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American Social Theory on Race and Ethnic Relations
University of Trento
Fall 2012
Professor Peter Kivisto
Course Description:
This course is designed to provide an overview of major theorists and theoretical
traditions in the history of American sociology from the late nineteenth century to the
present. The intellectual historian Morton White once distinguished between the
“annalist of ideas” and the “analyst of ideas.” The former attempts to locate theoretical
thought in terms of the larger socio-historical context that informed and shaped it. The
latter, by way of contrast, attempts to treat ideas on their own terms, focusing on the text
rather than the context. This course proceeds with the assumption that both approaches
are essential if students are to understand the significance of theory for sociology. Thus,
we shall explore the intellectual and socio-political factors that shaped the thought of
major American social theorists, and pay careful attention to their specific arguments.
The underlying premise of this course is that whereas European social thought throughout
its history has focused to large extent on issues related to class, in the American case the
focus has been on race and ethnicity. Without seeking to overstate the differences, and
cognizant of the fact that American sociologists have written a considerable amount
about social class, it is worth considering the fact that what Gunnar Myrdal characterized
in his classic study from the 1940s as the “American dilemma” referred to race, not class.
Likewise, the recent book by Desmond King and Rogers Smith, Still a House Divided,
contends that racial inequality remains an obdurate reality of American life in the twentyfirst century, the election of Barack Obama notwithstanding. Moreover, as a country that
defines itself as a “nation of immigrants,” the ethnic factor in its social history has been
profound.
The goal of this course is to provide an overview of the work of a select number of major
theorists, examining their overall contributions to social theory, but using their work on
race as a vehicle for seeing how they address a specific topic. In this way, students will
be in a position to see how different theoretical schools of thought can be brought to bear
on in addressing a range of issues associated with ethnic and race relations, and to see
where these approaches diverge and converge. Since we are moving over a period of
slightly more than a century, students will also be able to get some sense of what has
changed and what has remained the same since the founding of sociology in America up
to the present.
Enrollment Limit:
15
Required Reading:
Peter Kivisto, Key Ideas in Sociology, 3rd edition (Sage/Pine Forge): pp. 34-51, 71-82,
90-92, 115, 132, and 144-150
These sections from the book will provide some background context for the following
readings, which you should read in advance of each of the four class sessions:
September 25: Early American Sociology to the Chicago School
W.E.B. DuBois, “The Conservation of Races”
Robert E. Park, “Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups with Particular Reference to
the Negro”
September 28: Parsonian Social Thought
Robert K. Merton, “Discrimination and the American Creed”
Talcott Parsons, “Full Citizenship for the American Negro? A Sociological Problem”
October 8: Proto-ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism
Harold Garfinkel, “Color Trouble”
Harold Garfinkel, “Research Note on Inter- and Intra-Racial Homicides”
Herbert Blumer, “Social Science and the Desegregation Process”
Herbert Blumer, “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position”
October 11: Contemporary Developments in Social Theory
Jeffrey C. Alexander, “Theorizing the ‘Modes of Incorporation’: Assimilation,
Hyphenation, and Multiculturalism as Varieties of Civil Participation”
Rogers Brubaker, “Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism”
Recommended Reading:
Essays by various theorists contained in Peter Kivisto, Social Theory: Root and
Branches, 4th edition (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Suggested Future Readings:
Jeffrey Alexander, The Civil Sphere (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Harvard University Press, 2004)
Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Harvard
University Press, 1975)
Erving Goffman, Stigma (Prentice-Hall, 1963)
Milton Gordon, Assimilation in American Life; The Role of Race, Religion, and National
Origins (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Stanford Lyman, The Black in American Sociological Thought: A Failure of Perspective
(Capricorn Books, 1972)
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the
1960s to the 1990s (Routledge, 1994)
Werner Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture (Oxford
University Press, 1986)
About the Lecturer:
Peter Kivisto is the Richard A. Swanson Professor of Social Thought and Chair of
Sociology at Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, USA and Finland Distinguished
Professor at the University of Turku, Turku, Finland. He is the author or editor of over
25 books and has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters. Among his
recent works are the following: Beyond a Border (with Thomas Faist, Pine Forge Press,
2010), Social Theory: Roots and Branches (Oxford University Press, 2010), Citizenship:
Discourse, Theory, and Transnational Prospects (with Thomas Faist, Blackwell, 2007),
and Dual Citizenship in Global Perspective (with Thomas Faist, Palgrave Macmillan,
2007). He recently completed a four-year term as Editor of The Sociological Quarterly
and is at present a member of the editorial boards of Contexts (the public sociology venue
of the American Sociological Association), Ethnic and Racial Studies, and the Journal of
Intercultural Studies.