SOCY 79.13 Socio/Poetics: Sociological Method and Literary Form
This course introduces students to a cultural history of the relationship between Sociology and Literature in America from the early twentieth century to the present. Taking inspiration from recent scholarly approaches to literary interpretation that draw on sociological methods for interpreting texts quantitatively, relationally, and descriptively, we will also examine the ways in which sociology has long been occupied by phenomena often associated with literature: subjectivity, uncertainty, and linguistic form. Beginning with the institutionalization of sociology in the 1920s and 1930s, we will explore aesthetic texts alongside sociological works and other cultural documents. In doing so we will situate ourselves in a historical milieu and reconsider conventional literary categories and lineages such as documentary and docupoetry, the photo-essay, and New Journalism through the lens of their response to and use of sociological methods and tropes.
Cross Listed Courses
ENGL 55.22