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Professor Zine Magubane
McGuinn 418
magubane@bc.edu
Office Hours: Mondays 12-3 and by appointment
This course explores modern sociological theory as well as the history of sociology from the end of WWI
through the present. The aim of the course is to not only to provide insight on the evolving theoretical
trends in the discipline but to situate those trends in historical context. The course begins by exploring
why sociologists have felt it necessary to provide ‘theory’ and looks at the importance of theory to the
‘Chicago School’ in the 1920s and 1930s. The course then goes on to look at the neo-positivist revolution
in the 1940s and 1950s, the ‘crisis’ in sociology and positivism in the 1970s and the anti-positivist
theoretical revolutions and the ‘linguistic turn’ of the 1980s-present.
Requirements:
Paper 1: Due March 10 (30%)
Paper 2: Due May 2 (30%)
In- Class Presentation (30%)
Participation & Attendance (10%)
January 13: Introduction
January 20: No Class
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Turner, Jonathan. 2002. “Sociological Theory Today.” Pp. 1-17 in Sociological Theory Today,
edited by Jonathan H. Turner. New York: Plenum Publishers.
January 27: Why do Sociologists ‘Do’ Theory? The ‘Retreat from Reform’, the Chicago School and the
turn towards ‘Grand’ Theory
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Park, Robert. 1921. Sociology and the Social Sciences. The American Journal of Sociology
26 (4): 401-424.
Park, Robert. 1921. Sociology and the social sciences: the social organism and the
collective mind. The American Journal of Sociology 27 (1): 1-21.
Park, Robert. 1921. Sociology and the social sciences: the group concept and social
research. The American Journal of Sociology 27(2): 169-183.
Breslau, D. (1990). The Scientific Appropriation of Social Research: Robert Park’s Human
Ecology and American Sociology. Theory and Society 19, 417-446.
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February 3: Parsons’ Structural Functionalism
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Turner, Jonathan. 1990. “The Focused Replaces the Grand.” Pp. 39-85 in The Impossible Science:
An Institutional Analysis of American Sociology. London: Sage.
Parsons, Talcott. 1959. “Some Problems Confronting Sociology as a Profession.” American
Sociological Review 24: 547-559.
Dahrendorf. Ralf. 1958. “Out of Utopia: Toward a Reorientation of Sociological Analysis.”
American Journal of sociology 74 (September): 115-127.
o Recommended: Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1994. “The State of American Sociology.”
Sociological Forum 9(2): 199-220.
February 10: The Revolt against Parsons
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C. Wright Mills. The Sociological Imagination. 4th edition. Chapters 3 and 4
February 17: Merton’s ‘Theories of the Middle Range’
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Merton, Robert. 1967. “On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range.” Pp 39-72 in On
Theoretical Sociology. New York: Free Press.
Merton, Robert. “Social Structure and Anomie.” Pp. 229-242 in Social Theory, edited by Charles
Lemert.
Merton, Robert. 1945. “Sociological Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 50(6): 462-473.
February 24: Symbolic Interactionism, Ethnomethodology, Behaviorism
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Homans, George C. 1958. “Social Behavior as Exchange. American Journal of Sociology 63: 579606.
Homans, George C. 1965. “Bringing Men Back In.” American Sociological Review 29: 807-828.
Blumer, Herbert. “Society as Symbolic Interaction.” Pp. 145-154 in J.G. Manis and B.N. Meltzer,
Symbolic Interaction, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1972.
March 3: No Class. Spring Break
March 10: Gouldner and the ‘Coming Crisis’
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Gouldner, Alvin. 1962. “Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value Free Sociology.” Social Problems 9:
199-213
Gouldner, Alvin. “The Sociologist as Partisan: Sociology and the Welfare State.” American
Sociologist 3: 103-116.
Gouldner, Alvin. 1973. “For Sociology: Varieties of Political Expression Revisited.” American
Journal of Socioloy 78: 1063-1093.
