All Posts Tagged With: "sociology"
My bestiality and necrophilia class
Why am I the only one made uncomfortable by this?
Photo by Rocpoc on Flickr
I haven’t had many lectures where terms like necrophilia or bestiality came up. That’s why, among all the classes I’ve taken over the past four years, the sociology course I’m taking this semester, Sexuality and the Law, stand outs.
It wasn’t until the second class that the professor really delved into the ‘makes you feel uncomfortable and avoid eye contact with the other students’ material. Penis rings, polygamy, chastity belts, the Kama Sutra, and the lack of a female counterpart to Viagra were all discussed, in no particular order of uncomfortableness.
Hip-Hop courses proliferate
Students explore Jay-Z, Rap Poetics, Religion and Hip Hop
Religion and Hip Hop by Erik Quinn on Facebook
Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. has launched a new course centred on the works of rapper Jay-Z, reports The Nation.
It’s getting a lot of attention, but it’s certainly not the first time that a prestigious university has used hip-hop to help students explore big questions.
Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z has units on “Hustling Hermeneutics” and the “Monster of the Double Entendre.” The course is popular so far, with 140 signed up—about three-times the normal enrollment for a Georgetown seminar.
“Many are white kids—they bring a level of criticism about the culture they have emerged from… because they’ve seen that culture through Jay-Z’s eyes,” course instructor Michael Eric Dyson told The Nation, explaining the course’s popularity among a student body that’s only 6.7 per cent African-American.
Sociology job market improves
But jobs available don’t match students’ interests
Photo courtesy of poptech on Flickr
It’s been a tumultuous few years for those graduating with sociology doctorates in North America. In 2009, the number of job listings for entry-level professors plunged by 35 per cent.
But new numbers show that listings increased 32 per cent in 2010 — a near recovery. It’s all in the American Sociological Association’s new report, Moving Toward Recovery.
It’s not all good news, however. The report also surveyed PhD candidates and found some major mismatches between their “areas of special interest” and the jobs that were available in 2010.
One of the widest gaps is in criminology (a.k.a. social control, crime, law and deviance), which made up 31 per cent of all postings on the ASA’s job site in 2010, but was only listed as an area of special interest for 18 per cent of PhD candidates whom were surveyed by the ASA.
A newer, bigger MCAT is on the way
It’s coming in 2015. So write it now.
Although I’m feeling more and more nervous as the Medical Colleges Admission Test (MCAT) looms closer, a part of me is glad that I’ll be writing it soon.
Not just because I’ll be glad to get it over with, like ripping the band-aid off as quickly as possible. There’s an even bigger reason: even though the MCAT already covers biological sciences, physical sciences, verbal reasoning and writing, it’s about to become even more comprehensive.
For the first time in nearly 25 years, the MCAT is undergoing a revision.
Although the MCAT has gone through four major revisions in the past, it has supposedly been unable to “consistently predict personal and professional characteristics.” Meaning, although it can test someone’s knowledge of organic chemistry, it can’t evaluate their bedside manner.
The Association of American Medical Colleges recently released preliminary recommendations for the new test, such as lengthening the exam by 90 minutes and including questions on disciplines such as sociology and psychology. According to the article in the New York Times, questions about how “someone living in a particular demographic situation… might perceive and interact with others” could test analytical and reasoning skills in areas such as ethics, philosophy and cross-cultural studies.
In other words, by adding additional material, the new test will require additional studying. So try to write the MCAT before 2015, when the changes come into effect.
-Photo courtesy of gadl
Accused terrorist’s replacement takes over at Carleton
New instructor says it became “difficult” to have Diab in the classroom
Carleton University says Hassan Diab, an Ottawa professor who was released on bail after being arrested in connection with the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue, has been relieved of his teaching duties of a summer Carleton course.
On July 30, Karen March, a sociology professor at Carleton, took over as the summer sociology course’s class instructor. She and students addressed the controversy surrounding Diab’s dismissal as part of their class discussion on “social problems.”
