Course outline

In this course, we will discuss various theoretical and empirical approaches to social and religious movements. A social movement is a more or less organized effort by a group of people to bring about social or political change. Our main objective in this seminar is to deal with the following questions that have long dominated the sociological study of social movements: How can we explain the emergence of social and protest movements? Under what conditions do they form? Who participates in them? What kinds of social movements are there? Finally, what empirical strategies do sociologists employ to understand and explain social movements? We will review social movement theories and use them to better understand a variety of social movements, particularly religious movements. Although special attention will be paid to religious movements, we will not be limited to that.