Course: Development of Social Theory

Required Course Texts
Lemert, Charles (edit.). 2004. Social Theory: the multicultural and classic readings, third edition. Boulder CO: Westview Press.

Miles, Steven. 2004. Social Theory in the Real World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Press.

Course Assignments
Participation (20%)
Participation takes many forms: noticeable engagement during class time (sometimes noticed through verbal communication, but also noticed in one’s level of concentration during lectures and discussions); consistent attendance (I don’t grade attendance strictly, but if you aren’t attending very often – missing a day/week or are missing entire weeks without reason - this is not going to get you anywhere. A really bad sign is if I manage to recognize you simply because you are the one who is rarely in class.); and contributions to in-class assignments and group work. Students who demonstrate they are reading regularly will be received in a positive light. Students who make attempts to connect theoretical concepts to their own observations, to other courses, and to social events (both historical and contemporary) will also earn my respect (don’t worry about always “being correct”). Talk with me if you seek clarification regarding participation. Also, observe others’ behavior in class. If you think someone might be doing well in class because of her or his level of participation, maybe you can borrow some of her or his cultural capital (do not be shy about gleaning insights from others’ behaviors).

Exams (60%)
A total of three exams comprise 60 percent (at 20 percent each) of the course grade. The exams are scheduled as follows, Exam 1 on Tuesday, September 25; Exam 2 on Tuesday, October 16, Exam 3 on Thursday, November 15, and the Comprehensive Exam on Thursday, December 13 at 3 p.m. The examination system works like this: 1) if a student performs poorly on any of the Exams 1-3, then she or he may opt to take the Comprehensive Exam as an attempt to improve one of the exam scores (I will include only the three highest scores in final grade calculation); 2) if a student misses an exam, either because of an unforeseen absence or because she or he – for whatever reason – chooses not to take one of the earlier exams, then she or he may take the Comprehensive Exam to remove a 0 from the exam scores. In other words, the Comprehensive Exam is optional, thus, students who perform consistently well throughout the term should not feel compelled to take it (this is their reward for grinning and bearing it during the heftiest part of the term). 

Persuasive Essay (20%)
Instructions: the persuasive essay must address at least one of the readings for Weeks 14-15 (excluding Steven Miles’ summary chapter). In other words, you need to discuss one of the theorists’ writings directly. In addition to this, you must try to place this theorist in the context of one of the areas of thought discussed during Weeks 2 (starting with Durkheim) to 13. This requires that you demonstrate to me 1) the argument of the theorist you have selected, and 2) how this theorist appears connected to one of the areas discussed earlier in the term. To perform well on this, you must demonstrate no less than a couple of ways the theorist under scrutiny seems to be influenced by one of the schools of thought, or areas of speculation (for instance, post-modernism). The essay is due on the final exam date for this course, but students are welcome to submit them any time before the deadline.

The course essay should be between 7-10 pages long (I reserve the right to penalize essays which fall greatly below (= or < 6 pages) or greatly above (= or > 11 pages)). Students must meet the basic format criteria of writing in 12-point font (Times New Roman), which is double-spaced and has 1-inch margins (failure to meet any or all of these basic criteria will also result in grade penalties). GRADUATE STUDENTS: this component will be altered to meet higher standards for graduate level studies. Essays should be 15 pages; the topics of which should be discussed with me. Topics should try to address your area of disciplinary interests.

ATTENDANCE POLICY FOR THIS COURSE
This is a course in an institution of higher education, thus it is assumed that students will handle attendance maturely and responsibly. Class attendance is NOT recorded. If I notice patterns of absenteeism among particular individuals, I may confer privately with her/him. As a general rule, continual absence from class sessions will inhibit a student’s ability to master course material and to complete this course successfully.  Keep in mind class sessions are opportunities for students to engage in course topics. Except in emergency situations, students are expected to submit all assignments by deadlines, regardless of whether or not they are in class when the papers are due.
Only the following, at the discretion of the professor, are possibly legitimate reasons for an absence:

  • Death or serious illness in family;
  • Medical emergency or illness (this does not include a non-emergency medical appointment that could have been scheduled for another time without significant difficulty);
  • Emergency child-care responsibilities;
  • Religious holiday, in accordance with state law;
  • Participation in University of Idaho-sponsored athletic events, University of Idaho dramatic or musical performances, University of Idaho-sanctioned professional or academic conferences, etc.; or
  • A similar type of situation/problem (at professors’ discretion).