Some students enrolled in the first-year sociology class Diab taught since mid-July say they are not happy he has been replaced
“They knew who he was when they hired him. What’s the point of changing it because the media found out?” said one student in the July 30 class, the first scheduled class since the professor’s dismissal.
“Three weeks of class, three profs and I need this courses to graduate,” said another former student.
Diab started teaching the class after the instructor who was originally scheduled to teach, George Pollard, became ill one week into the summer course, which started the first week of July.
For complete OnCampus coverage of this story, including commentary, click here.
March says she took over from Diab because it became “difficult to have him in this class,” but that she was “not coerced” into teaching.
The reasoning for the professor’s dismissal, according to Carleton’s release, was “in the interest of providing its students with a stable, productive academic environment that is conducive to learning.”
The announcement came following reports from several media sources, including the July 27 Ottawa Citizen article, concerning Diab’s new teaching assignment, and criticism from the Canadian national office of B’nai Brith, an international Jewish human rights advocacy group.
The group issued a statement July 28, saying, “the conditions of Diab’s bail do not even allow him to leave his home alone or to own a cell phone, but Carleton officials believe that it is fine for them to make him a member of their faculty? The last place in the world where this man belongs is in a university classroom, in front of impressionable students.”
CUPE Local 4600, the union representing Carleton teaching assistants and contract instructors, said in a open letter addressed to Carleton president Roseann Runte, obtained by the Charlatan July 29, that they are “extremely concerned” about Diab’s dismissal.
“Mr. Diab has the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty,” it read.
In the letter CUPE also raised the fact that Diab was fired after he had already been teaching the course under contract; his sudden dismissal may go against the collective agreement the union has with the university.
CUPE 4600 said they are urging the university “to balance public opinion with the law and a sense of professional integrity.”
The Canadian Association of University Teachers also said in a release July 29 that it “condemns in the strongest possible terms” the change in professors.
It goes on to say that Carleton’s actions “represent a serious violation of basic rights and procedures” and that they are calling for the school to reinstate Diab.
The department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton has said they will not be releasing the name of the course’s new professor until July 30, after the class is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.
On Carleton Central — Carleton’s course registration website — the instructor for the class has changed from Hassan Diab, who was still listed July 28, to “TBA.”
Diab was arrested in November 2008 and accused of killing four as a result of the 1980 terrorist blast which was blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations after no one claimed responsibility.
As part of his bail conditions granted on March 31 of this year, Diab has been outfitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet, is under house arrest when not attending work and must obey a curfew and refrain from owning a cellphone, among other impositions.
According to the Citizen, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger said the strict conditions were necessary to prevent the risk of Diab fleeing the country before he is to appear at an extradition hearing to face murder and destruction of property charges in France.
The Citizen also reported Diab was to be allowed to travel to Carleton accompanied by court-appointed surety and his common-law spouse, Rania Tfaily, also a Carleton sociology professor, to teach the course that is scheduled twice a week.
Diab told French newspaper Le Figaro during an interview in 2007 (as translated by the Citizen): “I am a victim of mistaken identity not based on anything . . . I have never belonged to any Palestinian organization, nor have I been militant politically.”
Diab has previously taught courses at both Carleton and the University of Ottawa.
The university has said it is not commenting further on the issue.
Neither Diab’s lawyer or Tfaily, were available for comment.
Diab faces his extradition hearing Jan. 4, 2010.
— a version of this story appeared in the August edition of the Charlatan, Carleton University’s student independent newspaper
Does this count as summer school?
I never knew that hair could talk
Last weekend I did something for the first time in my life. Ever. I went to a hair salon.
Yes, my sister made me do it.
According to my sister, my old haircut said “super nerd who doesn’t care about his appearance.” I didn’t know that a hair cut could say something that specific about a person. Actually, I didn’t know hair could talk. But for the record, my hair was lying. I do care about my appearance.
Sort of. Sometimes.
