of sources and archives you are most likely to engage as a researcher. Looking at how people have archived written ephemera, material culture, photographs, film, music, urban space, and the internet, we will pair the specific theoretical concerns of a given source type's archiving with practical examples of how historians have explicitly mediated, transcended, or succumbed to the experience of the archive: its structure, its customs, its absences, and more. You will gain an understanding of the mechanics of archival work for a historian as well as an appreciation for the complexity of historical thinking. By the end of the quarter, you will learn how to reconcile archival theory with the realities of research and the practice of history in order to become better, more ethical, and more rigorous researchers.
Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Undergraduate Consent Required
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 37201
MAPS 39000. Longitudinal Research. 100 Units.
This course will introduce students to longitudinal research methods used in psychological research. This includes both the design of longitudinal studies and the use of statistical techniques to analyze longitudinal data. Students will gain experience with reading longitudinal research reports using longitudinal data and develop the skills necessary to conduct and report on their own longitudinal research.
Instructor(s): Hamilton, Hannah Terms Offered: Winter
MAPS 39108. Atlantic Empires. 100 Units.
This course explores classic and emerging scholarship on European empires and colonies in the early modern Atlantic world (c. 1400s-1800s). We will examine the rise and consolidation of empires and colonies through comparative, trans, and circum-Atlantic approaches. Additionally, the course will pay particular attention to the perspectives of colonized peoples (such as enslaved and freed people of African descent, Creole populations, and Indigenous peoples). Geographically, the course will span the Atlantic World, including regions such as the Caribbean, West Africa, Latin America, and North America. Topics we will cover include the formation of empires and colonial systems; Atlantic slavery; the emergence of Atlantic ideologies of race; gender, and kinship; knowledge formation, environment, and disease; anti-slavery struggles, and the "Age of Revolution."
Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 39208, RDIN 29108, HIST 29108, RDIN 39108, HIST 39108
MAPS 39109. Sex, Gender, and Kinship: Colonial Perspectives. 100 Units.
This course analyzes the contested relationships between gender, sexuality, kinship, and western colonialism from the early modern period through the twentieth century. Drawing on historical case studies, feminist theory, and postcolonial studies, this course will cover a broad range of empires and colonies to explore the mutually constitutive relationship between colonization and ideologies and practices of gender, sex, and kinship. Analyzing case studies predominately from the Atlantic World (with attention to colonies elsewhere), we will explore topics such as the emergence of colonial gender ideologies, gender and colonial governance, family life and kinship strategies, the intersectionality of gender and sexuality with race and class, queerness and queer lives, the politics of sex work and reproduction, and gendered migrations across empires.
Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 29109, GNSE 23174, HIST 39109, HIST 29109, RDIN 39109, GNSE 39109
MAPS 40164. Involved Interviewing: Strategies for Interviewing Hard to Penetrate Communities and Populations. 100 Units.
Imagine that you must interview someone who hails from a background unlike your own; perhaps you need to interview an incarcerated youth, or gather a life history from an ill person. Maybe your task is to conduct fieldwork inside a community that challenges your comfort level. How do we get others to talk to us? How do we get out of our own way and limited training to become fully and comfortably engaged in people and the communities in which they reside? This in-depth investigation into interviewing begins with an assumption that the researcher as interviewer is an integral part of the research process. We turn a critical eye on the interviewer's role in getting others to talk and learn strategies that encourage fertile interviews regardless of the situational context. Weekly reading assignments facilitate students' exploration of what the interview literature can teach us about involved interviewing. Additionally, we critically assess our role as interviewer and what that requires from us. Students participate in evaluating interview scenarios that are designed to explore our assumptions, sharpen our interviewing skills and troubleshoot sticky situations. We investigate a diversity of settings and populations as training ground for leading effective interviews. The final project includes: 1) a plan that demonstrates knowledge of how to design an effective interviewing strategy for unique field settings; 2) instructor's feedback on students' personal journals on the role of.
Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett Terms Offered: Autumn Winter. Autumn-restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY. Winter restricted to graduate students ONLY.
Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20547, SOCI 40164
MAPS 40165. In-Depth Interviewing: Talk as Data. 100 Units.
This course is meant for students who have just started, or are soon planning to carry out, a qualitative research study that utilizes in-depth interviewing. This course will take a practical and hands-on approach to doing the work of listening to strangers. In addition to a brief, but rigorous, theoretical introduction to the methodology, this course will mainly be aimed at helping students collect their own rich interview data. This means that we will place the ability to problem solve research hiccups, dilemmas, and contingencies at the front and center. Along the way, our fieldwork will be supplemented by reading accessible guides by experienced qualitative scholars on the mechanics of interviewing. By the course's end, students will be expected to have collected, and begun to analyze, actual data in their research study.
Instructor(s): Cuddy, Maximilian Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 40265
MAPS 40177. Coding & Analyzing Qualitative Data using MAXQDA. 100 Units.
This focus of this course is on coding and analyzing qualitative data (e.g., interview transcripts, oral histories, focus groups, letters, and diaries, etc). In this hands-on-course students learn how to organize and manage text-based data in preparation for analysis and final report writing of small scale research projects. Students use their own laptop computers to access one of two free, open-source software programs available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. While students with extant interview data can use it for this course, those without existing data will be provided text to code and analyze. This course does not cover commercial CAQDAS, such as AtlasTi, NVivo, The Ethnograph or Hypertext.
Instructor(s): S. Hicks-Bartlett Terms Offered: Spring Winter. Winter restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors only and MAPS students only. Spring restricted to graduate students only.
Prerequisite(s): Ugrad Level restricted to 4th and 3rd year Sociology Majors ONLY
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 40177, SOCI 20548
MAPS 40401. Computation and the Identification of Cultural Patterns. 100 Units.
Culture is increasingly becoming digital, making it more and more necessary for those in both academia and industry to use computational strategies to effectively identify, understand, and (in the case of industry) capitalize on emerging cultural patterns. In this course, students will explore interdisciplinary approaches for defining and mobilizing the concept of "culture" in their computational analyses, drawing on relevant literature from the fields of Anthropology, Psychology and Sociology. Additionally, they will receive hands-on experience applying computational approaches to identify and analyze a wide range of cultural patterns using the Python programming language. For instance, students will learn to identify emerging social movements using social media data, predict the next fashion trends, and even decipher ancient symbols using archaeological databases.
Instructor(s): Clindaniel, Jon Terms Offered: Autumn Winter
Prerequisite(s): No previous coding experience required. A Python boot camp will be held at the beginning of the quarter to teach the coding skills necessary to succeed in the course. Open to Advanced Undergraduates with Instructor Permission.
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 40404, MACS 20400, PSYC 40460, MACS 40400
MAPS 49800. Research Experience: Psychology Lab. 000 Units.
All MAPSS and MACSS students with a confirmed Psychology lab placement will be pre-registered. Students should contact Sabrina Biggus (sbiggus@uchicago.edu) to specify the lab placement they have. This course does not count as one of the three for-credit courses you must take each quarter to maintain full-time status in your MA program.
Instructor(s): Jon Rogowski Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 49800
MAPS 51818. Radical Therapies. 100 Units.
In a context of heightened awareness of global crises and injustice on many fronts-covid, the war in Ukraine, energy, economy, climate change, systemic racism-we see a widespread preoccupation with trauma and healing. In academia and the arts, projects about trauma and care proliferate. This course will examine a selection of therapeutic practices: in terms of how they shape interpersonal dynamics, in and beyond self-other, subject-object relations, and of how they challenge, or rethink, the very notions of therapy, care and cure. We bring three distinct perspectives to these issues, from anthropology, philosophy, and artistic practice. Radical Therapies comes out of our respective fascinations and engagements with therapeutic practices, from the margins of clinical frameworks to the distinctly left field, sometimes at the limits of plausibility. We will be working with texts, films and embedded, often embodied perspectives gleaned from fieldwork, our own and others'. Questions we will be addressing include: the meaning of care and cure; the dynamics of what psychoanalysis calls transference, the "telepathic" entanglement of agents in the therapeutic relation; the embeddedness of therapy in social and political contexts; and the aesthetics of the therapeutic relationship, in the sense of how therapies aim to make something perceptible through different modes of thought, perception and sensation.
