Instructor:

Jeanne Curran, Ph.D., Esq.
Office: SBS-B326
E-mail: jeannecurran@habermas.org
Telephone: 310-243-3831
Office Hours: Wednesday or Thursday, alternate weeks. 1- 7 p.m.
Teaching and Research Associate: Patricia Acone

Course Description:

This course is designed to allow you in-depth study of some of the issues we broach during a regular session. We will be working over distance, so that you are responsible for following the biweekly issue of Dear Habermas on our teaching site. We called the course Sociology of Reality because in each instance we will trace theoretical approaches through interpretation, or if they're classic approaches, through reinterpretation to application of our lived experience. Most of you have already studied with me in the past, so that you are familiar with illocutionary discourse, dominant discourse, public discourse, postmodernism, and critical theory. But some of you were brought by friends, and I permitted that this semester because there was some crisis in getting classes. If you are not familiar with these concepts, you will need to start by learning them. Link to them on the site, or see me or Pat to help you understand them.

The course is also designed to help you see the application of theory to the lived reality of your life. This is personal. We're not trying to write theory, or take tests on theory, or speak theory for a cocktail party or a job interview. We're trying to understand theory as it relates to our own lives. I already know most of you. But when I received a class list with 72 names, I considered panic. Please be patient. Like all of you, I have a life, too, and sometimes life runs amok. If I don't know your name, I need to. Stop by to talk with me and Pat. We can't make theory personal if we don't know who you are. We're friendly. We promise not to bite. Well, at least Pat promises not to bite. jeanne occasionally growls, but just remind her to take two aspirin. The growl isn't personal.

Texts:

Dear Habermas AND any text of your choosing, with jeanne's or Pat's approval, that we or you have studied in the past, and that you'd like to have more time with. These are some I recommend. Pick one, or ask us to help you. Bruce Arrigo, ed. Criminal Justice, Social Justice. Critical theory approach to criminology. Used in Sociology of Law. Focuses on crime as a social issue, and considers the social justice issue. Maria Pia Lara, Moral Textures. Critical theory, Habermasian approach to understanding ethics and morality. This is the source of illocutionary discourse as we use that term in class. About understanding the Other.

Course Objectives:

• To provide an experiential forum for civil discourse in our office discussions on Wednesdays or Thursdays, and in workshops to be announced. We want to turn discussion sessions into academic discourse in which we explore alternative interpretations. Discussions will be based on topics posted on Dear Habermas. Workshops to include: menopause, etc.
• To select social issues of import to us for discussion of validity claims. If you wish to discuss an issue not treated on the site, let jeanne know, so that she can provide the basic information on site for that topic.
• To review the priniciples of both legal advocacy and legal reasoning. This means to learn the pattern of theory, facts, theory, facts, and recognition that conclusions may differ in illocutionary discourse. We are not after consensus.
• To review the principles of ethics and legitimacy in the system of law. To this end we explore religion, spirituality, legitimacy as Habermas defines it, and law as socially defined in a postmodern world.
• To produce collaboratively essays on the social issues chosen to serve as textual information for those to whom we present our discourse. This collaborative work will be pressented in either workshops or moot court.
• To produce an actual forum in which to present our civil discourse as a model for other students and community leaders.
  • Forum presentation at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in November 2004 for sharing the model with colleagues.
  • Forum presentation at the university for sharing the model with students.

Grading and Suggested Measures of Learning:

• Using Common Sense:

  Permission to enroll in this course is premised on upper division status, rendering you capable of performing competently. However, I recognize that crises occur and that you have many conflicting demands as students, family members, and workers. Please remember that A's are earned, not given for the status characteristic of "being a good student who could get an A if he/she made the effort." One way to deal with such crises effectively is to be sure that I know when they are happening. Because most of my lectures and your practice are on the site, it's easier to make up missed time over conflicts than you might think.

  Nota bene: If you have the flu, please don't come and give it to the rest of us. We'll help you catch up when you're well. I lost three weeks to flu last summer. The bugs are getting stronger and more resistant to medication. If I lose three weeks during classes, you'll be left with a substitute.

  If you haven't slept, and are falling asleep from exhaustion, please stay home and sleep. Sleep deprivation is a very real problem. We all drive freeways to get here, and go home often late at night. You can kill yourself and others that way. Please don't.

  I do not give specific deadlines, because I want you to use your common sense and your own discipline to study effectively. All work can be made up within university limits.

  This semester I'm going to suggest a set of assignments for those of you who are unaccustomed to the freedom of choosing your own. These are SUGGESTED choices. They would at least guarantee me that you had prepared well for the class. Remember that you are still welcome to choose your own submissions.

  The assignments may be submitted orally in group discussions in my office or in one of our workshops. They may be submitted by e-mail, so that I may put them on the site. You are to assume that all e-mail to me is for site publication unless you specifically state otherwise. That's the only way 72 of us can carry on a dialogue over the semester.

  When you write, or when you present your thinking orally, be sure to provide a conceptual link to the issues discussed on our site and in our face-to-face discussions. When you want to address a topic not yet included in the biweekly issues, tell me so I can include the information needed for our discussions. Last week Robert Walker wanted to discuss gasoline prices. You will find that I have now posted material on oil and gas, economics, and social justice.

  Our Standards:

  • Evidence of Learning Our grading standards and what to do to "get an A."
  • Conceptually Linking Philosophy and Law Delimiting your topic. You speak of delimiting when you purposefully limit your topic to make it manageable, like considering only males, or only females. You speak of limitations when the limits imposed are real limits in the real world, so you're stuck with them, like considering only men when there are no women in comparable positions.
  • Concept Linking: Keywords

Suggested Submissions
For Those Who Would Like More Guidance

My real life has gone awry for the next week. I have to present a show of my current art work to my art critique group on March 18. They asked me to do this only three weeks before the date. I gotta do a lot of painting. So to make things a little easier for you, I'm gonna give you some suggestions, starting with Week 5, March 3, 2003.

• Week of March 3, 2003:

  Some choices for a beginning submission:

  • Rescuing a Boy From the Streets Illocutionary Understanding that Produces Change.

    The questions are for discussion. DO NOT send me answers to all the questions. For a submission choose an aspect of the story that interests you, connect it to concepts we have studied, and send me a couple of paragraphs on what that piece of the story means to you in your lived experience. That's your first essay submission. (Unless you're already caught up and have done this.)

  • Motivation to Achieve: The Long Wall Discussion questions included.

    The questions are for discussion. DO NOT send me answers to all the questions.For a submission choose an aspect of the concept of the long wall that interests you, connect it to concepts we have studied, and send me a couple of paragraphs on what that piece of the story means to you in your lived experience. That's your first essay submission. (Unless you're already caught up and have done this.) You might want to consider how the concept applies to motivating students to study.

• Week of March 10, 2003:

  Some choices for a later submission:

  • Required: I'd like all of you to send some sort of submission or participate in a discussion on interpreting common charts. It's stuff you gotta know as part of civic understanding.

    Interpretation of a New York Times Chart on the Job Market Discussion questions included.

  • Another kind of interpretation - the use of visuals. Visual Interpretation Discusson questions included.

  • March 7, 2003:Oil and Gas Prices and Social Justice Discussion questions and further readings included.

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Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, August 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

Footnote 1. Esq. means Esquire, and is sometimes used to indicate that you are a member of the Bar.
jeanne is a member of the California Bar.