2023-24 Junior Tutorials

Note: Admission to tutorials is based on student preferences and a lottery system. Undergraduate non-concentrators may enroll in these tutorials if space is available. 

Fall 2023 Tutorials (jump to Spring 2024)
 

Social Studies 98eo. Art, Political Culture, and Civic Life
Kiku Adatto
Half course (fall term). Thursday 9:45-11:45.
The seminar explores the interplay of the arts, political culture, and civic life. It will draw on studies in art, history, political philosophy, literature, sociology, and photography. Among the questions we will address are: How is historical memory constructed, and what are the competing forces that shape it? What is the significance of public apologies, and does solidarity create moral responsibilities for historical injustices? How is cultural domination exerted, and how is it resisted? In what ways does rhetoric shape politics, and what role does it play in national narratives? Why does the contest to control images loom so large in politics, the media, and in our everyday lives? 

Social Studies 98lf. Globalization and the Nation State
Nicolas Prevelakis
Half course (fall term). Wednesday 12:45-2:45.
Despite globalization, the nation is still a major actor in today's world. This course tries to understand why this is so by examining the role that nationalism plays in peoples’ identities and the effects of globalization on nations and nation-states. It includes theoretical texts, but also case studies from the recent pandemic, the rise of populism and authoritarianism, the challenges of supranational entities such as the European Union, and the urgency of global issues such as climate change, inequality, and migration. Examples from the United States, Europe, Latin America, China, and the Middle East.

Social Studies 98nd. Justice and Reconciliation after Mass Violence
Jonathan Hansen
Half course (fall term). Monday 12:45-2:45.
This seminar examines the problem of justice and reconciliation after mass violence: How does a nation sundered by genocide, civil war, or gross human rights violations reestablish the social trust and civic consciousness required of individual and collective flourishing? What is the proper balance between individual and collective responsibility? What is the role of trials, truth commissions, and apology in civil reconciliation? How do specific types of mass violence influence outcomes? What makes some reconciliations successful, others less so? The course engages these and other questions from historical and contemporary perspectives, exploring the legacy of mass violence going back centuries, while examining reconciliation projects across cultures, countries, and continents.

This course comprises three units: 1) a typology of mass violence (civil war, genocide, state repression, for instance) and historical responses; 2) case studies of the U.S. Civil War (and its continuing legacy), the Spanish Civil War, and the Rwandan genocide; and 3) a research and writing workshop emphasizing students own work. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the literature of mass violence from an interdisciplinary perspective (including but not limited to historical, sociological, and anthropological approaches), ultimately launching students on their own research projects.

Social Studies 98se. Race, Ethnicity, and Inequality
Christina Ciocca Eller
Half course (fall term). Tuesday 9:45-11:45.
The United States is more racially and ethnically diverse than at any point in its history. Yet racial and ethnic social categories remain persistent sources of inequality in American society. This tutorial will interrogate the relationships between race, ethnicity, and inequality, examining theoretical and empirical approaches across multiple social domains. Part I of the course focuses on the historical development and contemporary meanings of both “race” and “ethnicity” in the United States. Part II discusses the reproduction of social categories and the consequences of reproduction for inequality. Part III examines the relationship between race, ethnicity, and inequality in particular social domains, including neighborhoods, youth experiences, policing and mass incarceration, higher education, and the labor market. And Part IV dives deep into the issue of within-group inequalities by race and ethnicity, while also introducing global comparative approaches. We will discuss the implications for public policy through each of these case studies, focusing on strategies for reducing racial and ethnic inequality. 

Social Studies 98te. Democracy and Education in America
Rob Willison
Half course (fall term). Wednesday 3:00-5:00.
This course is organized around three crucial questions: (1) What does a truly democratic society require of its educational institutions? (2) How well do our current educational institutions—especially our K-12 schools—live up to the standard set by question 1? (3) What approaches, at the level of both pedagogy and policy, should we take to make our school system more democratic? We’ll address these questions in conversation with philosophers (like John Dewey, Paolo Freire, and Danielle Allen), cognitive psychologists (like Susan Carey), jurists (like Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall), and social scientists (like Raj Chetty and Daniel Koretz). 

