Sociological Theory



Sociological Theory

Minnesota State University at Moorhead Summer 2004

[pic]

Think on these things…

“It cannot be necessary to prove to anybody who reads this work that ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos: in other words, that all social mechanisms rests upon Opinions.” Auguste Comte, Positive Philosophy, vol. 1; pg. 48

“We think it a fertile idea that social life must be explained, not by the conceptions of it created by those who participate in it, but by profound causes which escape awareness; and we also think that these causes must principally be sought in the way in which associated individuals are grouped.” Review of Antonio Labriola, ‘Essais sur la conception materialiste de l’historie’ [1897]; in M. Traugott (ed. & trans.), Emile Durkheim on Institutional Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, pg.127.

“The first and fundamental rule is to consider social facts as things.”

Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (first published in French in 1895); in Kenneth Thompson (ed. & trans.), Readings from Emile Durkheim, London: Routledge, 1985, pg. 67.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and surf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto [1848]; Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959, pg. 45-46.

“If the innermost essence of being is will to power, if pleasure is every increase of power, displeasure every feeling of not being able to resist or dominate; may we not then posit pleasure and displeasure as cardinal facts? Is will possible without these two oscillations of Yes and No?- But who feels pleasure?- But who wants power?- Absurd question, if the essence itself is will-power and consequently feelings of pleasure and displeasure! Nonetheless: opposites, obstacles are needed; therefore, relatively, encroaching units-.” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will To Power. NY: Vintage, 1967, pg. 369.

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness.” Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [1859]; trans. T.B. Bottomore in Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. T.B. Bottomore and M. Rubel, Harmondworth, Penguin, 1963, pg. 67.

“Power [macht] is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests. Domination [herrschaft] is the probability that a command with a given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons.” Max Weber, Economy and Society (3 vols.), ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, New York, Bedminster Press, 1968, vol. 1, pg. 4. First published in German in 1925.

“If society is conceived as interactions among individuals, the description of this interaction is the task of the science of sociology.” Georg Simmel, Fundamental Problems of Sociology: Individual and Society (first published in German, 1917) ed. and trans. Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, New York: Free Press, 1950, pg. 10

“The discourse of sociology and the concepts, theories, and findings of the other social sciences continually ‘circulate in and out’ of what they are about. In so doing they reflexively restructure their subject matter, which itself has learned to think sociologically. Modernity is itself deeply and intrinsically sociological.” Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991, pg. 14.

“Truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power…Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truths: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish ‘true’ and ‘false’ statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; and the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth, the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.” Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, New York, Pantheon, 1980, pg. 131

“Disneyland exits in order to hide that it is the “real” country, all of “real” America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.” Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, Michigan, 1994, pg. 12-13.

“This ‘post-modern’ individualism arises not out of the problematic of liberty and liberation, but out of the liberation of slave networks and circuits, that is, an individual diffraction of the programmed ensembles, a metamorphosis of the macro-structures into innumerable particles which bear within them all the stigmata of the networks and circuits –each one forming its own micro-network and micro-circuit, each one reviving for itself, in its micro-universe, the now useless totalitarian of the whole.” Jean Baudrillard’s How can you jump over your shadow…?, (pg. 107) in The Illusion of the End (Translated by Chris Turner). CA: Stanford University Press.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Peter Kivisto. 2003. Social Theory: Roots & Branches. CA: Roxbury.

Charles Lemert. 1999. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings. Westview.

RECOMMENDED TEXTS:

Patrick Baert. 1998. Social Theory in the Twentieth Century. NY: New York University Press.

Jean Baudrillard. 1999. The Transparency of Evil: Essay on Extreme Phenomena. London: Verso.

Jean Baudrillard. 1994. Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press.

Jean Baudrillard. 1991. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Indiana: University Press.

James Bernauer. 1990. Michel Foucault’s Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics for Thought. Humanity.

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality. Anchor Books.

Rosi Braidotti. 1994. Normadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary

Feminist Theory. NY: Columbia University Press.

Albert Camus. 1955. The Myth of Sisyphus. NY: Vintage.

Albert Camus. 1956. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. NY: Vintage.

Randall Collins. 1994. Four Sociological traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewis A. Coser. 1977. Masters of Sociological Thought. Harcourt Brace Javanovich.

Patricia Ticineto Clough. 1994. Feminist Thought. MA: Blackwell.