You should provide reasonable documentation for an absence, unless because of special circumstances we waive this requirement. Please discuss schedule conflicts in advance with me. As specified at the beginning of this syllabus, I do not accept any correspondence via email except to arrange office appointments.
Note that vacations, work schedule issues (except in cases of exceptional financial need, at my discretion), driving someone to an airport, etc., are not legitimate excuses for an absence.
WISH TO ATTEND A CLASS SESSION LATE, OR TO LEAVE EARLY?

To ensure a positive learning environment for all students taking this course, the door will be closed 10 minutes after the class session begins. If you are more than 10 minutes late and the door to the room is closed, you have officially missed class for the day. If you anticipate being late for class (conflicting doctor’s appointment, childcare arrangements, work arrangements, and so on), let me know as soon as you are aware that you might be late one day. Also, if you need to leave early from class on a particular day, please let me know BEFORE class session begins. Otherwise, students are expected to attend the full class session - no early exits. Those who need to use the restroom are excused (I can tell since you will not put all of your books away and take off with your book bag to do this). Please acknowledge that these measures are taken to reduce interruptions in the class and to maintain respect in our classroom. Thanks, in advance, for cooperating.

CODE OF CONDUCT AND RESPECT

Sociology explores topics that are often controversial to new students in the discipline. In light of the potential for conflict in the classroom, I ask that we follow a code of conduct. The code of conduct includes the simple idea that “you do unto others what you would like done unto yourself”. How this translates into our own conduct in class comprises the following: listen attentively to individuals who present ideas in class; do not hold conversations with peers in the background of class presentations/discussions; and put away all materials that are not related to the course during class sessions (newspapers, magazines, cell phones - turn the ringer off, portable video games, CD players, and so on). In addition, when you pose your own position before the class, please recognize that others’ ideas may vastly differ from your own. Be sure you don’t make fun of, or degrade, others who hold different perspectives. Failing to abide by any of the terms in this code of conduct may result in expulsion from class sessions. Thanks, in advance, for your cooperation!!

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is not accepted in any student’s work in this course. I will discuss more specifically in class what is considered plagiarism. Briefly, I consider plagiarism to be the duplication of someone’s ideas (a famous writer/researcher’s ideas and even a fellow student’s ideas) without proper reference of WHO established these ideas, as well as WHEN and WHERE these ideas were made. A bibliography alone is not sufficient for avoiding plagiarism. Please discuss with me individually if you are not sure what constitutes plagiarism. The safest rule to follow is to acknowledge the source of an idea whenever you are in doubt. I will fail an assignment if I identify any plagiarized ideas in it. If a student plagiarizes a second time in the same course, that student will fail the entire course. It is important to note, I can only determine if plagiarism has taken place and not whether a student intended to plagiarize. Therefore, it is critical for students to learn how to avoid plagiarizing. Please refer to the following site regarding academic integrity at University Idaho: http://www.students.uidaho.edu/default.aspx?pid=45708

Course Schedule
Note: the reading pace and assignments of this course are subject to change and any alterations will be announced in class. Missing class is not a sufficient excuse for losing track of readings and assignments.

FOUR USEFUL TIPS FOR “GETTING THEORY”
(Refer to page 13 in Miles’ book where these tips are elaborated. Note that he borrowed them from Beeghley 1997.)

  1. Read the piece of theory concerned more than just once.
  2. Social theory should not be a solitary exercise – talk about it with classmates.
  3. Use secondary sources for help (avoid Wikipedia – use scholarly journals!), but DO NOT rely on these without working directly with each theorist.
  4. Don’t just read the theory, take good notes.