Social Studies 98ud. Critical Theory of Knowledge, Technology and Power
Bo-Mi Choi
Half course (fall term). Wednesday 3:00-5:15.
This tutorial explores the role and impact of science and technology on society, culture, and politics from the perspective of critical theory. Building on the foundations of Marxian philosophy and the works of 20th-century critical theorists such as Lukáçs, Benjamin, Heidegger, Marcuse, and Foucault, we will explore more recent contributions in the philosophy and post-phenomenology ­­of technology as well as in science and technology studies (STS). While the tutorial is largely designed as a theory course, we will take a closer look at machine learning and artificial general intelligence, automation and robotics, surveillance capitalism, data feminism, Afrofuturism, and digital culture. Questions we will address along the way include: how do science and technology transform and mediate human experience and knowledge of the world? co-produce our political and social order? shape concepts of human subjectivity and regulate human behavior? And what kinds of political, ethical, and aesthetic consequences do we need to consider as we adopt new technology? Rather than conceptualizing science and technology in Promethean terms as “tools” of progress, we will closely examine how they are intrinsically constitutive of the ways we experience, order and govern the world. The aim is to collaboratively articulate, over the course of the semester, an amplified social theoretic framework that enables us to critically engage the existential challenges and potential dangers of new technology and normatively evaluate scientific and technological innovations from the standpoint of human flourishing. 

Social Studies 98ve. Empire, Capitalism, and Global Economic Development
Jamie Martin
Half course (fall term). Wednesday 3:00-5:00.
This course introduces students to the historical study of the world economy by tracing the emergence of a global capitalist economy from the early modern period to the present. It looks at how capitalism first emerged, how it expanded globally, and how it has been transformed over the last six centuries. It does so by looking at the history of international trade, finance and banking, labor and slavery, industrialization, and agriculture. It considers how global capitalism developed in response to transformations in the balance of power between rival empires and nations. It also focuses on the history of global economic inequality -- and its persistence today. The course will conclude by looking at how the future of global capitalism may develop in the wake of the intertwined economic, environmental, and political crises of the early 2020s.

Social Studies 98vg. Capitalism, Subjectivity, and the "Entrepreneurial Self"
Tracey Rosen
Half course (fall term). Tuesday 3:00-5:00.

This class takes a psychosocial approach to understanding the relationship between capitalism and contemporary subjectivity. In particular it looks at how core entrepreneurial practices and values (e.g., managed risk, competition, flexibility) are taken up outside of business schools as individuals in all walks of life are increasingly compelled to treat themselves as an enterprise or brand. Among the questions we will ask: How and when did the compulsion towards self-branding come to be and what are its psychological and sociological effects? How do these practices shape people’s experiences of themselves, others, and future possibilities? Does the contemporary "entrepreneurial” self express itself differently in other cultures? To address these questions, we begin with anthropological and historical examples of a variety of ways personhood has been constituted. We then trace the genealogy of the “self" against the backdrop of capitalism’s transformation, exploring the contradictory forms of liberation and domination that accompany entrepreneurial self-making. Specific case studies will include therapy, self-help, social entrepreneurialism, education, technology, and volunteerism. This theory intensive class draws from a range of disciplines while introducing students to the key methods of sociocultural anthropology.

Social Studies 98vw. To Remake the World? Revolutionaries, Regimes, and Paradoxes of Power
William Whitham
Half course (fall term). Tuesday 3:00-5:00.
“Who says organization, says oligarchy,” wrote Robert Michels in 1915. In his view, collective revolutionary endeavors tend to empower a small few and disappoint true believers. Was he right—and why? Drawing on political theory, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, this course examines major attempts to remake polities and societies in modern global history, focusing on Eurasia. We will read classic theories of elite rule, crowds, hegemony, and subalternity, then consider case studies about communism, decolonization, liberal democracy, and decentralized social movements. Rather than idealize resistance or theorize liberation, students will explore how the critics and opponents of power may, too, be its agents and subjects—and what, if anything, can or should be done about this. 

Social Studies 98wa. Crime, Punishment, and Policing in an Unequal America - NEW
Adaner Usmani
Half course (fall term). Thursday 3:00-5:00.

The United States imprisons more people per capita than any comparable society, past or present. It is alone among developed countries in annually killing hundreds of its citizens in police encounters. And it is also, by some distance, the most violent country in the developed world. These facts raise a range of difficult questions about what should be done about crime, incarceration and policing in today's United States. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the empirical premises and normative principles at stake in these debates. Throughout, we will be using reasoning and methods from both the empirical social sciences and from analytic moral and political philosophy. Students will be pushed to develop the strongest possible arguments for positions they may not endorse, and to argue against the perspective of the instructor at every opportunity. They will be guided through the process of writing a research paper which combines empirical and normative argumentation, ideally on the topic of the course material and in preparation for their senior thesis. 

