Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 45 views

    Classical Sociological Theory: A-Glaeser@uchicago - Edu

    Uploaded by

    mingeunuchbureaucratgmail.com
    This document provides an overview of a classical sociological theory course taught by Andreas Glaeser at the University of Chicago in Spring 2008. The course introduces students to foundational texts in sociological theory that established research agendas, concepts, and methods. It will examine how classical theorists defined the social world and sought sociological knowledge. Students are required to actively participate in discussions, write two analytical essays comparing how different theorists conceptualized key ideas, and a final paper exploring one theorist in depth. Readings include works by Rousseau, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and Elias that address topics like capitalism, religion, and the development of modern society.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Classical Sociological Theory: A-Glaeser@uchicago - Edu

    Uploaded by

    mingeunuchbureaucratgmail.com
    45 views5 pages
    This document provides an overview of a classical sociological theory course taught by Andreas Glaeser at the University of Chicago in Spring 2008. The course introduces students to foundational texts in sociological theory that established research agendas, concepts, and methods. It will examine how classical theorists defined the social world and sought sociological knowledge. Students are required to actively participate in discussions, write two analytical essays comparing how different theorists conceptualized key ideas, and a final paper exploring one theorist in depth. Readings include works by Rousseau, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and Elias that address topics like capitalism, religion, and the development of modern society.

    Original Description:

    knklmk

    Original Title

    mnjknk

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document provides an overview of a classical sociological theory course taught by Andreas Glaeser at the University of Chicago in Spring 2008. The course introduces students to foundational texts in sociological theory that established research agendas, concepts, and methods. It will examine how classical theorists defined the social world and sought sociological knowledge. Students are required to actively participate in discussions, write two analytical essays comparing how different theorists conceptualized key ideas, and a final paper exploring one theorist in depth. Readings include works by Rousseau, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and Elias that address topics like capitalism, religion, and the development of modern society.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    45 views5 pages

    Classical Sociological Theory: A-Glaeser@uchicago - Edu

    Uploaded by

    mingeunuchbureaucratgmail.com
    This document provides an overview of a classical sociological theory course taught by Andreas Glaeser at the University of Chicago in Spring 2008. The course introduces students to foundational texts in sociological theory that established research agendas, concepts, and methods. It will examine how classical theorists defined the social world and sought sociological knowledge. Students are required to actively participate in discussions, write two analytical essays comparing how different theorists conceptualized key ideas, and a final paper exploring one theorist in depth. Readings include works by Rousseau, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and Elias that address topics like capitalism, religion, and the development of modern society.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 5

    eSociology 30003

    Classical Sociological Theory


    aka “History of Social Theory”
    Spring 2008

    Andreas Glaeser
    SSRB 401d-e
    [email protected]
    702-8679
    Office hours: Tu, 10:30 to 11:30; Th, 1:30 to 2:15

    This is a basic reading course in classical sociological theory. It introduces you to some
    of the most formative texts of the discipline which have provided long term research
    agendas, concepts, models and methods for sociological inquiry. Throughout we will
    wonder how the authors in question define the social as object of study, that is, how they
    think it exists and what kinds of investigations they understand as yielding sociological
    knowledge. In this sense, and putting it in more highfalutin language, this class is also an
    introduction into basic ontological and epistemological issues of our discipline. This class
    is a reading course in as far as you will have to read much more than we can possibly
    discuss in class, where our discussion will focus on the main points. Therefore, I would
    encourage you to form discussion groups among yourself to discuss the readings further.

    The reading strategy we will pursue is to read these authors as theorists of modernity, that
    is as intellectuals eager to develop a language capable of grasping what is relevant about
    social life at their time (and putatively: ours). We will use this as a jumping board to think
    about what it is that we needed to do, if we wanted to contribute to a theoretization of our
    present. In other words we will read the classics not only to become reflexively aware of
    the gaze and the blind spots of our discipline, to grasp key concepts and methods which
    are still significant for us today, but also as role models in nourishing our sociological
    imagination.

    There are a number of standard questions you may want to keep in mind while reading
    these texts. Questions along these lines are typical prelim questions.
    1. What is the text’s underlying philosophical anthropology? What are the roles of
    reason, emotion, desire and imagination? What is the role of creativity in the
    model? How does suffering figure in? And hope? How are human beings social?
    What is the role of social relations for their life? How are human beings moral?
    How are human beings agents? What is the relationship between individual and
    larger social wholes?
    2. What are the texts notion of social organization and modes of thinking, feeling,
    acting, that is what has traditionally been conceived as “social structure” and
    “culture’ in our discipline? How are both related to each other?
    3. Are there processes? What drives them? How do they relate to more stable
    cultures and social structures?
    4. What is the power for the author? What role does it play in his models? How
    important is conflict?

    1
    5. What is history for the author? Are there laws of development? What is the role of
    contingency? How is contingency theorized?

    Requirements:

    1. You have to participate actively in class discussions throughout the quarter.


    2. For each author (safe Rousseau) you have to prepare a 1000 word “grid”, an analytical
    essay in the style of an encyclopedia article that explains how the author conceives the
    relationship between selves (“persons”, “individuals”…) cultural forms (“ideology”,
    “religion”, “habitus”, “worldviews”…) and relational structures (“classes”, “status
    groups”, “segmentary structures”….). You should think through what precisely these four
    poles are for each other (being mindful of lexical choices), and how he defines and thinks
    about power and the flows of effects (causality); you should explore how the author
    investigates the historical transformation of social arrangements; you should conclude
    your “grid” (for of course you are forced here to be schematic in the extreme) with a
    reflection of the consequences of this particular grid for the analytical style of the author.
    This exercise aims at making the approaches of each author transparent in comparison
    with each other, as to prepare you for the preliminary examination at the end of the
    summer. Two of these will be drawn at random and graded.
    3. Your final paper should explore one interesting dimension of the thought of one of
    these authors in more detail. This essay you should consult relevant secondary literature.
    The grade weights are as follows. Oral participation: 20%, grids 40% (20% each), final
    paper 40%.

