Britta Fischer

Professor of Sociology
B.A., Barnard College; M.A., Ph.D., Washington University, St. Louis

Office hours:
Tue & Thur 3:30-5:00 pm
Wed 12:00-2:00 pm

Administration Building
Room 354
617-264-7617
fischer@emmanuel.edu

I was born and raised in what was then West Germany and came to Barnard College at Columbia University to continue the study of sociology. In graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis I studied both sociology and anthropology with special emphasis on Latin America. However, my doctoral thesis involved a class analysis of the engineering profession in the U.S. I have received grants to develop two team-taught interdisciplinary courses, The Urban World and Women in a Technological World, both of which have run for over a decade, and both of which continue to use innovative teaching methods. My publications have been in the areas of the sociology of the professions and in urban studies, but in recent years I have concentrated my research on Brazilian culture.

Courses
SOC1107 - Introduction to Anthropology
SOC2103 - Work and Leisure
SOC2107 - The Urban World
SOC2127 - Social Class and Power
SOC2129 - Cultural Geography
SOC3101 - Theories of Society
SOC3105 - Social Change and Development

Recent Publications & Professional Activity

1996 - "Urban America" in Custer, Rodney and Emmerson Wiens (eds), Technology and the Quality of Life (45th Yearbook), New York: McGraw-Hill, pp.199-237.

1997 with Bette Weiss - "All that Glitters is not Gold: Teaching Liberal Arts Students How to Assess Technology." Contributed Papers of the 22nd International Conference on Improving University Learning and Teaching, Rio de Janeiro: Faculdade da Cidade/University of Maryland.

1998 - "As experiencias de liberdade de Helena Morley" ("Helena Morley's Experiments with Freedom") in Novos Estudios. CEBRAP, No. 51, July, pp. 175-188. Sao Paulo, Brazil.

1999 - "A comida dos nossos netos" ("The Food of our Grandchildren") in Caderno Cultural, Vol.V. No. 21, pp. 37-39. Sao Paulo, Brazil.

2002 - Review essay "Bernard Politzer's Walachian Years: Politico-Cultural Chronicle of a Youth," 1940-1960. Under review by Novos Estudios CEBRAP. Sao Paulo, Brazil (under review).

Presentations on aspects on my research concerning "Chinese Influences in Colonial and Contemporary Brazil" were given in:

• 1994 at a conference on Popular Culture Studies at Brown University (Oct)
• 1995 at the meetings of the Brazilian Society of the History of Science in Ouro Preto, Brazil (July)
• 1996 at an International Research Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil (April)