Social Studies 98wd. The Politics of Health and Medicine in the United States - NEW
Matthew Reichert
Half course (fall term). 

How does politics shape health in America? In this multidisciplinary class, students explore the historical origins of institutions like Medicare and Medicaid, the FDA, the CDC and the NIH. We seek to explain the politics of why American healthcare policy differs so dramatically from its peers, with narrowly targeted public programs and a dominant private insurance sector. Students learn how epidemiologists and clinicians today think about social determinants of health, especially racial disparities in care and outcomes. We conduct deep dives into topics like the Affordable Care Act, Covid-19, and the medical ecosystem here in Boston. Finally, students also observe how public health researchers make use of social science methods, from the clinical trial to the ethnographic case study. 

 

Spring 2024 Tutorials
 

Social Studies 98cl. Law and American Society
Terry Aladjem
Half course (spring term). Thursday 3:00-5:00.
At a time when the rule of law is imperiled, our democracy and equal rights of every kind under assault by multiple forces, the importance of understanding our constitutional system of rights and laws as essential to the fabric of the nation cannot be overstated. The course will examine law as a vehicle of political conflict and a defining force in American society in four dimensions: 1.) as it establishes individual rights, liberties, and the limits of toleration; 2.) as it attempts to resolve differences among competing constituencies; 3.) as it sets out terms of punishment and social control having effects on race and class, and 4.) as a source of informing images and ideological meaning. We will examine these themes with close attention to their historical roots and their constitutional and theoretical origins, to their manifestations in our current political discourse. We will take up issues at the level of jurisprudence or political theory, but also as they arise in public controversies, or are settled in legal cases by the courts—cases in which racial or gender equality are at stake, religious or sexual freedom, cases in which the nature and content of political speech are questioned, cases in which the imperatives of religious communities seem irreconcilable with public institutions, cases in which the nature and extent of punishment have been debated and the question of who deserves to be punished decided, and notorious public trials in which the national self-understanding has been shaped. Our aim is to bring theory to bear, and down to earth, in each consideration (we will read Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and also examine prisons and mass incarceration). 

Social Studies 98vf. The Foundations of Democracy and Dictatorship
Steven Levitsky
Half course (spring term). Wednesday 3:00-5:00.

This course explores why some countries are democratic and others are not.  It examines the origins of liberal democracy in the West, democratic breakdown in interwar Europe and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, the Third Wave of democratization in the late twentieth century, and the possible global democratic retreat of the early twenty-first century. The course examines democratic successes and failures in contemporary Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union, the persistence of authoritarianism in China and the Middle East, and new forms of authoritarianism emerging in countries like Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela.  Students will be introduced to alternative theories of democratization (including those focusing on economic development, class structure, culture, institutions, international diffusion, and leadership), as well as recent scholarly debates over the sources of authoritarian durability.  Finally, the course looks at populism and other challenges facing established democracies (including the United States) and asks whether they are at risk of breakdown.

Social Studies 98vh. Reparations in Law and History
Gili Kliger
Half course (spring term). Thursday 9:45-11:45.

Calls for the U.S. and Europe to pay reparations for slavery and colonial crimes have proliferated in recent years. While discussions of reparations today often center around slavery and empire, reparations have historically been pursued, and successfully won, in a range of circumstances. The premise of this course is that we can better understand the nature of reparations claims by considering the historical and legal record. Each week we will study a particular reparations case and try and tease out the legal, political, moral, and economic logic that undergirds that case. We will consider the historical context surrounding the case (including both the context surrounding the initial harm and the context surrounding the movement for reparations for that harm), as well as the juridical and legal apparatus through which redress was pursued. Our goal is to deepen our understanding of reparative ethics: what makes reparations distinct from other kinds of settlements? Do reparations require an exchange of money? What kinds of harms have historically generated demands for compensation from the state? Is this a settlement oriented towards the past or the future? What goals have been envisioned by those who have fought for reparations: Restitution? Reconciliation? Atonement? 

Because the study of reparations sits at the intersection of law, history, political theory, and moral philosophy, this class will also be interdisciplinary in approach. We will pair primary source documents with philosophical and theoretical texts in order to help us clarify the relation between theory and practice. How do history and practice expose the limits of our theoretical frameworks? And how can our understanding of history speak back to theory? In other words, one goal of this course is to learn to read theory with attention to its applications in practice; and to see how we might read practice and primary source texts to generate theory.

