Sociology 4461
Critical Thinking: Consumerism in America, Fall Semester 2004
Course Description
This is a class about questioning. Together, we will take one aspect of American society—consumerism (which we will define as the acts of selling, purchasing, and consuming)—and ask questions about why consumerism has come to occupy such a central place in our culture, why we shop the way we do, and what the effects of our behavior are on local, national, and global levels.
Critical thinking requires us to question many of the things that go unnoticed in everyday life, and to challenge assumptions we may hold that influence the ways we move about in the world. Each of us will be asked to take different perspectives on issues than we are accustomed to—an uncomfortable but frequently enlightening exercise. I view this course as a collective effort, and as such, its success will depend as much on the effort and energy that you put into the work as on the materials that I prepare for class.
Course syllabus
You can download the course syllabus here (MS Word).
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