Fall 2001
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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: October 26, 2000
Latest update: August 4, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

Added September 1, 2001:

1. Postmodernism and Sociology Excellent and readable summary by Paul Gingrich at University of Regina, Department of Sociology and Social Studies. Sociology 319 - Contemporary Social Theory. Winter 2000

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This is a beginning list of the basic concepts, people, ideas that I believe a student who has completed basic theory should be able to discuss coherently. Lists are not complete. Syllalbus still under construction. August 4, 2001. jeanne

Week 1

OLD paradigm of "neutral, grand theory" sociology and
NEW paradigm of adversarialism AND mutuality.

Perhaps the most central problem we confront today is survival. Survival of our species, our earth, our sense of life on this earth. Globablization has been realized, at least to the extent that we recognize that there is but one Earth, and we are all interdependent on that Earth's resources for survival. I have chosen to take our interdependence as the starting point for our analysis of classic, modern, and postmodern theory.

Scheduled Discussion: Who Is the Other? Who Am I?

Questions for Timed-Test Essay:

• Do we need an "Other" for there to be an "I"? What is the sound of one hand clapping? What matters an A, if no one gets an F? Alfie Kohn. The "Other-Directed."
• Why do we need to attend to the "Other" in sociology? Social facts mean facts that involve others.
• What is postcolonialism and why do we speak of dominance and exploitation? Edward Said.
• Postcolonialism as Hope by Andy Greenwald.
• What would a change from adversarialism to mutuality look like? How would we know it when we see it? Gordon Fellman.

  Rambo and the Dalai Lama

• When we speak of sociology, of whom or what do we speak?

• Sociology's Role in Labor's Learning Process by Paul Johnston. Well done argument. References to theory you should recognize. How does Paul Johnston's work fit with your imaginary on sociology?

  Primary Concepts to be learned:

• Alterity, the concept of the "Other"
• Survival and Dominance: From dominant discourse to transformative discourse
• The Dilemma of Knowingness and its relation to dominance

Classical theorists: Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Freud.

• Re-Interpretations of the classical theorists in terms of new paradigms: "on the shoulders of giants"

Social theorists you really ought to be able to say something substantive about:

• Becker, Howard
• Foucault
• Giddens, Anthony. Structuration Theory.
• Goffman, Erving. Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Habermas
• hooks, bell
• Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure, On the Shoulders of Giants

Social theorists whose names you ought to recognize:

• Baudrillard
• Bhabha
• Bourdieu
• Butler
• Chodorow
• Garfinkel
• Simmel
• Spivak

Schools of thought in sociology whose names you ought to recognize:

• Functionalism
• Conflict Theory
• Social Interactionism
• Social Constructionism
• Phenomenonology
• Ethnomethodology
• Rational Choice Theory
• Positivism
• Feminism
• Critical Race Theory, Delgado
• Critical Theory
• Post-Whatever
  • Postcolonialism
  • Postmarxism
  • Postmodernism
  • Poststructuralism
• Queer theory
• Subaltern Studies

Philosophers whose names you ought to recognize:

• Derrida
• Habermas
• Hegel
• Heidegger
• Kant
• Lacan
• Lyotard
• Nietszche
• Wittgenstein
• Readings:
  • Week 1

  Scheduled discussion: Sociology, the Public/Private Sphere, and Adversarialism.

  Timed essay test questions:

  1. What is the importance of the public/private sphere in sociology?
  2. How could you situate sociology, psychology, anthropology and political science with respect to the public/private sphere?
  3. Does the public/private sphere help define social work and sociology?
  • What Is a Social Fact?Review and Teaching Essay by jeanne and Susan.
  • Social Work and the Public/Private Spheres

Graduate Class

• Bakhtin and Postcolonial Theory

• Bruce Robbins on Edward W. Said's "Voyage In"
  by Benjamin Graves '98, Brown University.

• Problematizing the Exilic: Eurocentrism and Elitism Benjamin Graves '98, Brown University.

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