The Moral Imagination in Social Practice

3 units

Everything humans do is framed by assumptions about what is real, important, enduring, etc., assumptions that are already implicit in the language they use. When they assess situations, establish priorities, interpret social settings, identify the significance of their affairs, or conceive of a meaningful past, they employ such assumptions. Sometimes they do so consciously, but often they make these assumptions unthinkingly, uncritically. In this course, we will read recent works -- journal articles as well as monographs -- on the imaginative worlds of people in various social settings, to consider how these worlds are constituted and how they are reiterated and reinforced in social practice. We will also refer back to the classic works in socio-cultural anthropology to remind ourselves of the various ways of approaching the comparative study of social practices. Prerequisite: Junior standing, two social science courses, or permission of instructor.