    Texts:
    All texts are on Regenstein-Reserve. Most texts have also been ordered for purchase
    at the Seminary Coop (marked with an asterisk)

    1. * Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1997. The Discourses and other early political writings.
    Edited by Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    2. *Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader, second edition,
    Robert Tucker, editor. New York: Norton. [TUCKER]
    3. *Weber, Max. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London:
    Routlege.
    4. Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. H. Gerth and C. Wright
    Mills Editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [G&M]
    5. *Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society. Günther Roth, translator. Berkeley:
    University of California Press.
    6. *Durkheim, Emile. 1997 . The Division of Labor. New York: Free Press.
    7. Durkheim, Emile. 1951. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York Free Press.
    8. *Durkheim, Emile. On the Rules of the Sociological Method. New York: Free Press.
    9. *Durkheim, Emile. Elementary Froms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press.
    10. Simmel, Georg. 1971. On Individuality and Social Forms. Edited by Donald Levine.
    Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    11. *Simmel, Georg. 2004. Philosophy of Money. London: Routledge.
    12. *Elias, Norbert.2000. The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.

    2
    Meeting and Reading Schedule:

    1st Week:

    Tuesday, 1 April: Introduction

    The problems, practical and theoretical, of our time—your thoughts

    Thursday, 3 April: History

    Rousseau, Second Discourse, pp 124-188 & Rousseau’s notes # 9, 10, 15

    Karl Marx

    Marx/Engels: Communist Manifesto (Tucker pp. 469-500)

    2nd Week:

    Tuesday, 8 April: Theorizing the Present

    Encyclopedia Britannica: History of France 1830-1871, i.e. 1830


    Revolution to Paris Commune (pp. 259 to 269)
    Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte (Tucker 594-617)
    Marx: Civil War in France (Tucker 618-652)
    Marx: Critique of the Gotha Programme (Tucker, 525-541)

    Thursday, 10 April: Ideology

    Marx: Theses on Feuerbach (Tucker pp. 143-145)


    Marx: The German Ideology Part I (146-200)

    3rd Week:

    Thursday, 15 April: Capitalism

    Marx: Capital (Tucker pp. 294-344)

    Thursday, 17 April: Capitalism

    Marx: Capital (Tucker pp. 344-438)

    3
    4th Week:

    Tuesday, 22 April: Marx’ Method: Dialectics

    Marx, Grundrisse, Introduction (Tucker, 221-246)


    Engels, Anti-Dühring, Introduction (general) and part I, ch. XI, “Freedom
    and Necessity”, ch. XII, “ Dialectic—Quantity and Qualilty” and
    ch. XIII, “Dialektic—Negation of the Negation” at:
    http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-
    duhring/index.htm

    Max Weber

    Thursday, 24 April: Worldviews and Social Structures

    Protestant Ethic (pp. 13-128, 155-184)


    th
    5 Week:

    Tuesday, 29 April: Religion and Institutional Dynamics

    Weber: The Social Psychology of World Religions (G&M pp. 267-301)


    Weber: Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions (G&M
    pp.323-359)

    Thursday, 1 May: Political Sociology

    Weber: Economy and Society, Part I, chapter 3, “Types of Domination”

    6th Week:

    Tuesday, 6 May: Weber’s Method: Hermeneutic Sociology and Ideal-types

    Weber: “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy


    Weber: Economy and Society, Part I, chapter 1

    Emile Durkheim

    Thursday, 8 May: The Problem of Social Order I

    Durkheim: Division of Labor intro, Part I, Introduction, chs. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6

    4
    7th Week:

    Tuesday, 13 May: The Problem of social Order II

    Durkheim: Division of Labor, Part II, ch. 2, 3, Conclusions


    Durkheim: Suicide, pp. 241-276

    Thursday, 15 May: Religion and Knowledge

    Durkheim: Elementary Forms, pp. 1-44, 99-168, 190-236, 418-444


    th
    8 Week:

    Tuesday 20 May: Durkheim’s Method: Structural homologies and feedback loops

    Durkheim: Rules of the Sociological Method

    Georg Simmel

    Thursday, 22 May: Value

    Simmel: Philosophy of Money, Preface and Chapter 1

    9th Week:

    Tuesday, 27 May: Modern life

    Simmel: The Philosophy of Money, ch. 4 and ch. 6

    Thursday, 29 May: Simmel’s Method: Building forms from interactions

    Simmel: Sociology, chs 1, ch. 6 (reprinted in Levine reader as chs. 2 and


    3; ch 6 will be on e-reserve available.

    10th Week:
    Norbert Elias

    Tuesday, 3 June: History as Social Process

    Elias: Process of Civilization, Synopsis


    Evening:Film screening: “Arguing the World” location & time tba

    Thursday, 5 June: Elias’ Method: Studying social formations in process

    Elias: Process of Civilization, “Postscript” (i.e. preface to the new German


    edition of 1969)

    You might also like