Download Sociological Theories

Fordham College SPR 2015
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY SOCI 2800 R01
Wednesdays 11:30am-2:15 pm
Dealy Hall 115
Instructor: E. Doyle McCarthy
[email protected]
Office: Dealy 405A (718) 817-3855
Office hours: Mondays Wednesdays & Thursdays, by appointment only
Course Description:
A required course in the sociology major & minor. Also recommended for
students with interest in social philosophy and in the history in nineteenth and twentieth
century social thought. The course is also recommended for students in American Studies
as it treats, among other topics, Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy, Max Weber on
Protestantism, Thorstein Veblen on the consumption of the America’s leisure classes.
The materials treated in this course are ideas and theories of leading thinkers from
Karl Marx to sociology’s classical writers (Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim)
and texts concerning Western industrial nations of the modern period (17the C. to the
mid-20th C.): the rise of industrial capitalism in the West and its principal social forms
(its legal forms, institutions of social control, etc.), the rise of the modern nation state,
bureaucracies, its rational secularity, its forms of community and organization. Some
theories of late modern societies of the late 20th C. and early 21st C. (the “postmodern
turn”) are also discussed in the last weeks of the course.
Selections from a number of central texts (primary sources) are read and studied,
including Marx’s Capital, Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
Durkheim's Suicide, and Georg Simmel’s Philosophy of Money.
The course also covers contemporary theories of sex and gender, race, and postmodernism.
Required textbook:
Farganis, James 7th edition READINGS IN SOCIAL THEORY: The
Classic Tradition to the Post-modernists
ISBN 10-0078026840
Weekly assignments are from this book and brief selections of other primary sources are
handed out in class.
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Course Requirements
30 pts. for class attendance & participation:
attendance is required in this course and will influence your final grade. A maximum of 2
absences (not consecutive) is permitted without written excuses from a doctor or the
infirmary. All other absences are explained in writing; if you are sick, be sure to get a
note.
Your participation part of the grade will be based on your work in class and in discussion
groups, usually held in the second section of each class period.
50 pts. For a weekly journal or log kept up to date and on the weekly readings:
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assignments are given out each week and are usually due in class a week later;
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always bring your log/journal or folder to class the day it is due;
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students are responsible for keeping the logs in a folder or notebook where all the
logs and weekly grades are recorded; this is important, since the final grade for
the log is only recorded at the end of the course.
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Each weekly assignment is about 2-4 sides of a handwritten page or 1.5-2 wordprocessed pages.
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I will periodically collect the logs unannounced. You will lose credits (1-2 pts.) if
the work is done hastily, if it is too brief, if it is late or missing.
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PLEASE NOTE: All late work in your logs is downgraded, no exceptions.
Around this date: Feb 25. Midterm test 10 pts. short answer format (multiple choice,
true/false, fill-ins, etc.) on the first part of this class and one short essay. It should take up
half the class time.
Please note, there are no exceptions to this exam; it will not be given on any other
day except in special circumstances.
May 6, Wed. 2014 Final exam 1:30 pm-330pm
10 pt take-home essay 1-2 pages; it is handed in at the exam time and location.
Please note: students in this class are required to check emails on a regular basis, as I
send out directions and readings for class via email. Thanks.
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Outline of Course Topics and Assignments
For most classes, a lecture is followed by class discussion groups for the remainder
of the class.
Week 1 Jan 14. Reading: Introduction pp. 1-26. COMPLETE BY JAN 28
Social Theory: Reflections on the Condition of Modernity
What is sociology & sociological theory? The Age of Enlightenment and early social
theory; The Age of Enlightenment and Montesquieu’s writings and Comte’s Positivism
and the first sociologists; what do the terms—modernity, industrial society, capitalism
mean? And how have they been used?
1. Week 2: Jan 21. FIRST REQUIRED PAPER IS DUE IN CLASS JAN 21 and
is always on the previous week’s readings.
Revised: #1 paper is due in class on Jan 28
(the remaining classes go in the order that follows; some theorists will take 2 weeks so I
will not provide dates of class meetings.)
Part 1: The Classic Tradition
2. Jan 28 begins Karl Marx 27-50
Theories of capitalist development and “historical materialism”; class conflict,
ideology, and collective consciousness.
3. Emile Durkheim 55-80
What is a social fact or a social thing? Social solidarity and its changes; anomie;
suicide; religion.
4. Max Weber 81-108
How did religion influence early capitalism? The rise of bureaucracy; 3 types of
authority; how charismatic leadership and movements must change.
Midterm is held close to class on Feb 25: in-class short-answer test and one short
essay: covers Part 1 of this course.
5. Georg Simmel 111-123
What is society and what is sociology? The City and Mental Life and what they tell
us about modern life; the social type of The Stranger.