But last Saturday, after spending three intense hours up close and personal, observing the secret sub-culture of a professional hair salon, I think I should get an advanced credit in anthropology. Or at least some sociology course.
For instance, I learned that there’s actually a difference between barbers and hair dressers. Before my trip to the hair salon, I figured that barbers were just the Old West version of hair dressers. I mean, both of them cut hair. I didn’t think there was much room for difference.
But apparently, the difference between barbers and hair dressers is sort of like the difference between one-ply and two-ply toilet paper. Barbers are a more basic version of hair dressers.
And those gigantic, ceiling-mounted high-tech hair dryer thingies that look like they’re from some lame science fiction movie? They actually exist.
When I first showed up at the hair salon, Vinny, the hair dresser, handed me a booklet. A booklet that contained little pieces of hair. At first, I was horrified. I had to stop myself from emitting a high pitched scream and dropping it to the floor. I was holding a little scrapbook of voodoo dolls.
Once my heart rate returned to normal, I had to force myself to think happy thoughts. Never mind voodoo dolls. It was like being handed a saltshaker filled with toenail clippings. I now have a new nightmare: that booklet, spilling into my bowl of breakfast cereal. Millions of hairs. All different colours. All over the place. Airborne.
After my sister finished her conference with Vinny, with me pretending not to listen as they discussed my washed-out skin tones, helmet hair, and lack of any texture (people have, uh, texture?) it was decided.
Of course, no one thought I needed to know what was going to happen next.
Next I had my hair washed. Leaning back in a chair, my scalp being washed by a complete stranger, has to be the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt in my life. Until five minutes later, when Vinny wrapped a small, airtight plastic cap around my skull, complete with a vinyl cape.
Hair expert Vinny Nguyen, of Beauty Hair Creations in Kitchener, transforms Scott Dobson-Mitchell
The surface of the cap was covered in millions of little holes. When I noticed that the hairdresser was wielding a mini pickaxe, I didn’t make the connection right away.
And then I figured it out. The hairdresser was going to pierce through the cap (which was vacuum-sealed to my scalp), and then somehow pull a strand of hair through one of those tiny holes.
“This might hurt a little,” Vinny warned me. And then she jumped, gaining as much leverage as possible, and brain fluid squirted across the hair salon.
When my sister had highlights put in her hair, Vinny neatly wrapped little pieces of tinfoil all over her head and used a paintbrush. Had I inadvertently broken some social code of hair salons, and was being punished?
When I regained consciousness and tuned in to my sister’s and Vinny’s conversation, I suddenly realized that every second word was, “blah blah blah.” Apparently my sister couldn’t live without “blah blah blah.” She used “blah blah blah” every morning. And although “blah, blah, blah is fairly expensive, it’s really worth it.”
I finally figured out that “blah blah blah” wasn’t some sort of code word. It’s actually a short, round, purple bottle. Filled with hair stuff. And apparently it costs a lot.
Never mind anthropology or sociology. The whole thing was a learning experience in linguistics. After listening to my sister and Vinny, I could probably fake my way through hair salon dialogue for at least three minutes. Heck, five minutes, if I was allowed to fill every sentence with “blah blah blah.”
When I first caught a glimpse of my hair in a mirror, I thought something had gone horribly wrong. I’m used to a solid helmet of brown hair. Now I had bright yellow stripes all over my head. Or more like chunks. Yeah, chunks. Suddenly I understood how people can have texture in their hair.
I thought my sister was just messing with me when she said to the hairdresser, “Wow, great! That looks perfect!”
I was busy wondering how I could get home without another human being seeing me between Vinny’s and my place. Or more importantly, how to avoid all future human contact until my hair grows out a couple of inches and I can chop all of that ‘texture’ off.
Or most important of all: how to avoid seeing my three younger brothers ever again. Because when my new haircut speaks to my brothers, I already know what it’s going to say.
“Give Scott a punch in the gut.”
Scott Dobson-Mitchell "After"