Social Studies 98vr. Difference and Democracy
Vatsal Naresh
Half course (spring term). 
Thursday 9:45-11:45.
How do some groups acquire the label ‘minority’? What prevents different oppressed groups from collaborating in the pursuit of political power? Why do identities linger when they mark and connote deprivation, oppression, and violence? How do different forms of difference figure in  hierarchical relationships to each other and preponderant groups and political institutions? How do oppressed groups innovate in resisting oppression and creating alternative political projects? 

This tutorial  will explore interconnected forms of social difference like race, caste, indigeneity, gender, and class in the United States and South Asia (and other contexts based on student interest) by studying the formation of identities before and during democratic rule, and the interaction of groups and institutions of political power. We will read texts in social and political theory, history, and the empirical social sciences. 

The tutorial will empower students to analyze identity in historically specific contexts, as well as the underlying abstract concepts. The tutorial will focus on, and train students in theoretical, archival, and ethnographic methods. 

Social Studies 98wb. Inequality Under Capitalism - NEW
Adaner Usmani
Half course (spring term). Wednesday 6:00-8:00.

The world we inhabit is unfathomably unequal. In almost any dimension of human well-being, some people have a lot and others much less. This class examines the empirical and normative challenges associated with the study of inequality, both within societies and across the globe. What kinds of inequalities should we care about? How much inequality of these types do we see? Why does this vary across place and time? And what, if anything, should we do about it? In answering the last question, we will spend more time reading those who defend inequality than those who criticize it. What reasons do some people give in defense of inequality? Are they right? Students will be guided through the process of writing a research paper which combines empirical and normative argumentation, ideally on the topic of the course material and in preparation for their senior thesis.

Social Studies98wc. Humanity on Edge: The Politics of Crisis - NEW
Shterna Friedman
Half course (spring term). Monday 12:45-2:45.

Everywhere we turn, it seems that yet another crisis is underway, ranging from the climate to health to population to economics to epistemology. Have crises become normal politics and, if so, what does this tell us, if anything, about everyday politics and ways of theorizing it? Studying social extremes may enable us to study the politics of normality and its boundaries. In this class we will ask what it means to think of humanity on the edge, on the verge, in the extreme. We will grapple with the requirements, presuppositions, and entailments of the politics of crisis, and investigate the discursive means of shaping both normal and critical political moments.

The class contains a mix of theoretical and empirical approaches. We will begin with some theoretical approaches that interrogate the concept of crisis, apocalypse, and extinction, and go on to focus on specific types of crisis—sometimes “ripped from the headlines”—analyzing such diverse phenomena as climate change, populism, economic bubbles, and misinformation. In examining examples from our information diet, we will seek to explain how they affirm, negate, deepen, and/or complicate any of the theoretical perspectives we encounter in class; and we will seek to dissect the subtext of politics—the narratives, assumptions, and rhetoric that determine when and whether a given political event is transformed into a crisis. The course will conclude by asking what, if anything, crisis politics indicates about the health of democracy, the success of technocracy, and the possibility of revolutionary politics. 

Social Studies 98we.Encounters: Dimensions of the Travel Narrative - NEW
John Harpham
Half course (spring term). Wednesday 9:45-11:45.

This course will consider the dimensions of the travel narrative. It will proceed in chronological order, with each week devoted to one of the classics of this troublesome genre. The focus in time will be the period that came to be known as the Age of Discovery, which lasted from around the middle of the fifteenth century to around the end of the seventeenth century, although a number of works from before and after this period will be considered as well. The focus in space will be the Atlantic world. Particular attention will be devoted to works that describe (or at least purport to describe) Africa and America and to accounts that were the work of indigenous American and African authors. The interests and the contexts that frame the construction of such accounts will be central objects of inquiry, but so will be the contents of the texts themselves. We will examine the ideas about the common structure of human life that shape these texts. In turn, we will work to understand the complex manner in which travel narratives at once resisted and disrupted and contributed to the invention of the modern concept of race. 

In addition to rigorous in-class discussion, this course will include visits to the Houghton Library, the Tozzer Library, and the Harvard Map Collection. Books will include:  

Herodotus, The Histories (Penguin, 2003); Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah (Princeton, 2015); Marco Polo, The Travels (Penguin, 2015); Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages (Penguin, 1992); Leo Africanus, A Geographical Historie of Africa (Cambridge, 2010); Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin, 1992); José de Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (Duke, 2002); Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (University of California, 1993); Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (Penguin, 2004); and Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative (Penguin, 2013). 