Anthony Giddens. 1993. New Rules of Sociological Method. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Anthony Giddens. 1991.Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age.

CA: Stanford

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Minnesota: University Press.

Emile Durkheim. 1984. The Division of Labor in Society. NY: Free Press.

Emile Durkheim. 1973. On Morality and Society. Chicago: University Press.

Emile Durkheim. 1951. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. NY: Free Press.

Michel Foucault. 1986. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self. NY: Vintage.

Michel Foucault. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception. NY: Vintage.

Eric Fromm. 1961. Marx’s Concept of Man. NY: Continuum.

Donna J. Haraway. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.

Hans H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University.

Steven Seidman. 1999. Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era. MA: Blackwell.

Stephen Pfohl. 1992. Death at the Parasite Café: Social Science Fiction & the Postmodern. NY:

St. Martin’s Press.

Mark Poster. 1988. Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Stanford: University Press.

James B. Rule. 1997. Theory and Progress in Social Science. Cambridge: University Press.

Jean-Paul Sartre. 1981. Existential Psychoanalysis. Washington: Gateway.

Alfred Schutz. 1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Press.

Alfred Schutz. 1962. Collected Papers Vol. 1: The Problem of Social Reality. Martinus Nijhoff.

Georg Simmel. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. NY: Free Press.

Robert C. Tucker. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. NY: Norton

Scott Lash & John Urry. 1994. Economies of Signs & Space. CA: Sage

Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago.

Lee Garth Vigilant and John B. Williamson. 2003. Symbolic Immortality and Social Theory: The Relevance of

an Underutilized Concept. Handbook of Death & Dying, Clifton D. Bryant (Editor-in-Chief). CA: Sage.

Max Weber. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. NY: Free Press.

COURSE CONTENT:

This course offers an analysis of classical and contemporary theoretical traditions in sociology beginning with the seminal contributions of writers such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Auguste Comte, and Georg Simmel. “WE” also consider the works of Twentieth century theorists such as Parsons, Gouldner, Mills, Coleman, Fanon, Giddens, DuBois, and Habermas. Finally, “WE” conclude with an examination of late-modern writers such as Foucault, Lyotard, Haraway, Collins, Spivak, and Baudrillard. Along the way, “WE” elucidate the major traditions in sociology (rational choice, structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, conflict theory, structuration, phenomenology, structuralism, and post-structuralism). Students will come away with an understanding of the lexicons of each tradition, their paradigmatic assumptions and shifts, and their separate contributions to the state of sociological epistemology today. Some issues of paramount concern to this discourse are:

( the social-structural contexts (or constraints) that inform theoretical production.

( the place of cumulative knowledge in the production of “new” ideas.

( the role of human agency and freedom given profound structural constraints.

( the (func)tions of culture, ideology, and communication in social praxis.

( the utility of social theory for (w)riting our (dis)autobiographical narratives.

Moreover, “WE” consider the following strategic questions:

( What scope conditions constrain the various theoretical paradigms?

( Do social theories have a time limitation? (Are classical theories still viable?)

( What are the standards for “good” theory, and how are “WE” to differentiate?

( How can theoretical consumption enrich “OUR” lives?

( Is there a place for epistemic-reflexivity in the production of scientific ideas?

COURSE STRUCTURE & POLICIES:

Class attendance and participation are required. Assigned readings should to be read before each class session. Students should be fully prepared to answer questions and make informed comments on assigned readings. In a typical class period, I will lecture for more than half of the apportioned time, but I will always try to set aside time for discussion and/or questions. In all of my classes, I try to create a “safe space” so that no question or comment is ignored, seen as unimportant, or viewed as imbecilic. In “safe spaces,” everyone should feel empowered to interrogate the professor and to engage other students in a manner that is respectful and caring, yet intellectually rigorous. A FOREWARNING: THIS COURSE IS READING & (W)RITING INTENSIVE. Conscientious students should anticipate (at least) 8 to 10 hours of reading per week.

