Sociology of Guns Seminar, Version 2.0, Fall 2016

I am excited to be teaching my Sociology of Guns seminar for the second time this fall. The first iteration of the class in fall 2015 proved to be an amazing learning experience for me and, according to their evaluations, the students as well.

The course syllabus remains substantially the same, with one major exception. This semester, I am organizing the class around an essay published a little more than 20 years ago by sociologist James D. Wright, “Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America.”

The essay was originally published in the academic journal Society in the March/April 1995 issue. (The journal is now owned by the publisher Springer, which will sell you a copy of the article if you cannot access it free through an academic library.) It was also reprinted in the 1999 book Guns in America: A Reader, which remains in print and available for purchase today.

Our readings, discussions, and papers this semester will seek to engage and update Wright’s observations, two decades after he made them. If it goes well, I hope to write an essay revisiting Wright’s observations for publication in Society or elsewhere.

More on James Wright himself and his ten observations tomorrow.