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CS92PROD
The Future Perfect


SOC 299
Fall 2017 not offered
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory
Course Cluster: Queer Studies

Sociology is typically preoccupied with the present and, to a lesser extent, the past, favoring empirical methods that aim to reveal a variety of truths: for example, the logics underlying social structures and systems, the causes of social inequality, and the mechanisms by which inequality is reproduced. Where does this leave the future? Despite the persistence of patterns of social life, the future remains always and ultimately undetermined. We cannot know it; we can only imagine, speculate, and fantasize. The future, it seems, belongs to the world of fiction: to novels, films, television shows, and music that offer visions of what it might hold. These visions are sometimes suffused with hope for a changed world and sometimes with anxiety at the prospect of change. What can we learn about the present from images of the future? Might they offer an antidote to suspicions that we are headed toward a future of increased inequality and scarcity and looming environmental catastrophe? What traps might we find ourselves in when we treat the future as a distinct category of time? This course pairs social theory with works of fiction in addressing these questions.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS SOC
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: SOC151 AND SOC212
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (CSCT)(HRAD-MN)(SOC)(STS)

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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