GRADES & COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Scholarly participation and consistent attendance are obligatory (If you have more than two (2) absences, I will reduce your final score by a grade level). Each participant must complete three (3) analytic reaction papers (4-10 pages in length), the first paper based on your choice of readings from Module I, the second from Module II, and the third from Module III. The A.R.P. portion is 60% of your final grade. These papers must be handed-in on the first day a particular theme is discussed. (I may ask you to share your (w)ritings with the class; if you do, I will add an additional 5 points to your ARP grade.) I deduct –15% from late A.R.Ps. There is a take-home meditation worth 20% of your final grade (at the end of the first module). Next, your participation as a discussant leader (at least three (3) readings) will count for 10% of your final score: This latter requirement is to ensure that everyone is keeping current with the readings & that class attendance is high. Finally, you will make a presentation that applies one of the sociological traditions to a narrative of your choice. For instance, how might Durkheim assess Camus’ novel The Stranger, or how does Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra Theory apply to the film The Matrix. Your objective here is to relate sociological theory to a mundane concern. You are free to use popular literature, film, or news event/article.

The median grade for this course over the past two (3) years has ranged from a C+ to a B-.

I am available during my office hours (and beyond) for consultation on lectures, readings, and/or classroom interactions. I am pleased to assist you through this intellectual, emotional, and reflexive journey. I would certainly encourage the formation of weekend or evening study groups to discuss the readings and lectures: education is a collaborative and an interactive process -and so is my pedagogy.

THEMES & READING ASSIGNMENTS

Module I: The Classical (W)ritings

1. (June 1) Introduction: Whither Sociological Theory

1. The Industrial Revolution and the rise of Occidental Theorizing.

2. (June 2) The Conflict Tradition: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Auguste Comte (What ‘Conflict?’)

“For conflict theory, the basic insight is that human beings are sociable but conflict-prone animals. Why is there conflict? Above all else, there is conflict because violent coercion is always a potential resource, and it is a zero-sum sort. This does not imply anything about the inherence of drives to dominate; what we do know firmly is that being coerced is an intrinsically unpleasant experience, and hence that any use of coercion even by a small minority, calls forth conflict in the form of antagonism to being dominated.” Randall Collins, Conflict Theory: Toward an Explanatory Science, NY: Academic Press, 1975.

1. Karl Marx, ‘The Manifesto of the Communist Party.’ In Kivisto’s Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 16).

2. Karl Marx, ‘Estranged Labour’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 30).

3. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, ‘Class Struggle’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 37).

4. Lewis Coser, ‘The Function of Social Conflict.’ In Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 208)

________________________________________________________________________

Further Reading:

1. Randall Collins, ‘The Conflict Tradition’, in Four Sociological Traditions, UK: Oxford, (pg. 47).

2. Steven Seidman, ‘Grand Visions: Auguste Comte & Karl Marx’ in Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era, MA: Blackwell.

3. (June 3 & 7) The Conflict Tradition (continued)

“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other –bourgeoisie and proletariat.” -Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848.

1. Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 41).

2. Karl Marx, ‘The Fetishism of Commodities’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 59).

3. Karl Marx, ‘Labour-Power and Capital’, in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classical Readings (pg. 61).

4. Georg Simmel, ‘Conflict as the Basis of Group Formation’, in Social

Theory: Roots & Branches (pg. 114).

5. Friedrich Engels, ‘The Patriarchal Family’ in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 66).

6. Documentary: The Specter of Marxism.

4. (June 8 & 9) The Functionalist Tradition: Durkheim as Progenitor

“The Analysis of social and cultural phenomena in terms of the functions they perform in a sociocultural system. In functionalism, society is conceived of as a system of inter-related parts in which no part can be understood in isolation from the whole. A change in any part is seen as leading to a certain degree of imbalance, which in turn results in changes in other parts of the system as a whole. The development of functionalism was based on the model of the organic system found in biological systems.” –George A. Theodorson and Achilles S. Theodorson, eds., A Modern Dictionary of Sociology, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969.

1. Emile Durkheim, ‘Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical readings, (pg. 70).

2. Emile Durkheim, ‘Sociology and Social Facts’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 71).

3. Emile Durkheim, ‘Suicide and Modernity’ in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 74).

4. Emile Durkheim, ‘On Mechanical and Organic Solidarity’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 38).

5. Emile Durkheim, ‘Anomic Suicide’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 49).

Further Reading:

1. Albert Camus, ‘An Absurd Reasoning’ and ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ in the Myth of Sisyphus, 1955: Alfred A. Knopf.