Instructor(s): Mazzarella
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 53818
ECMA 30750. The Theory of Market Design. 100 Units.
This course will provide an introduction to social choice, two-sided matching, house allocation, school choice, and the recent theoretical developments in kidney exchange. We will develop formal, mathematical language to evaluate and compare different mechanisms including deferred acceptance, top trading cycles, the probabilistic serial mechanism and others. Our approach will be axiomatic; we will explore the tradeoff between the efficiency, incentive compatibility and fairness in the design of mechanisms. This course will be proof-based, so is appropriate for advanced students acquainted with formal mathematical reasoning.
Instructor(s): J. Root Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ECON 20100/20110 and MATH 20300/20310/20700
ECMA 30760. Introduction to Economic Design. 100 Units.
When designing institutions like voting systems, auctions, market regulations, and matching mechanisms, planners are constrained by the fact that information and power is dispersed among the participants. The potential for participants to behave strategically or to establish alternative institutions limits the planner's ability to achieve their goals. This course offers an introduction to the literature in economic theory that explores these issues. We adopt an axiomatic approach, employing mathematics to articulate and analyze the planners' objectives and constraints. This course is proof-based, so is appropriate for students comfortable with formal mathematical reasoning.
Instructor(s): J. Root Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 20100/20110 and MATH 20300/20310/20700
Note(s): Students may count either ECMA 30750 or ECMA 30760, but not both, toward the 42 credits required for graduation.
ECMA 30770. Decision and Strategy. 100 Units.
This course provides a formal introduction to game theory with applications in economics. We will study models of how individuals make decisions, and how those decisions are shaped by strategic concerns and uncertainty about the world. The topics will include the theory of individual choice, games of complete and incomplete information, and equilibrium concepts such as Nash equilibrium. The applications will include oligopoly, auctions, and bargaining. The course is appropriate for advanced undergraduates who are interested in a rigorous mathematical approach to understanding human behavior.
Instructor(s): B. Brooks Terms Offered: TBD
Prerequisite(s): Prerequsites for Undergraduates: ECON 20100/ECON 20110 and MATH 20300/MATH 20310/MATH 20700, or consent of instructor
Note(s): Student may count only one of [ECON 10700 or ECON 20700 or ECON 20770/ECMA 30770] toward the 42 credits required for graduation.
Equivalent Course(s): ECON 20770
ECMA 30780. Decision and Strategy II. 100 Units.
We continue the formal introduction to decision theory and game theory begun in ECMA 30780, with a specific focus on models of incomplete information. Topics covered include subjective expected utility, Bayesian games, contract theory, and mechanism design. Among the applications we will consider are auctions, collusion, entry deterrence, and strategic communication. The course is appropriate for advanced undergraduates who are interested in a rigorous mathematical approach to decision making in strategic situations.
Instructor(s): B. Brooks Terms Offered: TBD
Prerequisite(s): ECON 20770/ECMA 30770 or consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): ECON 20780
ECMA 30800. Theory of Auctions. 100 Units.
In part, this course covers the analysis of the standard auction formats (i.e., Dutch, English, sealed-bid) and describes conditions under which they are revenue maximizing. We introduce both independent private-value models and interdependent-value models with affiliated signals. Multi-unit auctions are also analyzed with an emphasis on Vickrey's auction and its extension to the interdependent-value setting.
Instructor(s): P. Reny Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 20100 (or Econ 20110), and MATH 20300 (or Math 20310 or Math 20700), and STAT 23400, 24400 or STAT 24410
ECMA 31000. Introduction to Empirical Analysis. 100 Units.
