SOCIAL CHANGE: THEORY AND PRACTICE – SOAN 255
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on youYe are many — they are few"
--Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy
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SOCIAL CHANGE: THEORY AND PRACTIVE – SOAN 255
Professor Jamie K. McCallum
Middlebury College
Fall Term 2014
mccallum@middlebury.edu
Monday 1:30-4:15
Hillcrest 103
Office: Munroe 110
T/TH 11-12:30
Social Change: Theory and Practice
Course Description
This course is for people interested in creating social change through collective action. We will
take a behind-the-scenes look at how people organize grassroots social movements by exploring
the art, theory, and science of making social change. By examining case studies of different
movements, we will consider varied perspectives on power and powerlessness, political
organization, collective action, and reform versus revolution. As a crash course in organizing for
change, we will practice the hands-on tactics and strategies that social movement organizers
employ to foment social transformation from the bottom up: creating a campaign strategy,
mobilizing workers and communities, analyzing power structures, and developing leadership.
Through partnerships with local organizations, we will have the chance to learn about and
participate in ongoing campaigns. Students will craft political manifestos, keep journals, draft
strategy reports, knock on doors, plan strategic campaigns, and respond to readings and films.
This is a highly modified version of a course designed by Marshall Ganz at the
Harvard Kennedy School, and many more like it are being taught at universities across the
country. I have built the syllabus through consultation with experts at the Leading Change
Network.
Head, Hands, and the Heart
In this course, students learn in three dimensions. First, students learn with their heads,
developing cognitive understandings (theory) of what power, structure, and agency are, and how
it has historically played a role in making social change. Second, students learn with their hands,
by practicing the skills components of movements for social change. Third, students learn with
their hearts, using stories to explore the motivations that call them to this kind of work, and the
stories that can move their communities to action. Thepadagigical approach of the course
suggests that these three elements are essential to learning the craft of organizing for social
change. Alexis de Tocqueville said, “In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is
the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.” The
knowledge of combining, of bringing people together, is a foundation for a truly democratic
society.
Class Participation and Classroom Protocol
You are expected to come to every class and out-of-class event. This semester, you will work
outside of class with your groups at various times, and you will also attend film screenings,
usually on the evening before class. Check the syllabus for specific dates. You are encouraged to
have an opinion, be audacious, act out, and risk your pride (what you risk shows what you value).
Come prepared to discuss readings but also to join group discussions and role-plays. Learning
and organizing are both conspiracies, group activities where we work, play, plot, and debate
together. Students should be prepared to take notes without laptops. Cell phones and all other
non-airplane-approved devices must be switched off.
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Assignments
You will keep an organizer’s journal and hand in weekly responses of two to three pages,
reflecting on the ideas and skills we’ve discussed that week. These should be academically
rigorous, well written, and engaged with the material. You will also contribute to a few group
projects. Opportunities for non-written assignments may present themselves as the term
progresses. During the final class you will present your group strategy projects. Each group will
choose an issue and create a strategic campaign to organize around it. Other groups will comment
and critique your proposals. We will discuss all assignments fully in class.
#SOAN255
Throughout the semester I will occasionally tweet relevant articles via #soan255, and I greatly
encourage you to do the same. You are not required to use Twitter in this class, but this will be a
helpful way to share information, and I may reference things posted there by myself or others.
Grades
Your grades are based on a combination of the quality of your written work, your level of active
participation in the class, and your final group projects. All group members receive two grades
for the project—one overall grade, and one grade based upon a written synopsis that selfevaluates her/his own participation in the group work. Late work is graded half a grade lower
within the first week it is late (an A becomes an A-). Thereafter it is not graded.
Journal entries
Group Projects
Class Participation
50%
25%
25%
If you object to a grade you receive in class, email me a detailed explanation as to why you think
the grade should be changed. In that email, also include a few suggested times when you can
meet me as soon as possible to discuss the matter further.
Honor Code and Academic Integrity
The Middlebury Honor Code forbids cheating and plagiarism. For details on what constitutes
these breaches of conduct, please see Middlebury policy here:
http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/administration/newfaculty/handbook/honorcode
Failure to abide such regulations will result in my notifying the proper college authorities. The
academy is not known for its sense of humor, but plagiarism is truly no joke. For information on
how to avoid plagiarizing, see Earl Babbie’s article: http://www.csub.edu/ssrictrd/howto/plagiarism.htm
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SOCIAL CHANGE: THEORY AND PRACTICE – SOAN 255
Professor Jamie K. McCallum
Middlebury College
Fall Term 2014
mccallum@middlebury.edu
Monday 1:30-4:15
Hillcrest 103
Office: Munroe 110
T/TH 11-12:30
Social Change: Theory and Practice
Note: The course schedule that follows may be revised as the course progresses
Required Texts: Jane McAlevey. 2012. Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting
for the Labor Movement. Verso
Gar Alperovitz. 2010. What Then Must We Do? Straight Talk about the Next American
Revolution. Chelsea Green Publishing
All other texts are available on the course website:
http://sites.middlebury.edu/organize/course-schedule-and-readings/
Week 1—
9/8:
Course Overview / What is Organizing? / Public Narrative
Outsiders in Ferguson, Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/in-ferguson-many-outsiders-are-among-those-arrested1408491536
In Ferguson, young demonstrators are finding it’s not their grandparents’ protest, Wall
Street Journal:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-ferguson-young-demonstrators-are-findingits-not-their-grandparents-protest/2014/08/21/95110be0-28a0-11e4-86ca6f03cbd15c1a_story.html
Ways to Support Ferguson: http://www.handsupunited.org/support-ferguson
Anonymously Complete Activist Skills Questionnaire:
http://www.vernalproject.org/papers/change/ActQuest.pdf
Week 2—
9/14:
9/15:
Bread and Roses Film Screening 7pm, Axinn 232
Journal Entry Due
Jane McAlevey—Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Rinku Sen, “Introduction: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy”, in Stir it
Up
Meeting with community partner, Vermont Workers Center
Week 3—
9/22:
Public Narrative Workshop
Marshal Ganz, Public Story Worksheet
Marshal Ganz, Why Stories Matter
Marshal Ganz, Leading Change
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Soren Kierkegaard, “The Storm,” from Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life
Frances Fox Piven, Ch2, “The Nature of Disruptive Power” in Challenging Authority:
How Ordinary People Change America.