5. (June 10) (Neo)Functionalism: From Parsons to Merton

“Functions are those observed consequences which make for the adaptation or adjustments of a given system; and dysfunctions, those observed consequences which lessen the adaptation or adjustment of the system. There is also the possibility of nonfunctional consequences, which are simply irrelevant to the system under consideration. Manifest functions are those objective consequences contributing to the adjustment or adaptation of the system which are intended and recognized by participants in the system. Latent functions, correlatively, being those which are neither intended nor recognized.” –Robert K. Merton Social Theory and Social Structure, NY: Free Press, 1968.

1. Robert K. Merton, ‘The Unanticipated Consequences of Social Action’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 180).

2. Niklas Luhmann, ‘Functional Differentiation’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 194).

3. Talcott Parsons, ‘The Functional Prerequisites of Social Systems’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 188)

Further Reading:

1. Randall Collins, ‘TheDurkheimian Tradition’ in Four

Sociological Traditions, (pg. 181).

2. James B. Rule, ‘From Parsons to Alexander: Closure

through theoretical generality’ in Theory and Progress in Social Science, (pg. 98).

3. Patrick Baert, ‘The Biological Metaphor: Functionalism and

Neo-Functionalism’ in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 37).

4. Steven Seidman, ‘The Promise of Sociology: Emile Durkheim and Max Weber’ in Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era. Blackwell.

6. (June 14 & 15) The Rational Tradition: The Weberian Contribution

“Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally that exercise of control on the basis of knowledge. This is the feature of it which makes it specifically rational…Experience tends to universally show that the purely bureaucratic type of administrative organization- that is, the monocratic variety of bureaucracy- is, from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings.” –Max Weber, Economy and Society, 1925.

1. Max Weber, ‘The Spirit of Capitalism and the Iron Cage’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 100).

2. Max Weber, ‘The Bureaucratic Machine’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 104).

3. Max Weber, ‘Types of Legitimate Domination’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 112).

4. Max Weber, ‘Class, Status, Party’, in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 115).

5. Georg Simmel, ‘The Stranger’, in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 184)

6. George Simmel, ‘Fashion’, in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 101)

7. (June 16) R.E.M: The Contributions of Economics

“Rational choice theory contains one element that differentiates it from nearly all other theoretical approaches in sociology. This element can be summed up in a single word: optimization. The theory signifies that in acting rationally, an actor is engaging in some kind of optimization. This is sometimes expressed as maximizing utility, sometimes as minimizing cost, sometimes in other ways. But however expressed, it is this that gives rational choice theory its power. –James S. Coleman and Thomas J. Feraro, Rational Choice Theory, London: Sage, 1992.

1. James S. Coleman, ‘The New Social Structure and the New

Social Science’ in Social Theory: Classical and Multicultural Readings, (pg. 510).

2. James S. Coleman, ‘Human and Social Capital’ in Social

Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 317).

3. George Homans, ‘Social Behavior as Exchange’, in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 295).

Further Reading:

1. James B. Rule, ‘Rational Choice’, in Theory and Progress in Social Science, (pg. 79).

2. Randall Collins, ‘The Rational/Utilitarian Tradition’, in Four Sociological traditions, (pg. 121-180).

3. Patrick Baert, ‘The Invasion of Economic Man’, in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 153).

8. (June 17) Theoretical ‘Use-Value’: Theory as Critiquing Mechanism for Our Gendered Dis/Autobiographies

“At the risk of shocking sociologists, I should be inclined to say that it is their job to render social or historical content more intelligible than it was in the experience of those who lived it. All sociology is a reconstruction that aspires to confer intelligibility on human existences which, like all human existences, are confused and obscure.” –Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, Vol. 2, Penguin, 1970: 207.

“Male orientation may so colour the organization of sociology as a discipline that the invisibility of women is a structured male view, rather than a superficial flaw. The male focus, incorporated into the definitions of subject areas, reduces women to a side issue from the start.” – Anne Oakley, The Sociology of Housework, London: Martin Robertson, 1974:4.

1. Karl Mannheim, ‘The Sociology of Knowledge and Ideology’ in Social

Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 217).

2. Herbert Marcuse, ‘Repressive Desublimation’, in Social Theory: Classical and Multicultural Readings, (pg. 434)

3. Elsie Clews Parsons, ‘Feminism and Conventionality’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 173)

4. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ‘The Dependence of Women’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 162)

5. Anna Julia Cooper, ‘The Colored Woman’s Office’, in Social Theory: Classical and Multicultural Readings, (pg. 179).

Further Reading:

1. Patricia M. Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley, The

Women Founders: Sociology and Social Theory, NY: McGraw Hill, 1998.

