SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE
(Sociol. 160)
Fall 2013
PROFESSOR MARION FOURCADE
Barrows Hall 474
fourcade@berkeley.edu
3-2707
Class: Tu-Th, 11-12:30, Evans Hall 10
Office Hours: Thursday, 2-4. Sign up at http://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/hepeo
READERS:
Jason Ferguson: jlferg@berkeley.edu
Sun Kim: sunmin@berkeley.edu
This class will introduce students to sociological approaches to the question of
culture. We will start by discussing important theoretical perspectives (culture as
system of classification, as an instrument of power, as embodied practices linked
to social positions, as a product of social interaction, as a system of signs) and
then move on to specific empirical topics (artistic production; culture and
organization; identity). The last part of the course will explore in depth the
question of cultural difference through an analysis of national culture in
comparative perspective, with a special focus on “American” culture.
PRACTICALITIES
Communication: The best time and place for questions about the material is in
class. Office hours provide time for longer, more complicated, or more personal
issues. Email should not be used for questions about the material; it is the
“medium of last resort” when you cannot get to office hours for some reason.
Office Hours: Office Hours are on Thursdays from 2 to 4pm. You must sign up for
office hours at http://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/hepeo. Please try to sign up in
advance, as office hours tend to fill up quickly. Please reserve one time slot only
on the same day. (Graduate students are allowed two time slots).
Timely completion of assignments: We will not accept late work. Work turned in
after the deadline will be returned ungraded. If you have a real emergency, email
both MF and your GSI at least 24 hours before the deadline. Exceptions will not
be granted only after a careful review of your situation, and not on an automatic
basis.
Academic honesty: You must in no way misrepresent your work or be party to
another student’s failure to maintain academic integrity. It is your responsibility to
know university policies and abide by the student code of academic integrity
(http://asuc.org/honorcode/). The standard penalty for violations of academic
integrity in this course will be an F grade for the course.
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Readings. A reader is available for purchase at Copy Central on Bancroft. There
is no required book for this class. In addition, all the readings are available
electronically on bSpace (https://bspace.berkeley.edu/). The reader includes only
the required readings, while bSpace has a selection of the optional readings as
well.
Lecture notes. I will post slides twice a week on the course website, usually
shortly in advance of class.
REQUIREMENTS
Students will be expected to:

Read the assigned material in time for class; attend and
participate in lecture and section. Attendance is required at all lectures
and sections. In addition, you are expected to work closely with your GSI
on your writing assignment.
20%

Demonstrate mastery of the course material through an inclass midterm (on Oct 17) and final exam. The exams will be a
combination of short-answer and essay questions. The final will be
cumulative, but will emphasize the material in the last half of the course.
(15% midterm, 25% final)
40%

Complete one detailed outline of a paper assignment. This
outline will be graded and commented upon by your GSI.
10%

Complete a first draft of the paper (7.5%) and read and
comment on the same assignment written by a randomly assigned
classmate (7.5%). Your own draft will be read by another classmate, who
will make suggestions for the final paper. The GSI will guide you through
the process collectively and will grade the quality of each assignment,
without making comments.
15%

