I am Instructor of Record for five different courses in Harvard’s Department of Sociology. They include three courses I conceived and designed and two I adapted from prior departmental offerings. I enjoy teaching topical courses, methods courses, and theory courses.
Below are descriptions for the courses I developed:
Housing and Homelessness. This course centers the sociological study of housing and homelessness. It is guided by several core questions: What is sociological about housing, and why should the study of housing be central to the discipline of sociology? What have sociologists written about the long-term and day-to-day experiences of housing insecurity and homelessness? And how does housing inequality intersect with other dimensions of inequality? Through a combination of historical and contemporary readings, students gain an understanding of the factors contributing to housing challenges, including a shrinking supply of affordable housing, inadequate wages and employment, discriminatory housing practices, and urban development. Students also learn about how supply-side actors reproduce or exacerbate housing inequality, and why policy responses do or do not seem to help.
Community in Urban Context. The notion of ‘community’ has long been central to the sociological study of cities and life within them. This course familiarizes students with what sociologists have written about the contours of urban community: what defines it, how it forms and persists, the functions it serves, and when it backfires. Through a mix of foundational and contemporary texts, the course considers a number of the substantive issues that have historically shaped—and threatened—urban community, from social control to gentrification and city planning. During the semester, students receive training in the use of several methods for studying urban life and conduct original research to answer questions of their choice about urban community (or an urban community).
Social Ties and Their Consequences. Social ties—the connections we have to other people—are characterized by a great degree of qualitative diversity. This course examines how sociologists have written about that diversity. What qualities make a tie “strong” or “weak,” “positive” or “negative”? What do sociologists mean when they describe ties as “disposable,” “elastic,” “appropriable,” or “toxic”? What distinguishes ties to other individuals from ties to, say, organizations? In addition, we will examine the consequences of different kinds of social ties. Why do some varieties of social tie help and others harm (and still others do both at the same time)? What roles do people we consider “frenemies,” people we feel ambivalent toward, or people we find difficult play in our lives? Students in the course learn to use qualitative methods to study social ties and will design and carry out their own original research projects.
And here are descriptions for the courses I adapted:
Poverty in the United States. This course examines the social world of poverty in the US. It considers major social-scientific theories about the roots and persistence of poverty, while paying particular attention to the lived experiences of low-income people. It examines the parallel sets of institutions low-income individuals and families must navigate—institutions that may appear benevolent (or neutral) but often exacerbate the difficulties of poverty, like low-wage work, healthcare, welfare, the criminal-legal apparatus, education, housing and rental markets, and financial services. The course places a heavy emphasis on firsthand experience and learning, incorporating guest lectures from people whose work or life experiences relate to the course subject matter. Prior speakers have included representatives from emergency shelter-based healthcare clinics, eviction lawyers, union organizers, and formerly incarcerated individuals.
Contemporary Ethnography. This class introduces students to ethnographic methods in sociology. Ethnographers learn about the social world by immersive themselves in a site (or in multiple sites), and spending time alongside people as events unfold in their lives. Students in the course conduct semester-long ethnographic research projects, while reading and discussing a number of recent ethnographic manuscripts on topics like the policing of homelessness in California, food access in Mississippi, and global finance, among others. Through reading these works and doing ethnographic research themselves, students learn about unique ways that ethnographers gather and present sociological evidence. The course also centers the ethical questions that ethnographers must grapple with and considers how ethnographies can teach lessons about the social world that apply beyond the cases they examine.
As a doctoral student, I served as a teaching fellow for courses on poverty, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, political sociology, qualitative methods, and social theory, and I co-led the teaching practicum for first-time teaching fellows in sociology.