Take Home Meditation (June 21)

Module II: MODERNITY (Sublime & Problematic)

9. (June 21) Memories from the “Racialized” Other: Fanon & Dubois

“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter around it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not those Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word…” –W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903, NY: Bantam.

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, ‘Double Consciousness and the Veil,’ In

Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 162).

2. Frantz Fanon, ‘Decolonizing, National Culture, and the Negro

Intellectual,’ Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 359)

3. Aime Cesaire, ‘Between Colonizer and Colonized,’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 340).

4. Gunnar Myrdal, ‘The Negro Problem as a Moral Issue’, in Social Theory: Classical and Multicultural Readings, (pg. 245).

5. Documentary: Franz Fanon: Black Skin/White Masks

10. (June 22) Structuralism, Semiotics, & the Hidden ‘Unconscious’

“If the development of civilization has such far-reaching similarity to the development of the individual and if it employs the same methods, may we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilizations, or some epochs of civilization –possibly the whole of mankind- have become ‘neurotic’?” –Sigmund Frued, Civilization and Its Discontents, London: Hogarth Press, 1969.

1. Ferdinand de Saussure, ‘Arbitrary Social Values and the Linguistic Sign’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 148)

2. Sigmund Freud, ‘The Return of the Repressed in Social Life’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classical Readings, (pg. 142).

3. Norbert Elias, ‘Shame and Repugnance’ in Social

Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 434)

_________________________________________________________

Further Reading:

1. Patrick Baert, ‘A Timeless Order and its Achievement:

Structuralism and Genetic Structuralism’, in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 9).

11. (June 23) “Emancipation is Free”: Critical Directions in Theory

“The glory of the sciences is their unswerving application of their methods without reflecting on knowledge-constitutive interests. From knowing not what they do methodologically, they are much surer of their discipline, that is of methodological progress within an unproblematic framework. False consciousness has a protective function. For the sciences lack the means of dealing with the risks that appear once the connection of knowledge and human interest has been comprehended on the level of self-reflection.” –Jurgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, Boston: Becon Press, 1971.

1. Herbert Marcuse, ‘Philosophy and Critical Theory’ in Social

Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 378).

2. Jurgen Habermas, ‘On Systematically Distorted Communication’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 390)

3. C.W. Mills, ‘The Sociological Imagination’, in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 348).

4. Jurgen Habermas, ‘Emancipatory Knowledge’ and ‘Social Analysis and Communicative Competence’, in Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 380).

5. Alvin Gouldner, ‘Toward a Reflexive Sociology’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Reading, (pg. 428).

_________________________________________________________

Further Reading:

1. Max Horhheimer, ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’ in Social

Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 363)

2. Steven Seidman, ‘Between Science and Poltics: The Critical

Theory of C.W. Mills and Jurgen Habermas’, in Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era.

3. Patrick Baert, ‘The Spread of Reason: Habermas’s Critical

Theory’, in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 134).

12. (June 24) Symbolic Interactionism, Ethnomethodology, Phenomenology, & Dramaturgy: The Mundane as Problematic

“It is misleading to say that experiences have meaning. Meaning does not lie in the experience. Rather, those experiences are meaningful which are grasped reflectively.” –Alfred Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Social World, Northwester Univ. Press, 1966.

1. Alfred Schutz, ‘Indirect Social Relationship,’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 262).

2. Harvey Sacks, ‘Rules of Conversational Sequence,’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 268)

3. Charles Horton Cooley, ‘The Looking Glass Self’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Reading, (pg. 188).

4. George H. Mead, ‘The Self, the I, and the Me’, in Social Theory: The

Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 224).

5. Harold Garfinkel, ‘Reflexive Properties of Practical Sociology’, in

Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 437).

6. Documentary: “Alfred Schutz: Philosopher in Social Science in the 20th Century.” Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, Inc.

________________________________________________________________

Further Reading:

1. Patrick Baert, ‘The Enigma of Everyday Life: Symbolic

Interactionism, the Dramaturgical Approach, and Ethnomethodology’, in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 66).

2. Randall Collins, ‘The Microinteractionist Tradition’, in Four Sociological Traditions, (pg. 242).

13. (June 28 ) Structuration Theory: (Re)conciling Agency and Structure

“The self is for everyone a reflexive project –a more or less continuous interrogation of past, present, and future. It is a project carried on amid a profusion of reflexive resources: therapy and self-help manuals of all kinds, television programmes and magazine articles.” –Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, UK: Cambridge, 1992.