 

**SEGMENT ONE: SOCIAL THEORY & CLASSICAL THOUGHT**

Weeks 1-2: Linking the Individual to Social Forces___________________
Week One
Tuesday, August 21            Introduce Course and Purpose of Social Theory

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures,” (pp. 1-20) and Miles, “Introduction: The ‘reality’ of social theory,” (pp. 1-17)

Thursday, August 23            What is “social theory”?

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures,” (pp. 1-20) and “C. Wright Mills: ‘The Sociological Imagination,’” (pp. 348-352); Miles, “Introduction: The ‘reality’ of social theory,” (pp. 1-17)

Week Two
Tuesday, August 28            Locating Inequalities: Experience as a Source of Knowledge

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, and “Dorothy Smith: ‘Knowing a Society from Within: A Woman’s Standpoint,’” (pp. 388-390); “Patricia Hill Collins: ‘Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination,’” (pp. 535-546) and “Gloria Anzualda: ‘The New Mestiza’” (547-553)

Weeks 2-3: Emile Durkheim’s Radical Discovery of “Society”____________
Week Two
Thursday, August 30

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Emile Durkheim: ‘Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor’, ‘Sociology and Social Facts,’ ‘Suicide and Modernity’” (pp. 70-83).

Week Three
Tuesday, September 4

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Robert K. Merton: ‘Social Structure and Anomie’” (225-237) and “Manifest and Latent Functions” (303-309).
  • Begin Film: “Devil’s Playground”

Thursday, September 6

  • Finish Film: “Devil’s Playground” and hold discussion/in-class assignment
  • [TEACHER’S NOTE: PROVIDE Q BASED ON THIS FILM FOR EXAM]

Weeks 4-5: Discovery of Conflict as an Inherent Quality of Social Life______
Week Four
Tuesday, September 11: Alienation

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Karl Marx: ‘Estranged Labour,’ ‘Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Class Struggle,’ (pp. 29-41)

Thursday, September 13: The Mystery of the Commodity and the Working Day

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Karl Marx: ‘The Values of Commodities,’ ‘The Fetishism of Commodities,’ ‘Labour-Power and Capital,’” (pp. 49-53, 58-65)

Week Five
Tuesday, September 18: Contemporary Conceptualizations of Power

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Pierre Bourdieu: ‘Structures, Habitus, Practices,’” (pp. 435-440); “William Julius Wilson: ‘Global Economic Changes and the Limits of the Race Relations Vision,’” (pp. 651-654); “Charlotte Perkins-Gilman: ‘Women and Economics,’” (pp. 170-174)

Thursday, September 20: Review and Application/in-class assignment of Weeks 4-5

Weeks 6-7: Max Weber and Ritzer’s Contemporary Vision of “McDonaldization”
Week Six
Tuesday, September 25: Exam 1 covering Weeks 1-5

Thursday, September 27: Wrangling with Modernity

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Max Weber: ‘The Spirit of Capitalism and the Iron Cage,’ ‘Class, Status, Party,’” (pp. 99-104, 115-125)

Week Seven
Tuesday, October 2: McDonaldization

  • Read for this lecture: Miles, “A McDonaldized society?”

Weeks 7-8: Imagining Self and Society____________________________
Week Seven
Thursday, October 4: Freud’s Interpretive Technique

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Sigmund Freud: ‘Dream-Work and Interpretation, ‘Oedipus, the Child,’ ‘Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through,’ ‘Civilization and the Individual,’” (pp. 125, 130-141, 145-148)

Week Eight
Tuesday, October 9:

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Georg Simmel: ‘The Stranger,’” (pp. 180-184); “Charles Horton Cooley: ‘The Looking-Glass Self,’” (pp. 184-185)

Thursday, October 11

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Erich Fromm: ‘Psychoanalysis and Sociology’” (pp. 217-220); “George Herbert Mead: ‘The Self, the I, and the Me,’” (pp. 220-225); “W.E.B. DuBois: ‘Double-Consciousness and the Veil’” (pp. 162-168)

**SEGMENT TWO: MAKING SOCIAL THEORY ‘REAL’**

Weeks 9-10: The Frankfurt School’s Examination of Culture_____________
Week Nine
Tuesday, October 16: Exam 2

