The Integrated Social Sciences Program (ISSP) examines important social problems that shape students' lives from the perspective of various social sciences. Students take five semester-long courses (15 credits) and an optional thesis. Admission is by application. ISSP students are encouraged to share residential suites in the Living/Learning Center.
For further information and an application, contact the ISSP Director, Professor Ross Thomson, Department of Economics, 802-999-6450, ross.thomson@uvm.edu.
Environmental degradation is currently one of the most pressing problems facing humanity. This course examines the socio-cultural causes and consequences of environmental degradation around the world, as well as the efforts to solve these problems. We analyze the increasing globalization of human/nature interactions and environmental degradation, and consider how solutions to environmental problems have dealt (or not dealt) with culturally distinct definitions of nature and social change.
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course and Non-European Cultures
Meets: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:40-11:30
Contact: 802-656-1184, Luis.Vivanco@uvm.edu
Luis Vivanco: Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director, Global and Regional Studies, is a cultural anthropologist and fluent in Spanish. He has lived and conducted research on environmentalism in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Vivanco lives in Burlington with his wife, two young kids, and a Springer Spaniel. He is currently writing an anthropology textbook and studying how mass media shape popular understandings of environmental issues.
Economic growth and innovation shape our world and our standard of living. This course examines theories of economic growth, the historical experience of growth and innovation that let the U.S. surge ahead of its competitors, the relative decline of the U.S. since 1950, and the more recent slowdown of growth.
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course
Meets: Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45
Contact: 802-999-6450, ross.thomson@uvm.edu
Ross Thomson: Associate Professor of Economics, has directed the Integrated Social Sciences Program since its inception 15 years ago. His research revolves around a central issue in economic history: how technological change shaped capitalist development, with particular reference to the nineteenth-century U.S. When not teaching or doing research, he enjoys hiking, jazz, and long-distance road trips.
Who gets what and why? This course deals with class, racial/ethnic, and sex inequality in the distribution of valued rewards (e.g., wealth, power, prestige) in society. We shall describe this distribution, explain its causes, and discuss its consequences. The focus is on the contemporary United States, but we shall also touch on the history of inequality and briefly discuss global inequality.
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course
Meets: Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15
Contact: 802-656-2141, Moustapha.Diouf@uvm.edu
Moustapha Diouf: Associate Professor of Sociology,specializes in rural sociology, social change and development in the Third World, and the political economy of Third World social formations. He has worked for UNESCO's Social Science Research Department in Senegal.
The course will explore the ways in which urban space and masculinity in the U.S. are shaped through prison. Drawing from the work of Black prisoners, social theorists, post-structuralism, Black American literature, sociology, and geography, this course seeks to examine how urban spatiality and masculine performance are underwritten by a carceral logic, meaning that prison profoundly shapes the spatial order of urban communities and the identities of those that live in them. This course will be organized around three themes: urban space and spatiality; studies of the geography of race and gender; and an examination of the rise of the prison spaces as a first response to social instability and resistance. Each of these themes will help students to understand the interconnections between space, race, gender, and prison.
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course and Race Relations and Ethnicity in the U.S.
Meets: TBD
Contact: 802-656-2063, Rashad.Shabazz@uvm.edu
Rashad Shabazz: Assistant Professor of Geography, is a graduate of the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He grew up in Chicago and has worked as a prison abolitionist. Shabazz is a member of the Political Resistance Organizing Committee and an editor for the Journal of Prisoners on Prison. His work to date has also sought to contrast the experiences of Black men in the U.S. and apartheid-era South Africa.
Do you know how the political parties select their nominees for president? What a conference committee does? How the Supreme Court decides to review a case? That only about 60 percent of the eligible voting age population voted in the 2004 presidential election? And why only 60 percent of the eligible voters voted? Do you know what a liberal stands for? How about a conservative? Do you know who Dennis Hastert is? And, why the media does such a lousy job covering politics? This course will help you find an answer to these and many other questions about U.S. government and politics by leading students in an analysis of U.S. political institutions, behavior, and government policy in the context of the current politics of the nation.
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course
Meets: TBD
Contact: 802-656-7973, anthony.gierzynski@uvm.edu
Tony Gierzynski: Associate Professor of Political Science, has written one book on the role of money in elections, another on the role of political parties, and is currently writing a third on election reforms. He has also published a number of articles and book chapters on campaign finance, elections and political parties and has worked as an expert witness in court cases involving campaign finance (one, /Randall v. Sorrell/, made it to the U.S. Supreme Court).
Some previous ISSP thesis topics: The Economics of Environmental Sustainability
Fertility Decline in Bangladesh
NAFTA and the Wages of U.S. and Mexican Workers
The Civil War and U.S. Economic Development
Rising Inequality and Slowing Growth in the U.S.
Industrial Decline and Economic Resurgence: The Case of Pittsburgh
Advertising, New Products, and Consumer Debt
Inequality in Primary Education Finance in the U.S.
Affirmative Action in College Admissions
The Politics of Whiteness and Rap Music
Environmental Justice
Non-Western Environmental Movements
The Culture and Politics of Childhood
Animals in Western Thought
Cultural Perspectives on Population Growth
Cultural Perspectives on Why Poor Whites Vote Against Their Political Interests
Anthropology of Japanese Religion
Utopian Religious Communities
Requirements Satisfied: one Social Science course
Meets: To be arranged
Contact: 802-999-6450, ross.thomson@uvm.edu
Ross Thomson: Program Director
“ISSP has been a great way to start my academic career at UVM. The classes have a personal atmosphere, and the teachers get to know you very well.”
“Being involved in ISSP will expose you to intense learning that is rarely offered to first-year students.”
“ISSP is a crash course in critical thinking, complex writing, intense reading, and always interesting group discussion. I can truly say that ISSP has greatly prepared me for the rest of my college career and beyond.”
Last modified September 10 2009 05:23 PM
