New Course for Spring 2021:
Community and Environmental Sociology 375: Community Responses to Pandemic
Monday, Wednesday, 4:00-5:15pm
Professor: Randy Stoecker
Are you weary of all the changes wrought in our lives by the COIVD-19 pandemic? Have you and the people you care about been suffering not just from COVID-19 but also the emotional stress of the current pandemic social-cultural environment? Would you like to get some perspective on this whole pandemic thing—the controversies over masks, social gatherings, and the related political upheavals over racial injustice and other issues? Would you like ideas on how to better manage this situation at the community level?
This course will focus on how we respond to pandemics at a community level—neighborhoods, small towns, tribes, and other kinds of social groups. It will not focus just on COVID-19 but on pandemics and epidemics of the past as well. The topics we will cover include:
• The pandemic-environment connection
• First Peoples’ response to epidemics/pandemics during colonization
• Community response to epidemic/pandemic during the industrial revolution
• Community response to the “Spanish Flu”
• Community response to HIV/AIDS
• Community response to COVID-19—neoliberalism and individualism against community
• Community response to COVID-19—mutual aid
• Community response to COVID-19—protest and uprising
Other topics will be determined collectively by the students in the course.
All students of any academic standing or background are welcome in the course.
For more information contact Randy Stoecker, rstoecker@wisc.edu