FYSM 214 - Mafia

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

This seminar will explore two kinds of order without law: (a) criminal organization and (b) informal systems of social control. We will focus mainly on the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra). We will analyze vice markets and debate prohibitions that foster organized crime. We will also examine gangs, pirates, community sanctions, vigilantism, and self-help. Students are encouraged to analyze and reflect on their own unwritten rules of campus life. The course is designed as an introduction to history and the social sciences. The particular approach is methodological individualism-jargon for the important common-sense idea that we should explain social phenomena from the bottom up, by identifying what individuals do (behavior), why they do what they do (motivations), and how their behaviors have unintended consequences (social mechanisms). Students will get acquainted with basic distinctions among history, economics, political science, psychology, and anthropology. The course is also designed to equip students with broadly useful skills in expository writing and public speaking. 1.00 units, Seminar

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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