This course introduces students to the key tools of econometric analysis: Probability theory, including probability spaces, random variables, distributions and conditional expectation; Asymptotic theory, including convergence in probability, convergence in distribution, continuous mapping theorems, laws of large numbers, central limit theorems and the delta method; Estimation and inference, including finite sample and asymptotic statistical properties of estimators, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing; Applications to linear models, including properties of ordinary least squares, maximum likelihood and instrumental variables estimators; Non-linear models. Assignments will include both theoretical questions and problems involving data. Necessary tools from linear algebra and statistics will be reviewed as needed.
Instructor(s): J. Hardwick Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQs for Undergraduates: Econ 21030 or Econ 21110 or Econ 21130
ECMA 31100. Introduction to Empirical Analysis II. 100 Units.
This course is an introduction to applied econometrics and builds on tools studied in ECMA 31000. Topics include: Selection on observables, instrumental variables, time series, panel data, discrete choice models, regression discontinuity, nonparametric regression, quantile regression.
Instructor(s): J. Hardwick Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite for Undergraduates: Econ 21030 or Econ 21110 or Econ 21130 or ECMA 31000 or ECMA 31130. Undergraduates who have taken Econ 21020 are encouraged to obtain instructor consent for enrollment.
ECMA 31130. Topics in Microeconometrics. 100 Units.
This course focuses on micro-econometric methods that have applications to a wide range of economic questions. We study identification, estimation, and inference in both parametric and non-parametric models and consider aspects such as consistency, bias and variance of estimators. We discuss how repeated measurements can help with problems related to unobserved heterogeneity and measurement error, and how they can be applied to panel and network data. Topics include duration models, regressions with a large number of covariates, non-parametric regressions, and dynamic discrete choice models. Applications include labor questions such as labor supply, wage inequality decompositions and matching between workers and firms. Students will be expected to solve programming assignment in R.
Instructor(s): T. Lamadon Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisites for Undergraduates: ECON 21020 OR ECON 21030
ECMA 31140. Perspectives on Computational Modeling for Economics. 100 Units.
In this course students will learn several computational methodologies and tools to solve, simulate, and analyze models that are the backbone of current macroeconomic analysis. While learning the relevant computational methods is the main objective, the theoretical economic aspects of the model will be stressed and the students will be required to apply their economic knowledge and skills to interpret and analyze the results. We will examine non-stochastic and stochastic general equilibrium models, both under local and global approximations. The main part of the course will deal with representative agent models, but a significant part will be devoted to introducing students to the solution of heterogeneous agent models as well.
Instructor(s): Salas, Sergio Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQ for undergraduates: Econ 20200/20210 and MATH 19620/Stat 24300/Math 20250 and Stat 23400/Stat 24400/Stat 24410.
Note(s): MACSS students have priority.
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 30150, MACS 10150
ECMA 31210. Time Series Analysis for Macroeconomics and Finance. 100 Units.
This course will cover various methods and their applications in time series analysis and emphasize empirical exercises by students. The structure of the course starts with theoretical foundations drawing from standard textbooks of Hayashi (2000) and Hamilton (1994) and covers applications to answer important questions in macro and finance. The topics include time series OLS with applications in the Fama interest rate regression and Hansen's study of foreign exchange markets, GMM with the Fama-French model of equity returns, and state-space models with applications to GDP nowcasting. Familiarity with matrix algebra and elementary econometrics is required.
Instructor(s): F. Hayashi Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisites for Undergraduates: ECON 20200/20210 and ECON 21020/21030
Note(s): This course may count as a data science course for the data science specialization in the same set of options as ECON 21300, ECMA 31320, ECMA 31330, ECMA 31340, ECMA 31350 or ECMA 38010.
ECMA 31320. Applications of Econometric and Data Science Methods. 100 Units.
This course builds on the theoretical foundations set in Econ 21030 and explores further topics pertinent to modern economic applications. While the course content may change from year to year according to student and instructor interests, some potential topics are panel data methods, treatment effects/causal inference, discrete choice/limited dependent variable models, demand estimation, and topics in economic applications of supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms. The course will involve analytically and computationally intensive assignments and a significant empirical project component.
Instructor(s): A. Hortacsu Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): CMSC 12300/14200/15200/16200 and ECON 21020 (ECON 21030 Honors Econometrics preferred) or consent of instructor
ECMA 31330. Econometrics and Machine Learning. 100 Units.
