Self and Social Change

A First-Year Tutorial offered fall 2021, taught by Ross Haenfler, professor of sociology

How do people engage in social change efforts not only as activists but also in the course of their ongoing, relatively mundane lives? How do they seek to “be the change they wish to see in the world”? This course explores whether and how our individual choices matter. We will learn how people build connections between individual and collective action and how they connect personal and structural change. Topics will include the development of lifestyle movements, wherein participants challenge cultural patterns by changing their lifestyles; building sustainable, thriving social change communities; evaluating change efforts; and how people combine self-actualization, self-care, and social transformation. We will learn from and about anarchists, vegans, intentional communities, cooperatives, punk and hip hop, queer collectives, BIPOC activism, ethical/political consumerism, abstinence pledgers, religious and spiritual communities, and prefigurative politics.