Education is an essential component of democracy, which requires citizens who are curious, well informed and critically engaged with the world they are part of. To this end I see teaching as a way to equip students to understand, critique and transform their societies. Doing this requires sparking and maintaining students’ curiosity by posing big questions that force them to reconsider preconceived beliefs; providing students the tools they need to rigorously evaluate conflicting answers to these questions and ask/answer their own research questions; and pushing students to connect what they learn in the classroom to their own lived experiences and to what is happening in the world beyond.
My courses have been rated very highly by students (and colleagues) at UAlbany and UC Berkeley, where I won the 2011-2012 Best Graduate Student Instructor Award.
Undergraduate Courses Taught
Hot New World: Climate Change in the Americas Culture and Power in the Americas
Classical Social Theory Development Studies
Urban Latin America Participatory Democracy in the Americas
Contemporary Social Theory Is Another World Possible? From Social Theory to Social Transformation
Introduction to Sociology Democracy and Development in Latin America
Research Methods
Graduate Courses Taught
Capitalism, Development, and Climate Change
Latin America Seminar (on various themes incl. revolutions, democracy)
Theories of Political Economy
Research Methods
Additional courses prepared to teach
Ethnography Globalization
Qualitative Methods Political Sociology
Urban Sociology Social Movements
Postcolonial Theory Politics and Social Change in Latin America
Comparative Historical Methods Democracy in Theory and Practice
Gabriel Hetland 