1. Anthony Giddens, “The Time-Space Constitution of Social Systems,” in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, pg. 455.

2. Pierre Bourdieu, “Structures and Habitus,” in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, pg. 440.

Further Reading:

1. Anthony Gidden’s Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford.

Module III: Forget Modernity (Post-structuralism & the Promise of ‘Subaltern Standpoints’)

14. (June 29) Social Theory in Postmodernity I: The Post-Structuralists

“What I would like to do, however, is to reveal a positive unconscious of knowledge: a level that eludes the consciousness of the scientist and yet is part of scientific discourse, instead of disputing its validity and seeking to diminish its scientific nature.” Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, NY: Pantheon, 1970.

1. Jean-Francois Lyotard, ‘The Postmodern Condition’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Reading, (pg. 467).

2. Michel Foucault, ‘Power as Knowledge’, in Social Theory:

Multicultural and Classic Reading, (pg. 475).

3. Michel Foucault, ‘Panopticism,’ in Social Theory: Roots &

Branches, (pg. 410).

4. Jean Baudrillard, ‘Simulacra and Simulations: Disneyland’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 481).

5. Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Postmodernity, or Living with Ambiguity,’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 417)

6. Jean Baudrillard, ‘Advertising,’ in Social Theory: Roots &

Branches, (pg. 403).

_________________________________________________________

Further Reading:

1. Steven Siedman, ‘Knowledge and Power: The French

Poststructuralists’, in Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era, (pg. 194).

2. Patrick Baert, ‘The History of the Present: Foucault’s

Archaeology and Genealogy’, in Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, (pg. 114).

15. (June 30) Social Theory in Postmodernity II: When The ‘Subaltern’ Speaks, Who Listens?

“The central question seems to be here: how can we affirm the positivity of female subjectivity at a time in history when our acquired perceptions of “the subject” are being radically questioned? How can we reconcile the recognition of the problematic nature of the notion and construction of the subject with the political necessity to posit female subjectivity?” –Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, NY: Columbia, 1994.

1. Donna Haraway, ‘Cyborg Manifesto and Fractured Identities’, in Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 539).

2. Patricia Hill Collins, ‘Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 552).

3. Gayatri Chakravty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 548).

4. Nancy Hartsock, ‘Foucault on Power: A Theory for Women?’, in Social Theory: Multicultural and Classic Readings, (pg. 497).

5. Trinh T. Minh-ha, ‘Infinite Layers/Third World’, in Social Theory: Classical and Multicultural Readings, (pg. 543)

6. Dorothy Smith, ‘Sociology for Women’s Experience: A

Reaffirmation,’ in Social Theory: Roots & Branches, (pg. 360)

Further Reading:

1. Steven Seidman, ‘The New Social Movements and the Making of New Social Knowledges’, in Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern, (pg. 234)

16. July 1 & 2 Presentations (Reading Theory into (Un)Popular genres).

Thought Leader: Lee Garth Vigilant, B.A., California State University at

Bakersfield; A.M., Boston College; Ph.D., Boston College

Electronic Mail: Vigilant@mnstate.edu

Website: web.mnstate.edu/vigilant

Telephone: 218/477-2034 (Office)

218/790-5561 (Sunday Only)

Office Hours: Lommen 102-I M/T/W/TH/ (1 hour before or after class)

(Other times available by appointment)

Cover: “From the New College of Sociological Pataphysics: Protean Self” (Photo Collage,‘04)

Protean Self:

[pic]It is about time. It is about you. In your purse, there is a passport, a boarding pass, three credit cards, and some greenbacks. You (want to) leave tomorrow. But today, you need a theory that explains why now is the perfect time to go.

______________________________

It is about the choices you made, both (ir)rational and strategic ones. Your present life is the sum of past choices –and you know this only too well.

______________________________

It is about you and your confused and vacillating identity: a protean self perfectly suited for the contours of late-modernity.

______________________________

It is about change. It is about you. How fast can you run from your past? How close is your present life to the one you left behind –the one you would soon forget?

______________________________

In your purse are the requisite tools to colonize a vastly different future. Will you? (And if no, why not?) -L.G.Vigilant

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download