{"id":55313,"date":"2026-09-30T13:26:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?post_type=cu_event&#038;p=55313"},"modified":"2026-10-02T10:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:29:11","slug":"program-spotlight-sociology-and-anthropology","status":"publish","type":"cu_event","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/event\/program-spotlight-sociology-and-anthropology\/","title":{"rendered":"Program Spotlight: Sociology and Anthropology"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n        \n    <\/h1>\n    \n        <\/header>\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n            <div class=\"cu-buttongroup cu-component-updated flex flex-wrap md:flex-1 gap-3 md:gap-5 justify-start\">\n                                                                                                        <\/div>\n        \n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Profs. <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/people\/tonya-davidson\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/people\/tonya-davidson\/\">Tonya Davidson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/people\/rutherford-blair\/\">Blair Rutherford<\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/\">Department of Sociology and Anthropology<\/a> are hosting two workshops designed to help high school students discover how sociologists and anthropologists study the world around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This event will include a panel discussion with current undergraduate students and a tour of the Loeb Building led by Prof. Davidson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/360.carleton.ca\/urd\/sits.urd\/run\/siw_ipp_lgn.login?process=siw_ipp_enq&amp;code1=EVT&amp;code2=&amp;code4=IPR_UDFA=EVT;IPR_UDFB=UOANTH261126\">Visit Carleton360<\/a> to register to attend this program spotlight event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"an-introduction-to-sociology-with-prof-tonya-davidson\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">An Introduction to Sociology with Prof. Tonya Davidson<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the central tasks of sociologists is to look at aspects of society that we take-for-granted as normal, and ask questions about and research these phenomena. An attention to the everyday world&nbsp; is what makes sociology so exciting, broad-ranging, and widely applicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this workshop, we will begin with two key ideas of sociologist C. Wright Mills:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong class=\"myprefix-text-bold\">Thinking sociologically means understanding the relationship between \u201cpersonal troubles\u201d and \u201cpublic issues.\u201d&nbsp;<\/strong> Take, for example, the very personal trouble of having a good night\u2019s sleep. Sleep\u2014a time when one is unconscious\u2014is imagined to be the one time when an individual is freed from the constraints and norms of society. Access to good sleep\u2014eight hours of deep, cozy slumber\u2014is often presented to be the responsibility of individuals, a condition that can be achieved by engaging in what psychologists refer to as sleep hygiene. Insomnia, likewise, is imagined as an individual problem. Yet, yet\u2026 sleep is incredibly social. When (at a set bedtime), where (in a bed, on a futon, under the stars), how (well, restlessly), are all shaped by historic, and cultural conventions. Here, we will collectively trouble over some pervasive and vexing \u201cpersonal troubles\u201d of our time: insomnia, vaping, social media.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong class=\"myprefix-text-bold\">Sociologists must think about the relationship between personal biographies and history.<\/strong> We will engage in a game of \u201ctimelines,\u201d putting historic events in order, and then align key moments in the lives of different generations (birth, young adulthood), along this timeline. Through this activity, we can begin to make sense of how different generations hold on to different beliefs and practices. Why is there an expression \u201cOK Boomer\u201d? or the so-called \u201cGen Z stare\u201d?&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our beginning sociological musings will help to answer these questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"an-introduction-to-anthropology-with-prof-blair-rutherford\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">An Introduction to Anthropology with Prof. Blair Rutherford<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropologists pursue a similar task to sociologists in providing a new perspective on everyday life around the world through a combined strategy of defamiliarization and recontextualizing in wider historical and translocal dynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this workshop, we will help you develop this anthropological perspective by defamiliarizing everyday ideas and practices. Drawing on examples that range from serious topics such as race to the seemingly innocuous ones such as pets, we will show through discussion and exercises how anthropologists examine these parts of everyday life as a product of meaning-making, informed by cultural understandings (the meanings different humans give to everything) as well as relations between different people and institutions that themselves are shaped by local, translocal, and historical dynamics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In so doing, participants will hone their ability to recognize how so much of human life is driven by cultural assumptions and social and historical contexts; in other words, participants will be developing an anthropological perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":55318,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_event_type":[],"cu_event_audience":[],"class_list":["post-55313","cu_event","type-cu_event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_event_start_date":"2026-11-26 18:30:00","cu_event_end_date":"2026-11-26 20:30:00","cu_event_add_to_calendar":"show","cu_event_location_type":"in-person","cu_event_meeting_address_type":"on-campus","cu_event_virtual_type":"tbd","cu_event_virtual_meeting_link":"","cu_building":"LA","cu_event_meeting_room":"A720","cu_event_meeting_address_full":null,"cu_post_thumbnail":"","cu_event_cost":"","cu_event_registration":"","cu_event_secondary_button":"","cu_event_contact_name":"","cu_event_email":"","cu_event_phone":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event\/55313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_event"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event\/55313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55366,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event\/55313\/revisions\/55366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_event_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event_type?post=55313"},{"taxonomy":"cu_event_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event_audience?post=55313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}