In this course, we will discuss various theoretical and empirical approaches to social and religious move-ments. 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 are the social and political outcomes of social movements? Finally, what empirical strategies do sociologists employ to understand and explain social movements? We will review social movement theories and use them to bet-ter understand a variety of social movements, particularly religious movements. Although special attention will be paid to Islamist movements, we will not be limited to that.

Kurs im HIS-LSF

Semester: WiSe 2022/23