Fall 2026 Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) and Reader positions for ISF courses are listed below. All positions are pending budgetary approval.
Fall 2026
Reader Positions (2 available)
ISF 100F: Theorizing Modern Capitalism: Controversies and Interpretations
Units: 4
Instructor: Rakesh Bhandari
Class: #24752
Time: TuTh 12:30-2:00 PM
1 reader needed
The focus of this course will be on the various ways the nature and trajectory of modern capitalism has been interpreted. Our stress will be on post-Marxist works of analysis. The initial focal point will be on the work of Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter, as well as important current debates in economic history and social theory generated by their work. Both Weber and Schumpeter display a strong fascination and elaboration with the work of Marx. The way they analyze Marx is very revealing about the way contemporary analysts seek to understand the capitalist system. We will also consider a number of current efforts that look at the systemic nature of capitalism. In particular, we are interested in how economic historians now see the development of capitalism. We also want to examine the Weberian tradition in terms of the role of culture in shaping economic behavior. Debates about the nature of globalization will also be considered as well as analysis of the changing nature of work.
We require one (additional) reader for this course. The class is expected to have roughly 50 students. The reader position is expected to require 10 hours a week (25%) and comes with a tuition waiver.
If this might be of interest, please send an email to Prof. Bhandari at bhandari@berkeley.edu with your CV. In the CV, please be sure to describe (1) your familiarity with the topic, (2) your teaching experiences especially here at Berkeley and how they might apply to this course. If your experience includes working as a Berkeley GSI, then please also send me some of your course evaluations.
ISF 100C: Language and Identity
Instructor: Fang Xu
Class #25020
Units: 4
Days: MWF 10-11 AM
1 reader needed
This course examines the role of language in the construction of social identities, and how language is tied to various forms of symbolic power at the regional, national, and international levels. As the saying goes, “A language is a dialect with an army and navy” – but how so? Questions about language have been central to national culture and identity, and the languages we speak often prove, upon close examination, not to be the tongues of ancestors but invented traditions of political significance. People have also encoded resistance into non-official and ambiguous languages even as the state has attempted to devalue them as inferior forms of expression. Drawing on case studies from Asia, Europe, and North America, we will pay special attention to topics such as the legitimization of a national language, the political use of language in nation-building processes, the endangerment of indigenous languages, and processes of linguistic subordination and domination. This course will be interdisciplinary in its attempt to understand language in terms of history, politics, anthropology, and sociology. We will not only study how language has been envisioned in planning documents and official language policy, but also analyze how speakers enact, project, and contest their culturally specific subject positions according to their embodied linguistic capital.
We require a reader for this course, preferably someone who is familiar with sociolinguistics or linguistic anthropology, or sociology of language. The reader will be expected to attend lectures, grade weekly reading responses, one empirical research-based paper (500-1000 words), and a final paper (1500 words). The class capacity is 54. Graduate students from sociology, anthropology, public, policy, political science, history, linguistics, or related fields are welcome to apply.
If interested, please send an email to Prof. Xu at fangxu@berkeley.edu with your CV. In the application, please be sure to describe your teaching experiences, especially here at Berkeley.
GSI Positions (2 available)
ISF 100A: Introduction to Social Theory and Cultural Analysis
Instructor: Amm Quamruzzaman
Class #22177
Units: 4
Day & Time: TuTh 6:30-8 PM
This course provides an introduction to the works of foundational social theorists of the nineteenth century, including Karl Marx and Max Weber. Writing in what might be called the “pre disciplinary” period of the modern social sciences, their works cross the boundaries of anthropology, economics, history, political science, sociology, and are today claimed by these and other disciplines as essential texts. We will read intensively and critically from their respective works, situating their intellectual contributions in the history of social transformations wrought by industrialization and urbanization, political revolution, and the development of modern consumer society.
Each GSI will be responsible for 2 sections per week. If interested, please send an email to Prof. Quamruzzaman at aqz@berkeley.edu with your resume and CV. In the application, please be sure to describe your teaching experiences, especially here at Berkeley. If the candidate is an international student, they must meet the language proficiency requirement.
