SOC 351 - Sociology of Finance

Economic and social life now pivot around finance to an astonishing extent, leading one recent observer to suggest that we have experienced a Copernican revolution in which financial markets and logics of portfolio management have displaced corporations, communities and governments and the center around which everything orbits. This course focuses on institutional, organizational and social structures of the contemporary financial system. It traces the evolution of the financial system since the New Deal settlements, including “deregulation,” securitization, and the growing reliance on mathematical modeling. It tracks the changing role and significance of the financial system within capitalist societies, including the sources and impacts of financial crises and ethno-racial and other inequalities in credit markets. And it considers the historical, present and future role of role of small, more locally rooted and decentralized alternatives to Wall Street, too-big-to-fail institutions, and money center banking.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): SOC 211
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.