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George Steinmetz and Ou-Byung Chae. 2002. “Sociology in an Era of Fragmentation: From the
Sociology of Knowledge to the Philosophy of Science, and Back Again.” The Sociological
Quarterly Vol. 43 No. 1: 111-137.
March 17: Perspectives on Neo-Marxism
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Burawoy, Michael. 1990. “Marxism as Science: Historical Challenges and Theoretical Growth.”
American Sociological Review 55(6): 775-793.
Pakulski, Jan and Malcolm Waters. 1996. “The Re-shaping and Dissolution of Social Class in
Advanced Society.” Theory and Society 25(5): 667-691.
Wright, Eric Olin. 1996. “The Continuing Relevance of Class Analysis.” Theory and Society 25:
693-716.
Grusky, David and Jesper B. Sorensen. 1998. “Can Class Analysis be Salvaed?” American Journal
of Sociology 103(5): 1187-1235.
March 24: Perspectives on Rational Choice and Network Theory
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Somers, Margaret R. 1998. “We’re No Angels: Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in
Social Science.” American Journal of Sociology 104(3): 722-84.
Kiser, Edar and Michael Hechter. 1998. “The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice
Theory and Its Critics.” American Journal of Sociology 104(3): 785-816.
Emirbayer, Mustapha and Jeff Goodwin. 1994. “Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem
of Agency.” American Journal of Sociology 99(6): 1411-1454.
March 31: Bourdieu
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Brubaker, Rogers. 1985. “Rethinking Classical Theory: The Sociological Vision of Pierre
Bourdieu. Theory and Society 14(6): 745-775.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7(1): 1425.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1985. “the Genesis of the Concepts of Habitus and Field.”
Sociocriticism 2(2): 11-24.
April 7: Poststructuralism & Postmodernism
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Agger, Ben. 1991. “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological
Relevance.” Annual Review of Sociology 17: 105-131.
Mirchandani, Rekhaa. 2005. “Postmodernism and Sociology: From the Epistemological to the
Empirical.” Sociological Theory 23 (1): 86-115.
Lee, Janet. 1999. “The Utility of Strategic Postmodernism.” Sociological Perspectives 42(4): 739753.
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Power, Michael. 2011. “Foucault and Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 37: 35-56
Denzin, Norman. 1986. “Postmodern Social Theory.” Sociological Theory 4: 194-204.
April 14: Colonialism & Post-colonialism
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Kemple, Thomas and Renisa Mawani. 2009. “The Sociological Imagination and its Imperial
Shadows.” Theory, Culture, and Society 26(7-8): 228-249.
Levine, Philippa. 2000. “Orientalist Sociology and the Creation of Colonial Sexualities.” Feminist
Review 65: 5-21.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic Wacquant. 1999. “On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason.” Theory,
Culture, and Society 16(1): 41-58.
Zimmerman, Andrew. “Decolonizing Weber.” Postcolonial Studies 9 (53-79).
Connell, R.W. 1997. “Why is Classical Theory Classical? American Journal of Sociology 102: 15111557.
April 28: Feminism and Sexuality
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Gamson, Joshua. 2004. “The Sociology of Sexualities: Queer and Beyond.” Annual Review of
Sociology 30: 47-64.
Green, Adam I. 2002. “Gay but not Queer: Toward a Post-Queer Study of Sexuality. Theory and
Society 31(4): 521-543.
Valocchi, Stephen. 2005. “Not Yet Queer Enough: The Lessons of Queer Theory for the Sociology
of Gender and Sexuality.” Gender and Society 19(6): 750-770.
Ingraham, Chrys. 1994. “The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of
Gender.” Sociological Theory 12(2): 203-219.
Mann, Susan and Lori R. Kelley. 1997. “Standing at the Crossroads of Modernist Thought: Collins,
Smith, and the New Feminist Epistemologies.” Gender and Society 11(4): 391-408.