Complete a final paper (instructions to follow). The final paper
will be randomly assigned to one of the two GSIs, who will read and grade
it.
15%
In general, course grades will follow the usual distribution (i.e. 94% is an A, 90%
is an A-, etc.). However, grade cut-points may be altered slightly so that they fall
at natural breaks in the point distribution (that is, A- may fall at 91% or 89%). This
alteration will be done at the discretion of the professor and GSIs, depending on
the performance of the class as a whole.
Re-grading policy: If you wish to contest a grade, you must come first to your GSI
and submit him/her a one-page statement explaining why you think the grading is
unfair. Only if you are still dissatisfied should you come to me. Please note I will
not change any grade without first discussing it with your GSI. Also bear in mind
that a re-grade may result in either an increase or a decrease in your score.
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MARION FOURCADE
SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE
FALL 2013
SYLLABUS.
August 29. (Thursday) Introduction to the Course.
Raymond Williams. “Culture” in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.
London: Fontana 1988.
Edward Sapir. “The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society.” Pp114-142
in CM Child, KA Koffka, JE Watson, JB Sapir, E. Thomas, WI Kenworthy, ME
Wells, FL White, A. William. The Unconscious: A Symposium. Alfred Knopf.
RECOMMENDED:
Claudia Roth Pierpont. “The Measure of America: How a Rebel Anthropologist
Waged War on Racism.” New Yorker Magazine. March 8, 2004. [on the birth of
American Anthropology]
William Sewell, Jr. “The Concept(s) of Culture.” Pp. 35-61 in Victoria E. Bonnell
and Lynn Hunt (eds.), Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of
Society and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
Ruth Benedict. “The Diversity of Cultures.” Pp20-27 in in Lyn Spillman (ed.)
Cultural Sociology. Blackwell Pub. 2002.
PART I. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CULTURE
September 3 and 5. Society, Thought, Experience.
Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. Primitive Classification. University of
Chicago Press 1963. Pp3-9.
Marcel Mauss. 1979. “Techniques of the Body.” In Sociology and Psychology:
Essays. Routledge. Pp97-109, 120-123.
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1939. “Individual consciousness and collective mind.”
American Journal of Sociology. 4(6): 812-822.
RECOMMENDED:
Emile Durkheim. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Pp8-18.
Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama. 1991. “Culture and the Self: Implications
for Emotion, Cognition and Motivation.” Psychological Review 98(2):224-253.
Roy d’Andrade. “The Cultural Part of Cognition.” Cognitive Science 1981. 5: 179195.
Mary Douglas. “Deciphering A Meal” Daedalus 1972. 101:61-81.
September 10 and 12. Power, Mass Culture, Alienation.
Marx and Engels. The German Ideology. Pp.154-155; 172-174 in Gerth and
Mills. The Marx-Engels Reader. W.W. Norton 1972.
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. 1944. “The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment and Mass Deception.” Pp39-46 in Lyn Spillman (ed.) Cultural
Sociology. Blackwell Pub. 2002.
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Paul Willis. “Masculinity and Factory Labor.” Pp183-195 in Jeffrey Alexander and
Steven Seidman (eds.) Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates. Cambridge
1990.
RECOMMENDED:
Fredric Jameson. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text 1979. 1:
130-148.
Paul DiMaggio. “Market Structure, the Creative Process and Popular Culture:
Toward an Organizational Reinterpretation of Mass-Culture Theory.” Journal of
Popular Culture 1977. 11(2): 436-452.
September 17 and 19. Practice, Taste and Language.
Pierre Bourdieu. “Social Space and Symbolic Space.” In Practical Reason.
Stanford University Press 1998.
Annette Lareau. “Social Class and the Daily Lives of Children. A Study from the
United States.” Childhood 2000. 7:155-171.
Bethany Bryson. “‘Anything But Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical
Dislikes.” American Sociological Review 1996. 61:884-899.
Movie Excerpt: Michael Apted, 49 Up.
RECOMMENDED:
Pierre Bourdieu. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
Stanford University Press 1984.
Basil Bernstein. “Language and Social Class.” British Journal of Sociology 1960.
11(3).
William Labov. “Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence.” The Atlantic
Monthly 1972.
First paper assignment (detailed outline) due in section
(Week of September 17)
September 24 and 26. Emotion and Experience: Cultural Microstructures of
Behavior.
Joseph Tobin. Excerpt from Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited. Yale
University Press 2009. [+ DVD excerpt]
Howard Becker. “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology
1953. 59(3): 235-242.
RECOMMENDED
Gary Alan Fine. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of
Little League Baseball” American Sociological Review 44: 733-745.
Arlie Hoschchild. 1983. The Managed Heart. Commercialization of Human
Feeling. University of California Press.
Karin Martin. “Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools.” American
Sociological Review 63:494-511.
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October 1 and 3. Signification, Interpretation, Spectacle.
