OVERVIEW OF COURSES

May - June 2019 TR 1:30-4:20pm

SOCIAL STUDIES OF SURVEILLANCE

Surveillance is an inescapable part of everyday life, as our behaviours are constantly observed and tracked by institutions, corporations, and other people. How does being watched affect us? How does surveillance contribute to social control?

This course is an introduction to the sociological study of surveillance. A significant portion of the course is dedicated to outlining the nature and dynamics of surveillance in different organizational settings (family, policing, security, the workplace, etc.). We will also investigate anxieties around surveillance, such as privacy issues, authoritarianism, and conformity. Topics may include but are not limited to the relationship between surveillance and sovereignty, the pitfalls of accommodating the rights of free expression and privacy, surveillance in fiction, and surveillance of the body. At the end of the course students will be able to identify the main approaches to the study of surveillance and the strengths and limitations of these different theories. This course involves intensive reading.

This is not a course in ‘how to’ conduct surveillance, nor is it a form of conspiracy theory. Instead, it is a sustained academic analysis of surveillance, understood as one of the most important social phenomena of our day.