Week 4—
9/28:
9/29:
How to Survive a Plague Film Screening 7pm, Axinn 232
Journal Entry Due
Meeting with community partner, Rising Tide, VT and Henry Hambone and Pika
Randy Shaw, Ch7, “Direct Action” in The Activists’ Handbook
Randy Schutt, Effective Nonviolent Direct Action
Fisher, The Activism Industry
Week 5—
10/6:
Event with Marina Sitrin, Discuss Power Structure Analysis
Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 1970,
(pp.1-8). (P) http://www.anarres.org.au/essays/amtos.htm
Marina Sitrin, “Introduction” and “It is about Democracy” in They Can’t Represent Us!
Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy
Week 6—
10/13: No Class, Fall Recess
Week 7—
10/20: Jane McALevey Chapters 5- epilogue
AHUY and AAR
Week 8—
10/27: At the River I Stand film screening in class
Ta-Nehisi Coates. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Kevin D Williamson. The Case Against Reparations:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/378737/case-against-reparations-kevin-dwilliamson
Stokely Carmichael, Black Power
Bayard Rustin, Failure of Black Separatism
Week 9—
11/2: Harlan County, USA film screening, 7pm, Axinn 232
11/3:
PSA Due / Discuss Group Projects
Malcolm Gladwell, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”, in The
New Yorker, October 4, 2010.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell
Ben Brandzell, “What Malcolm Gladwell Missed About Online Organizing and Creating Big
Change”, in The Nation, November 15, 2010.
http://www.thenation.com/article/156447/what-malcolm-gladwell-missed-about-onlineorganizing-and-creating-big-change
Jamie K. McCallum, Ch2. “The Globalization of the Organizing Model” In Global
Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing
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An Audacious Proposal, Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/06/17/3447851/plan-to-save-labor/
Week 10—
11/9: If a Tree Falls film screening, 7pm, Axinn 232
11/10: Gar Alperovitz. 2010. What Then Must We Do? Straight Talk about the Next American
Revolution.
Week 11—
11/17: Group meetings about presentations—sign up for time slots!
Week 12—
11/24: Group Presentations
Week 13—
12/1:
Class Review, Course Evaluations
Joy Cushman, What We Can’t Teach: Courage and Commitment
Chris Crass, Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis,
and Movement Building Strategy
COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND PRESENTERS
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Created in 1998, the Vermont Workers’ Center is a statewide grassroots network of thousands of
individuals and families who are committed to standing for justice. We have hundreds of
individual members around the state and also work with over a dozen partner organizations
(unions, churches, community groups, etc).
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Rising Tide Vermont organizes and takes direct action to confront the root causes of climate
change and to facilitate a just transition to resilient and equitable land-based communities.
We are part of a movement which opposes the expansion of industrial infrastructure in the
Northeast US and Eastern Canada, and exposes corporate and state-sponsored false solutions to
the climate crisis. Rising Tide Vermont is committed to dismantling systems of oppression and
domination- such as sexism, racism and colonialism- within society, as well as within our
organizing and movement-building.We recognize that the impacts of climate chaos and extreme
energy fall disproportionately on indigenous peoples, low-ncome communities, and communities
of color- especially in the Global South- and support the leadership of these frontline
communities in the global struggle for climate justice.
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Marina Sitrin, October 6th campus presenter
Direct Democracy and Horizontalism
Marina Sitrin
Marina Sitrin holds a PhD in Global Sociology and a JD in International Womens’
Human Rights. She is a visiting scholar at the Center for Place Culture and Politics at the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In addition to being a scholar,
Marina has been active in occupy movements worldwide. She is the co-author of They
Can’t Represent Us: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy (Verso 2014),
author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina (Zed 2012)
and editor of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (AK 2006). Her work
focuses on social movements and justice, specifically looking at forms of social
organization, such as autogestión, horizontalidad, prefigurative politics and affective
social relationships. Marina is currently writing a book that rethinks social movement
theory, based in contemporary global movements, challenging the contentious politics
framework and using Raul Zibechi’s frame of societies in movement. She is also coauthoring a book with Bill Fletcher Jr. on the question of strategy for movement building
today, to be published by UC Press.
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