Concentration in Culture, Media, and Leisure Studies (CMLS)
Supervisor: Prof. Alexander Riley
The CMLS concentration is for sociology majors interested in the social production and reproduction of systems of meaning in the modern world. The concentration takes as its field of study all realms of cultural production and consumption. A specific focus is provided by mass media, popular culture, and public ritual forms (e.g., television, film, radio, popular press, the Internet and new media, video games, sport, fashion, popular music) that have assumed such critical importance in contemporary Western culture and increasingly in non-Western cultures under Western influence. Culture is studied in many forms (symbolic, ideal, material and visual), and theoretical frameworks for the study of all of those forms are promoted in the concentration. CMLS is deeply interdisciplinary and connects sociology’s basic interest in understanding modernity with the anthropological sense that cultural symbols, narratives, and values are the keys to understanding human societies.
Students in the CMLS concentration have access to much of the conventional range of occupational fields available to general majors in sociology, but they will be especially well-prepared for careers in fields of cultural production (e.g., the mass media, sport and entertainment, marketing and consumer research and consulting, tourism and leisure industries), for work in local, state, and federal arts and cultural agencies and organizations, and for advanced studies or policy and research work in the cultural and social sciences.
The CMLS concentration requires students to take ten courses, no more than two of which can be at the 100 level and at least five of which must be SOCI designates. At least one course with the ANTH designate (or a CAPS offered by an anthropologist) must be taken.
A) The concentration has a core of five required courses:
v Theory (one course): SOC 211: Classical Sociological Theory or SOC 212: Contemporary Sociological Theory
v Methodology (two courses): SOC 208: Methods of Social Research and SOC 201: Field Research in Local Communities
v Cultural Sociology (at least two courses from the following list):
o SOC 270: Popular Culture
o SOC 335: Topics in Cultural Sociology
o SOC 338: Culture and The Self
o SOC 321: Sociology of Knowledge and Science
o SOC 340: The Sociology of Religion
o CAPS 428-01: Culture and Politics in the 1960s
B) Beyond these five courses, students must take at least one 300 or 400 level course from the following list which is not being applied to the cultural sociology component of the core:
- SOC 321: Sociology of Knowledge and Science
- SOC 332: Seminar in American Society
- SOC 335: Topics in Cultural Sociology
- SOC 338: Culture and The Self
- CAPS 428-01: Culture and Politics in the 1960s
- SOC 306: Ethnographic Video
- SOC 311: Globalization, Technology, and Cultural Change
- SOC 340: The Sociology of Religion
- SOC 434: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Identity
- CAPS 429: Disease, Bodies, and Culture
- ANTH 410: Environmental Issues from a Cross-Cultural Perspective
- SOC 410: Remembering the Holocaust
- CAPS 428-02: Mating and Marrying: Families in
America - SOC 447: Seminar in Social Mobility: Rags to Riches in
America
C) At least one additional course in Sociology or Anthropology must be taken from the following list:
- SOC 100: Introduction to Sociology
- SOC 140: American Culture and Society
- SOC 213: Race in Historical and Comparative Perspective
- SOC 243: Race and Ethnicity
- SOC 245: Remaking
America: Latin American Immigration - SOC 290:
Caribbean Sociology - ANTH 109: Cultural Anthropology
- ANTH 228: Ritual, Myth, and Meaning
- ANTH 245: Consumption and Material Culture
- ANTH 247: Japanese Film as Anthropology
- ANTH 253: Folklore and Ritual
- ANTH 265: Food, Eating, and Culture
- ANTH 270: Sexuality and Culture
- ANTH 282: Performance and Culture
- ANTH 283: Interpreting Culture
D) At least two courses outside the disciplines of Sociology and Anthropology are to be selected from the following list (students may petition the department chair to have one non-SOC/ANTHRO course not on this list accepted toward the requirement):
- Religion 234: Issues of Religion and Culture
- Music 111: Popular Music in
America - History 262: History and Film
- History 265: Intellectual Politics and Culture
- History 266: Topics in Intellectual History
- History 268: European Intellectual History II
- Geography 220: Cultural Geography
- English 205: Early American Mythologies
- English 337: Film Theory
- English 233: Film History II
- English 298: Introduction to Literary Theory
- English 332: Film and Technology
- Art and Art History 211: History of Photography
- Art and Art History 225: Popular Culture and Prints
- Art and Art History 227: Introduction to Visual Culture
- Management 384: Consumer Behavior
E) Finally, one course must be taken in either Sociology or Anthropology that is unrelated to the concentration.