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George Herbert Mead 125-137
The social self and mind and how they develop in our interactions with others; the
I and the Me aspects of the self.
Spring break March 16-22
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7. W.E.B. DuBois, a sociologist writing about the experience of being an AfricanAmerican. 403-412; 412-430
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Sex, Gender, & Queer Theory, selections 359-401
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What is Post-Modern Society? and What is Post-Modernism? selections 331356
Easter recess April 2-6
Last class on Wed. April 29 (this is the last class for FC-RH)
Reading Days April 30-May 1
Exams Monday May 4-Monday 11.
2015
Jan. 5
Mon.
University Reopens
Jan. 12
Mon.
Classes begin following a Monday academic schedule; Academic Advising 2:30-4:00 in
Department/Program Offices
for Majors; in Keating 302 for others
Jan. 19
Mon.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - University Closed
Jan. 20
Tue.
Deadline for Add/Drop of courses; last day for program change
Jan. 23
Fri.
Deadline for removal of INC, ABS, NGR grades from Fall 2014
Jan. 30
Fri.
Last day of Attendance Reports to be submitted by all instructors (Round 1)
Feb. 5
Thurs.
Deadline to submit Candidate for Degree cards (May 2015 and August 2015 Graduates)
Feb. 6
Fri.
Arts and Sciences Faculty Day
Feb. 16
Mon.
President's Day - University Closed
Feb. 17
Tue.
Classes resume following a Monday academic schedule
Feb. 19-26
Thurs.-Thurs.
Midterm Examinations
Feb. 20
Fri.
Last day for designating a course Pass/Fail
Mar. 5
Thurs.
Mid-semester evaluations for all students due
Mar. 16-22
Mon.- Sun.
Spring Recess - No Classes; University Open
Mar. 23
Mon.
Classes resume following a Monday academic schedule
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Mar. 24
Tue.
Last day to withdraw from a class without incurring a WF
Mar. 30
Mon.
Last day of Attendance Reports to be submitted by all instructors (Round 2)
Apr. 2-6
Thurs.- Mon.
Easter Recess - University Closed
Apr. 7
Tue.
Classes resume following a Tuesday academic schedule
Apr. 29
Wed.
Last day of Classes
Apr. 30
Thurs.
Reading Days begin
May 1
Fri.
Final Examinations for Modern Languages
May 4- 11
Mon.-Mon.
Final Examinations
May 14
Thurs.
Encaenia (Senior Awards Ceremony)
May 15
Fri.
Baccalaureate Mass
May 16
Sat.
University Commencement
Selected secondary sources for the course include:
Raymond Aaron Main Currents in Sociological Thought Vols. I & II
Jeffrey Alexander & Steven Seidman eds. Culture & Society: Contemporary Debates
(1990)
Louis Althusser Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx (1959)
____________. For Marx. (1969) (1969)
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann The Social Construction of Reality. (1967)
Victoria Bonnell & Lynn Hunt eds. Beyond the Cultural Turn (1999)
Norbert Elias The Civilizing Process. (1939/2000)
__________. What is Sociology? (1978)
Peter Gay The Enlightenment: An Interpretation
Vol I: The Rise of Modern Paganism (1966)
Vol II: The Science of Freedom (1969)
Anthony Giddens Capitalism & Modern Social Theory (1971)
Anthony Giddens & Jonathan Turner eds. Social Theory Today (1987)
Bryan S. Green Literary Methods and Sociological Theory (1988)
Richard Harland Superstructuralism: The Philosophy of Structuralism & PostStructuralism (1987)
Geoffrey Hawthorn Enlightenment and Despair (1976 )
Robert Heilbroner The Worldly Philosophers (1972)
H. Stuart Hughes Consciousness & Society: The Reorientation of European
Social Thought 1890-1930. (1958)
Mark Hulling Montesquieu and the Old Regime (1976)
Hans Joas Pragmatism & Social Theory (1993)
Charles Lemert Sociology & the Twilight of Man (1979)
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Niklas Luhmann Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity
(2002)
Robert Nisbet The Social Philosophers (1973)
Talcott Parsons The Structure of Social Action. (1937)
George Ritzer ed. Frontiers of Social Theory (1990)
Marshall Sahlins Culture & Practical Reason. (1976)
Edward W. Said Orientalism. (1978)
Steven Seidman Liberalism and the Origins of Modern Social Theory (1983)
Steven Seidman and David G. Wagner Postmodernism & Social Theory (1992)
Alan Sica ed. What Is Social Theory? (1998)
Quentin Skinner The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (1985)
Dorothy Smith The Everyday World As Problematic (1987)
Charles Taylor Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)
A Secular Age (2007).
Immanuel Wallerstein After Liberalism (1995)
Hayden White Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
(1973)
Irving Zeitlin Ideology and the Development of Sociological Theory 6/e (1996)
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