This course reviews a number of modern methods from econometrics, statistics and machine learning, and presents applications to economic problems. Examples of methods covered are simulation-based techniques, regularization via coefficient and matrix penalization, and regression and classification methods such as trees, forests and neural networks. Applications include economic models of network formation, and dimension reduction for structural economic models. The course involves programming and work with data. Beyond econometric background such as Econ 21030, students should have a solid background in computation.
Instructor(s): S. Bonhomme Terms Offered: Not offered in 2022-2023
Prerequisite(s): CMSC 12300/14200/15200/16200 and ECON 21020 (ECON 21030 Honors Econometrics preferred)
ECMA 31340. Big Data Tools in Economics. 100 Units.
The goal of the class is to learn how to apply microeconomic concepts to large and complex datasets. We will first revisit notions such as identification, inference and latent heterogeneity in classical contexts. We will then study potential concerns in the presence of a large number of parameters in order to understand over-fitting. Throughout the class, emphasis will be put on project-driven computational exercises involving large datasets. We will learn how to efficiently process and visualize such data using state of the art tools in python. Topics will include fitting models using Tensor-Flow and neural nets, creating event studies using pandas, solving large-scale SVDs, etc.
Instructor(s): T. Lamadon Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQs for Undergraduates:ECON 20100/20110 and ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 31350. Machine Learning for Economists. 100 Units.
This course reviews modern machine learning techniques and their applications in economics. The course covers some of the classical techniques, including lasso, regression trees, random forests, principal components analysis, and neural networks, as well as cutting-edge double machine learning methods. Applications include economic models of network formation, program evaluation, demand estimation, and asset pricing. The course involves programming and working with data. Students are expected to have a solid background in statistics, econometrics, and computation.
Instructor(s): K. Ponomarev Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): For Undergraduates: CMSC 12300//14200/15200/16200 and ECON 21020 (ECON 21030 Honors Econometrics preferred)
ECMA 31360. Causal Inference. 100 Units.
This course reviews modern causal inference techniques and their applications in business and economics. The course covers the treatment-control comparison estimator, regression adjustment, matching (on covariates and propensity score), difference in differences (canonical and with staggered treatment), panel data methods, regression discontinuity design (sharp and fuzzy), instrumental variables and local average treatment effect (LATE) estimator. At different points during the course, we mention how machine learning (ML) techniques have recently been used to enrich the classical methods. The course involves programming (R language) and working with data. Students are expected to have a solid background in statistics (working knowledge of R and familiarity with RStudio) and econometrics.
Instructor(s): M. Tartari Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 31380. Causal Machine Learning. 100 Units.
By the end of this course students should understand the recent research and methods in statistical inference after machine learning. Chiefly, this course focuses on causal inference, but other topics are covered as well. The course aims for a theoretical understanding and as well as ready-to-deploy tools. Students will be introduced to the theoretical underpinnings of this material, which includes studying topics in nonparametric estimation, two-step and semiparametric inference theory, including the special case of double/debiased machine learning. Methods discussed include neural networks, random forests, and LASSO estimation.
Instructor(s): M. Farrell Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 21020/21030
Note(s): This course may count toward the Data Science course requirement of the Economics Data Science Specialization.
ECMA 33221. Introduction to Advanced Macroeconomic Analysis II. 100 Units.
This course introduces concepts and tools for advanced macroeconomics. It builds on ECMA 33220. We discuss the decision of consumption and investment over time, monetary economics, fiscal policy, asset pricing, and international economics. We introduce numerical methods to solve problems in economics and finance such as methods to solve nonlinear equations and to generate random numbers. These methods are useful when we solve economic models through value-function iterations, quadratic linearization, and other methods. Some topics discussed are the welfare cost of inflation, portfolio allocation, the yield curve and economic activity, optimal taxation, and financial markets and monetary policy. As ECMA 33220, this course is useful for students interested in increasing their knowledge in macroeconomics for careers involving macroeconomic analysis and as preparation for graduate school. Knowledge of calculus and linear algebra is expected.
