Course info

What is deviant behaviour? Why are deviant behaviours defined as such and by whom? Do they constitute real challenges to mainstream social norms or do they tend to further legitimize the status quo out of their “out of the ordinary” intrinsic nature? How do public representations of deviance intersect pivotal issues of gendered, racialized, and class-based social inequality within contemporary societies? This course will address these questions, in order to debate how public definitions of what it is considered “deviant” (and what it is not!) strongly impact on several current issues of public violence, structural inequality, and overall power management. In the first part of the course, we will track the genealogies of thought from which the study of so-called deviant behaviours has historically emerged. We will then examine how so-called deviant behaviours commonly intersect local and global social structures, while playing a significant role in their ongoing reproduction and change. Finally, we will devote the remaining classes to debate how and why mainstream representations of "the deviant" may end up serving as indirect tools of social control reproducing gendered, racial, and class-based forms of stereotype and privilege within current societies.