FORG/ITAL/LACS 272 Mafia Schedule & Room TBA Instructor: John Alcorn •
[email protected] • Seabury 110 Office hours: MWF 8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. & 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m., & by appointment. Course description: This seminar will explore two kinds of order without law: (a) criminal organizations and (b) informal systems of social control. We will focus mainly on the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra). We will also (i) analyze vice markets, (ii) debate prohibitions that foster organized crime, and (iii) compare gangs and ‘order without law’. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own unwritten rules of campus life. The course is designed as an introduction to interdisciplinary social science. The particular approach is methodological individualism—jargon for the common-sense idea that we should explain social phenomena from the bottom up, by identifying what individuals do (behaviors), why they do what they do (motivations), and how their behaviors have unintended consequences (social mechanisms). We will integrate concepts from history, economics, political science, psychology, and anthropology. The assessments are designed to hone useful skills in expository writing and public speaking. Course requirements (graded assignments): • Writing: (1-4) Four short papers. Each paper is approx. 1,250 words plus bibliography. One is a position paper on a debate topic. (5-6) Weekly forum posts about assigned materials. • Seminar participation: (7) A seminar presentation. (8) A debate about whether to legalize vice markets. (If possible, within the guidelines of the Institutional Review Board, students will interview lawmakers, law enforcement officers, offenders, and advocacy groups to prepare for the debate.) If there are more students than debate slots, then some students will write a position paper instead.