Instructor(s): A. Silva Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): For Undergraduates: ECON 20200/20210 and ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 33230. Macroeconomic Crises. 100 Units.
This course introduces students to economic theories of "crises" or particular periods of rapid (negative) changes in real and financial variables that are distinct from long-run growth and regular business cycles. In particular, we will cover the origin of various types of financial crises, i.e. speculative bubbles, bank runs, credit crunches, and sovereign debt crises and defaults. Time permitting, we will also study currency crises and speculative attacks. Throughout, our focus will be on the implications for fiscal and monetary policy.
Instructor(s): N. Balke Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ECON 23950 and ECON 21020 (or ECON 21030)
ECMA 33240. Quantitative Analysis of Macroeconomic Policy. 100 Units.
This course focuses on application and covers three commonly used models in macroeconomics, including structural VAR, DSGE models and state space and regime switching models. Various research tools developed to implement these models, such as how to identify structural shocks and analyze their dynamic effects, and how to conduct counter-factual policy simulations, will be discussed and implemented.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ECON 21200 or STAT 26100 or BUSN 41202 or Instructor Consent
ECMA 33330. Introduction to Dynamic Economic Modeling. 100 Units.
This course provides an introduction to dynamic economic models, with applications to macroeconomics, labor economics, financial economics, and other subfields of economics. The core methodology will be consistent over time, but the applications will vary from year to year. The course will analyze decentralized equilibrium and social planner's problems in dynamic environments. It will focus on developing techniques for analyzing such models graphically, analytically, and computationally. Students should be familiar with constrained optimization (e.g. Lagrangians), linear algebra, and difference equations, as well as microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics at an intermediate level.
Instructor(s): R. Shimer
Prerequisite(s): ECON 20200 (or ECON 20210) and ECON 21020 (or ECON 21030)
ECMA 33603. Introduction to Macroeconomics and Financial Frictions. 100 Units.
This course studies the behavior of consumers, investors, and firms when they face frictions to take their decisions. These frictions can be in the form of costs to change portfolios, to change prices, or to find another investor to trade. Frictions also appear in the form of borrowing costs, the possibility of default, or the need to use money to carry on transactions. We show how taking into account these frictions change predictions about the economy. Borrowing constraints, for example, affect interest rates, and the need to rebalance portfolios changes predictions on optimal taxation. We discuss models, techniques and papers that show the relevance of frictions for economic analysis.
Instructor(s): A. Silva Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 20200/20210 and ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 33620. Introduction to Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomics. 100 Units.
This class is an introduction to macroeconomics with heterogeneous households. We will study consumption-savings problems, income dynamics, wealth inequality in partial and general equilibrium, and the effects of fiscal and monetary policy in the presence of household inequality. The class will make use of theoretical analysis, empirical analysis and computational methods. Material will be presented in both discrete and continuous time. Students will analyze micro-level data on wealth, income and consumption, and will learn how to write code to solve heterogeneous agent models on a computer. Familiarity with a statisical package such as R or Stata, and a programming language such as Matlab, Python, Julia, Fortran or C is highly recommended.
Instructor(s): G. Kaplan
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates: PQ: ECON 20200/20210 and ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 34150. Origins, Persistence, and Consequences of Inequality. 100 Units.
The continued rise of economic inequality in the U.S. has spurred heated debate among economists and policymakers over the past several years. This course aims to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of social science perspectives on inequality, including its causes, persistence, and effects. It also introduces students to different frameworks for discussing inequality and how societal forces contribute to increasing inequality. Additionally, the course helps students connect broader societal trends with specific government policies. By covering key vocabulary, concepts, theories, and debates related to economic inequality, the course lays a solid foundation for further studies in economics. Upon completion of the course, students should possess a deeper understanding of the facts about inequality and social mobility, as well as a grasp of the complexity of the problem and challenges inherent in addressing these issues through governmental policies. Specifically, students are anticipated to be able to: - Articulate economic terminology and methods for measuring inequality, - Perform calculations to assess and illustrate income/wealth inequality, and economic mobility, - Analyze the root causes, mechanisms, and consequences of economic inequality, - Demonstrate a nuanced comprehension of the policy and political ramifications associated with inequality.