  • Exam 2 covering Weeks 6-8

Thursday, October 18: Saving Marxist Thought from Orthodox Vulgarity

  • Read for this lecture: Miles, “A Mass Society?” (pp. 18-38); Lemert, “Georg Lukacs: ‘The Irrational Chasm Between Subject and Object,’” (pp. 202-204); “Antonio Gramsci: ‘Intellectuals and Hegemony’” (pp. 259-261)
  • [TEACHER’S NOTE - Discussion Question: How might Karl Marx and/or Marxist Theories be Reified in U.S. society?]

Week Ten
Tuesday, October 23: Defining Culture

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Walter Benjamin: ‘Art, War, and Fascism’” (pp. 255-257); “Max Horkheimer: ‘Notes on Science and the Crisis’” (pp. 204-208); “Karl Mannheim: ‘The Sociology of Knowledge and Ideology’” (213-217)

Thursday, October 25: Varied Experiences with Culture

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Charlotte Perkins-Gilman: ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’” (pp. 168-170); “Virginia Woolf: ‘A Room of One’s Own,’” (pp. 257-259); “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: ‘Nonviolent Force: A Spiritual Dilemma,’” (pp. 261-263); “Audre Lorde: ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’” (440-443)

Weeks 11-12: Conceptualizing a Post-Modern World___________________
Week Eleven
Tuesday, October 30: A Post-Modern Society?

  • Read for this lecture: Miles, “A post-modern society?” (pp. 82-102)

Thursday, November 1: Foundational Thought

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Jean-Francois Lyotard: ‘The Postmodern Condition,’” (pp. 457-460); “Michel Foucault: ‘Power as Knowledge’” (pp. 465-471); “Jean Baudrillard: ‘Simulacra and Simulations: Disneyland,’” (pp. 471-476)

Week Twelve
Tuesday, November 6: Varied “Post-Modern” Experiences

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Jeffrey Weeks: ‘Sexual Identification is a Strange Thing’” (pp. 553-557); “Judith Butler: ‘Imitation and Gender Insubordination,’” (pp. 557-568)

Week 12-13: Theorizing the Practice of Consuming___________________
Week Twelve
Thursday, November 8: A Consumer Society?

  • Read for this lecture: Miles, “A consumer society?” (pp. 60-81)
  • Start film Affluenza?

Week Thirteen
Tuesday, November 13: Affluenza and Discussion/in-class assignment

  • Film: Affluenza

Thursday, November 15: Exam 3 covering Weeks 9-13

**FALL BREAK, NOVEMBER 19-23**

Weeks 14-15: Social Theory and Current Dilemmas___________________
Week Fourteen
Tuesday, November 27: global society

  • Read for this lecture: Miles, “A global society?” (pp. 143-163); Lemert, “Slavoj Zizek: ‘Cynicism as a Form of Ideology,’” (pp. 662-665)

Thursday, November 29: gender and sexualities

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: ‘Epistemology of the Closet,’” (pp. 654-659), “R.W. Connell: ‘Masculinities and Globalization,’” (pp. 659-662); “Julia Kristeva: ‘Women’s Time,’” (pp. 647-651)

Week Fifteen
Tuesday, December 3: After Colonization

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Aime Cesaire: ‘Between Colonizer and Colonized,’” (pp. 342-344); “Frantz Fanon: ‘Decolonizing, National Culture, and the Negro Intellectual,’” (pp. 358-364);  “Gayatri Charkravorty Spivak: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’” (pp. 531-535)

Thursday, December 5: Conceptualizing the Global System

  • Read for this lecture: Lemert, “Zygmunt Bauman: ‘Liquid Modernity,’” (pp. 587-591); “Amartya Sen: ‘Asian Values and the West’s Claim to Uniqueness,’” (pp. 623-630); “Immanuel Wallerstein: ‘Geo-political Cleavages of the Twenty-first Century,’” (pp. 591-596); “Saskia Sassen: ‘Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy,’” (pp. 618-623)