Clifford Geertz. 2005. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Daedalus.
134(4): 56-86.
Roland Barthes. 1990. “The World of Wrestling”. Pp87-93 in Jeffrey Alexander
and Steven Seidman (eds.) Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates.
Cambridge University Press.
John Levi Martin. 2000. “What Do Animals Do All Day? The Division of Labor,
Class Bodies and Totemic Thinking in the Popular Imagination.” Poetics. 27:195231.
RECOMMENDED
Corrected detailed outline due in section
(Week of October 1)
PART II. CULTURAL PRODUCTION.
October 8 and 10. Art Worlds.
Howard Becker. “Art Worlds and Collective Activity” (Pp1-39) and “Aesthetics,
Aestheticians, and Critics” (Pp131-164) in Art Worlds. University of California
Press 1982.
Paul Di Maggio. “Classification in Art.” American Sociological Review 1987.
42(4): 440-455.
RECOMMENDED:
Michael Baxandall. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford
University Press 1988.
Norbert Elias. “Mozart: The Artist in the Human Being”. (From: Mozart: Portrait of
a Genius.) Pp95-105 in S. Mennel and J. Goudsblom (eds.) Norbert Elias. On
Civilization, Power and Knowledge. University of Chicago Press 1995.
Review (Oct 15) and Midterm (Oct 17)
October 21 and 23. Organizations and the Production of Culture
Gideon Kunda. 1992. “Culture and Organization.” In Engineering Culture: Control
and Commitment in a High Tech Corporation. Temple University Press.
Eric Schlosser. “Your trusted friends.” Pp31-57 in Fast Food Nation. Harper
Collins 2002.
Thomas Frank. “Brand You. Better Selling Through Anthropology.” Harper’s
Magazine, July 1999.
RECOMMENDED
Viviana Zelizer. “From Mobs to Memorials: The Sacralization of Child’s Life”.
Pp22-55 in Pricing the Priceless Child. Princeton University Press 1985.
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The Economist. “Churches as Businesses.” Dec 20th, 2005.
October 28 and 30. Who Are We? The Problem of Identity.
Stuart Hall. “Who Needs Identity?” In Hall and Du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural
Identity. Sage 1996.
Philip Gourevitch. Pp47-74 in We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be
Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
1998.
Miliann Kang and Katherine Jones. “Why Do People Get Tattoos?” Contexts
6(1): 42–47.
RECOMMENDED:
Elizabeth Armstrong. Forging Gay Identities. Organizing Sexuality in San
Francisco 1950-1994. University of Chicago Press.
Fredrik Barth. “Introduction.” Pp9-38 in Fredrik Barth (ed.) Ethnic Groups and
Boundaries. Boston: Little Brown 1969.
Jane Collier. “Identity: From Villagers to Andalusians.” Pp 195-217 in From Duty
to Desire. Remaking Families in a Spanish Village. Princeton University Press
1997.
Dick Hebdige. Subculture. The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Pp4770.
PART III. US AND THEM
November 5 and 7. The Incommensurability of Cultural Difference?
Claude Levi-Strauss. “A little glass of rum.” Pp383-393 in Tristes Tropiques.
Penguin USA 1992.
Bohannan, Laura. “Shakespeare in the bush.” Natural History Magazine, AugSept. 1966.
Richard Shweder. “The Return of the White Man’s Burden.” 217-275 in Why Do
Men Barbecue? Recipes for Cultural Psychology. Harvard University Press 2003.
RECOMMENDED:
Richard Shweder. “Moral Maps.” Pp158-202 in L. Harrison and S. Huntington
(eds.) Culture Matters. How Values Shape Human Progress. New York: Basic
Books 2001.
Sita Reddy. “Temporarily Insane: Pathologizing Cultural Difference in American
Criminal Courts.” Sociology of Health & Illness 2002. 24(5): 667-687.
Horace Miner. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist
1956. 58(3):503-507.
November 12 and 14. “American Culture” I.
Robert Bellah et al. “The Pursuit of Happiness” and “Culture and Character”.
Pp3-51 in Habits of the Heart. Individualism and Commitment in American Life.
Harper and Row 1985.
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Ann Swidler. “Ties that do not bind.” Pp135-159 in Talk of love. Chicago
University Press 2003.
Nina Eliasoph, “‘Close to Home’: The Work of Avoiding Politics.” Pp130-140 in in
Lyn Spillman (ed.) Cultural Sociology. Blackwell Pub. 2002.
November 19 and 26. “American Culture” II. [No Class on November 21.
Professor Fourcade out of town.]
James A. Morone. “Storybook Truths about America.” Studies in American
Political Development 2005. 19: 216-226.
Movie excerpt: Michael Moore. Bowling for Columbine.
Orlando Patterson. “Taking Culture Seriously. A Framework and an AfroAmerican Illustration.” In L. Harrison and S. Huntington (eds.) Culture Matters:
How Values Shape Human Progress. Basic Books 2001.
Final paper due in section (week of Nov 19)
November 28. Thanksgiving. No Class.
December 3 and 5. America Compared.
Monica Krause and Alexandra Kowalski. “Reflexive habits: dating and
rationalized conduct in New York and Berlin.” The Sociological Review 2013. 61 :
21–40.
Lyn Payer. Medicine and Culture. Henry Holt and Company 1996. Pp23-73; 124155.
RECOMMENDED:
Adam Gopnik. “Trouble at the Eiffel Tower.” Pp123-125 in Paris to the Moon.
Random House 2000.
Peter Schneider. “Scenes From A Marriage.” New York Times Magazine, August
12, 2001.
Michèle Lamont. Money, Morals and Manners. The Culture of the French and
American Upper-Middle Class. University of Chicago Press 1994.
Raymonde Carroll. Chapters 1-3 in Cultural Misunderstandings. FrenchAmerican Experience. University of Chicago Press 1990.
December 10 and 12. RRR. Conclusion/Review
FINAL EXAM: DEC 18, 8-11AM.
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