Instructor(s): S. Eshaghnia Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 35050. Information and Financial Markets. 100 Units.
This course studies the information economics that underlies modern financial markets and trading. Whether one is into designing new financial marketplaces (for example: fintech, crypto) or creating new trading strategies (for example: high-frequency, active management) or managing complex investment portfolios (for example: hedge funds, pension funds), tools from the economics of information asymmetry play an essential role. We take a deep dive into the technical tools that are commonly used and explore applications that help us place the techniques in context. Topics covered include: Lotteries, Measures of risk aversion, Orders of stochastic dominance, vNM and Savage utilities, Information structures, Blackwell ordering, Bayesian inference, Common knowledge and belief hierarchies, Agreement and No-trade theorems, Grossman-Stiglitz type paradoxes, Role of noise in markets, Kyle and Golsten-Milgrom models of trading and PIN models, along with Dealer, limit-order, automated-market-making and batch-auction market structures.
Instructor(s): A. Bhattacharya Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ for Undergraduates: ECON 20200/20210 and STAT 23400/24400/24410
ECMA 35530. Microeconomics of Development. 100 Units.
This course will cover the key micro-economic issues in economic development, covering theoretical contributions and empirical applications to understand why some countries are poor and how markets function differently in poor economies. Topics include human capital (education and health), labor markets, credit markets, land markets, firms, and the role of the public sector.
Instructor(s): Brown, C Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ECON 35530
ECMA 35550. The Practicalities of Running Randomized Control Trials. 100 Units.
This course is designed for those who plan to run a randomized control trial. It provides practical advice about the trade-offs researchers face when selecting topics to study, the type of randomization technique to use, the content of a survey instruments, analytical techniques and much more. How do you choose the right minimum detectable effect size for estimating the sample size needed to run a high quality RCT? How do you quantify difficult to measure outcomes such as women's empowerment or ensure people are providing truthful answers when you are asking questions on sensitive topics like sexual health? When should you tie your hands by pre-committing to your analysis plan in advance, and when is a pre-analysis plan not a good idea? This course will draw on lots of examples from RCTs around the world, most (though not all) from a development context. Alongside field tips, it will also cover the concepts and theory behind the tradeoffs researchers face running RCTs. The course is designed for PhD students but given its practical nature is open to and accessible to masters students who plan to work on RCTs.
Instructor(s): Glennerster, Rachel Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): PPHA 35561, ECON 35550
ECMA 36700. Economics of Education. 100 Units.
This course explores economic models of the demand for and supply of different forms of schooling. The course examines the markets for primary, secondary, and post-secondary schooling. The course examines numerous public policy questions, such as the role of government in funding or subsidizing education, the design of public accountability systems, the design of systems that deliver publicly funded (and possibly provided) education, and the relationship between education markets and housing markets.
Instructor(s): D. Neal
Prerequisite(s): ECON 21020 or ECON 21030
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 26705, EDSO 26700
ECMA 38010. Empirical Industrial Organization. 100 Units.
This course will provide an introduction to state-of-the-art methodologies in Empirical Industrial Organization. We will use real-life data to learn about consumers and firms. We will cover demand and preference estimation, production function estimation, empirical models of market entry, and auctions. We will also discuss applications including prediction, policy analysis, and price optimization. Students will learn about theory, estimation, optimization, and practical considerations. Students will apply what they learn using R.
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisites for Undergraduates: ECON 20100/20110 and ECON 21020/21030
ECMA 39700. Master's Reading and Research. 100 Units.
Reading and Research. Students are required to submit the MA Reading and Research Course Form.
Instructor(s): V. Lima, M. Lee Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of directors of the Master’s program.
ECMA 39800. Master's Thesis Workshop: 100 Units.
Instructional faculty-led workshop where students present their thesis projects.
Instructor(s): V. Lima, M. Lee Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of directors of the Master’s program.