How to intervene in a course that is failing to meet expectations? All MA students in my graduate program (social sciences) are required to take a course titled 'Thought and Theory'. Ostensibly, the course should serve as an in-depth introduction for students to the contemporary debates and prevailing theories and schools of thought in our discipline. (This is particularly important as there are many students in the program who are new to the discipline, and because the discipline is very broad-reaching.) Students should, at the end of the course, be able to situate their thinking in the overarching disciplinary conversation.

For the first time, this course is being taught not by a social theorist, but by a professor who's specialization is more technical. Instead of assigning foundational texts or the significant thinkers in our field, the professor downloaded the past 20 years worth of publications in one of the field's journals, ran a textual analysis of it, and calculated the articles that had the highest 'centrality score'. We are reading only those articles, most of which have been highly technical, not theoretical, and which offer only a very narrow view of what is going on the discipline.

The students are extremely upset, and feel like we are losing out on an important educational experience. The professor has been unwilling to budge from his pedagogical position, despite many students expressing their exasperation and confusion. He told one student that she was wrong for feeling exasperated and confused.

My question is -- how should we as a current cohort of students in the department address this? The professor himself has been unreceptive to criticism (criticism which has been very polite and often at least trying to be constructive). Do we write a joint email to the department chair? I have close working relationships with other professors in the department, but feel uncomfortable complaining to them about one of their colleagues. What is the etiquette and best course of action here?
You might have a good case if this course is manifestly not meeting the department's stated requirements or failing to cover the prerequisites for further courses.  However, it's not clear from what you've written whether either of these is the case.  The methodology for selecting the readings sounds unusual, but not obviously unreasonable, and seeing this sort of cross section of the field could be a really valuable experience.  You complain that the readings are narrow and technical, rather than foundational or significant, and that might be true.  On the other hand, the professor presumably feels this is a better use of time than the way the course used to be taught.  The fact that the readings are less comfortable and harder to get a handle on could be seen as evidence that this version of the course is what the students need, even if it's not what they want.


  The students are extremely upset, and feel like we are losing out on an important educational experience.


This seems to be the crux of the matter: you wish you could have taken the previous version of the course instead.  That's a perfectly legitimate desire, and it's worth making it clear to the department in some way (student evaluations, comments to faculty afterwards, etc.).  However, that is not the sort of complaint that will lead to any short-term action.  Faculty have considerable freedom in crafting courses, and departments are generally reluctant to intervene unless there are serious problems.  It's not enough if you just don't enjoy a course or feel that a different course would have been more useful.

So I'd recommend setting aside the issue of regret over not getting to take the previous version.  You can register your unhappiness about that later.  In the meantime, it's worth formally complaining only if you have objective evidence of something wrong with this course in its own right, and not just in comparison with what could have been.