Social Studies 98wf. Political and Ethical Challenges of the Digital Age - NEW
Lowry Pressly
Half course (spring term). Tuesday 3:00-5:00.
This course examines the range of political and ethical challenges posed by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition, ubiquitous connectivity, the data economy, and more. Our approach to these topics and technologies will be largely theoretical but also deeply interdisciplinary, drawing from philosophy, sociology, science and technology studies, computer science, and the arts. This theoretical foundation will prepare students to understand and critique the hazards and opportunities that the digital era poses to democratic life and human flourishing. Students will have the opportunity to propose themes and technologies to explore both in class and through independent research.

Social Studies 98wg. Dialectical Reason and Social Critique - NEW
Peter Gordon
Half course (spring term). Tuesday 3:00-5:00.

This course explores different permutations of the dialectic as it has been conceived in various ways by philosophers and social theorists.  Just what does it mean to speak of a mode of social critique as “dialectical”?  What is the dialectic, and how has it served as the basic form of criticism for thinkers who believe that human life has a fundamentally rational structure?  Does the dialectic serve as an affirmation of the rationality of human life as it is given, or does the dialectic urge that we focus our critical attention on the immanent tension or negativity of what exists so as to bring what is given into alignment with our rational standards?  Does the idea of a dialectic necessarily imply that social reconciliation is possible, or can we conceive a purely “negative dialectic,” i.e., one that does not point toward the resolution of contradiction?  Does social critique as such commit us to upholding normative ideals by which we can identify what is objectionable, or can we pursue forms of critique (such as genealogy) that ostensibly abjure all such normative ideals?  With these essential questions in mind, we will address different conceptions of the dialectic in social philosophy, with special attention to the critical dialogue between G.W.F. Hegel and Theodor W. Adorno.  Readings will include important works of secondary literature, together with various selections from Hegel, e.g., his Logic and The Phenomenology of Spirit, along with two relevant texts by Adorno, e.g., his Hegel: Three Studies, and the Introduction to Dialectics. 

Social Studies 98wh. Climate Justice: The Politics of Decarbonization - NEW
Jonathan Masin-Peters
Half course (spring term). Tuesday 9:45-11:45.

Given the urgent need to shift societies away from carbon-based energy, how can such transitions occur so as not to reproduce existing injustices? Answering this question requires an interdisciplinary approach. Texts from historians and anthropologists will provide insight into how societies across time and space have made large-scale energy transitions. Political science scholarship will contribute knowledge about political transitions, which were widespread in the twentieth century, from socialist transitions in the early twentieth century to democratic transitions in the post-Cold War era. Texts by political theorists and philosophers will enable conceptual analysis of ideas like democracy, injustice, and nature. At the same time, work by sociologists will attune students to the forms of stratification and inequality energy transitions are likely to foster. Finally, literary and cultural criticism will provide insights into the interpersonal tensions, nuances, and lived experiences of people undergoing large-scale changes. Students will build their conceptual vocabulary, learn the strengths and limits of each disciplinary approach, and understand how to formulate compelling research questions and problems. 

Social Studies 98wi. Urbanism from the Global South - NEW
Renugan Raidoo
Half course (spring term). Monday 3:00-5:45.

Geographical nodes of population density, political influence, wealth accumulation, trade, and culture pre-date the age of European colonialism, yet it is largely through the cities of the Global North that urban studies has determined what it means to be, and how a place becomes, a city. Until roughly the start of the 21st century, cities of the Global South were understood as sites of decay, dereliction, poverty, and immiseration, as sites of “failed” urbanism. In this course, we revisit urbanism and urbanization (mostly) from the Global South without losing sight of the core ideas that have shaped how we think the urban. Studying urbanism from the Global South offers new insight into the urban project which has, in many senses, always been global and transnational. In the process, we re-examine many of the basic principles in urban studies but also come to question how cities relate to one another and to the parts of the world that we don’t count as urban. We take a political economic, global view of development while still attending to the local dynamics that influence the course and character of urbanization. We begin by reading several key texts that theorize how the movement of goods, people, ideas, and capital have influenced the trajectories of cities around the world, if to drastically different ends. Thereafter, we examine a number of case studies pertinent to concepts in urban theory, ranging from infrastructure to transportation to design to gentrification and beyond, from the perspective of the Global South.