COURSE SYLLABUS
GRADUATE SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
S. Fernando Rodriguez
Old Main 319
Book: George Ritzer, Contemprary Sociological Theory and its Classical Roots: The
Basics. McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 0-07-234962-X
Readings: Will be provided by the professor either hardcopy or through my website.
This seminar is designed to provide an overview of selected contemporary theorists who
have had a major impact on the discipline of sociology. The course is organized by
theoretical area, and will provide an opportunity for students to explore theoretical
perspectives and approaches that are current in the field and will have relevance for their
own work. Emphasis will be on careful reading, critical thinking and discussion of the
theorists, the theoretical concepts, their place in the sociological spectrum, and the nature
of their contribution to the field.
Prerequisites: Graduate standing and undergraduate sociological theory.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES
This course is designed as an in-depth graduate seminar for MA students in sociology and
other related disciplines. The course requires advanced graduate- level seminar
participation, assumes some knowledge of sociological principles and theory, and
demands a considerable amount of time in preparation of the reading materials, writing
assignments and seminar presentations. It is imperative that each student comes to every
class prepared to discuss the day’s work; the benefits of this class come from talking as
much as listening.
REQUIREMENTS
There will be some lecture material, the extent of which will vary with the theorist, but
the majority of each of the sessions will consist of seminar exchange. Thus it is expected
that the readings will be prepared fully and carefully by each participant. For the second
week of class, we will ask each student to think about and reflect on his/her own
theoretical background. Each student will be expected to write a brief (1 to 2 page)
reflection paper on this process. This can include perspectives on general theory,
specific theoretical strengths and/or weaknesses, or discussion about possible future
directions. During the first session, I will ask each student to select a theorist from the
group of writers we will be covering this quarter. Each student is expected to lead one
seminar discussion on a theorist, develop a complete bibliography on the theorist to
share with the class, and write a short (5 page) intellectual biography of the theorist
that traces the history, development and directions of the theorist's work, also to be
shared with the class. It is hoped that participants will truly "adopt" their theorists and
provide a deep and lasting resource for other students. You will be expected to complete
all course requirements including all readings and two short papers (about 5 pages
each) and a final exam based solely on the George Ritzer book. The paper topics are
to be negotiated with Dr. Rodriguez. The first paper is due the sixth week of class and the
second paper is due March 20th.
OUTLINE OF THE COURSE
January 17
Week 2
Introduction to power and society.
January 24
Week 3
Introduction to power and society.
Required Readings:
Mills, C. Wright. 1957. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Ch. 1
“Higher Circles” pp. 3-29; ch. 12 “The Power Elite” pp. 269-297; ch. 13 “The Mass
Society” pp. 298-324.
Mills, C. Wright. 1963. "Situated Actions and the Vocabularies of Motive," American
Sociological Review 5(6). (c. 1940), reprinted in Mills, Power, Politics and People. New
York: Oxford University Press. pp. 439-452
Mills, C. Wright. "Comment on Criticism of The Power Elite" In Domhoff, William &
Hoyt Ballard (Eds.) C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 229250.
Gordon, Colin. “Introduction” In Faubion, James (Ed.) Power; Essential Works of
Foucault 1954-1984, Volume III. New York: The New Press.
Habermas, Jurgen. “Some Questions Concerning the Theory of Power: Foucault Again”
In Kelly, Michael (Ed.) Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Recommended Readings:
Dahl, Robert. "A Critique of The Ruling Elite Model" in W. Domhoff, & Hoyt Ballard
(Eds.) 1968.
C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite. Boston: Beacon Press, pp.25-36.
Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Dahl, Robert. 1974. "Who Governs?" in W. Hawley and F Wirt (eds.). The Search for
Community Power. (2nd Ed)Englewood Cliffs: NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 87-107.
Denzin, Norman K. 1989. "Re-Reading the Sociological Imagination," pp. 278-282 in
TheAmerican Sociologist, Fall.
Domhoff, William. 1990. The Power Elite and the State. Hawthorn NY: De Gruyter.
Chapters 1,2,3,5, 9,10.
Weeks of January 31 and February 14th.
Functionalism and its critics.
In the post-war United States, functionalism grew out of Harvard, and shone brightly
across the discipline. However, by the 1970s it had become a theoretical dinosaur,
criticized by both conflict theory and symbolic interactionism. Given some of the
criticisms here, why do you think functionalism failed as a sociological paradigm? Can
there be a unitary sociological theory? What can we say about disciplinary conflict v.
unification?
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Selected
readings, pp. Ch 2 “The Major Points of Reference and structural Components of the
social system” pp. 24-67; Especially Chapter XI "The Processes of Change of Social
Systems" pp. 480-535. (SFR will discuss)
Parsons, Talcott. 1986. Ch. 1 "Power and Structure" In S. Lukes (ed). Essays in Social
Theory. NY: Columbia U Press, pp. 3-29 and pp. 69-88.
Gouldner, Alvin. 1970. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic
Books. Chapter 5 “Early Parsons” 167 198 and Chapter 6 “Making the world whole:
Parson’s as a system’s analyst” pages pp. 199-213; pp. 242-245.
Collins, Randall. 1994. "Merton, Parsons, and Functionalism" in Four Sociological
Traditions, Vol 1. NY: Oxford U Press, pp. 198-203. (SFR will discuss)
Alexander, Jeffery C. 1998. Neofunctionalism and After. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Chapter 7 "Structure, Value and Action: What Did the Early Parsons Mean and What
Should He Have Said Instead", pp. 147-160.
Recommended.
Alexander, Jeffery C.1998. Neofunctionalism and After. Malden MA: Blackwell.,
especially Chapter 3 "Neofunctionalism Today: Reconstructing a Theoretical Tradition"
with Paul Colomy and Chapter 4 "Parsons' Structure in American Sociology" Chapter 8
"The New Theoretical Movement in Sociology", pp. 163-232. Chapter 9 "After
Neofunctionalism: Action, Culture, and Civil Society", pp. 210-233
Alexander, Jeffery C. 1985. "Introduction," in Alexander, (ed.) Neofunctionalism.
Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. pp. 7-18.
Alexander, Jeffery C. 1980-83. Theoretical Logic in Sociology (4 vols.), Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Alexander, Jeffery C. 1987. Twenty Essays: Sociological Theory Since World War II.
New York. Columbia University Press. Lectures 1-7, pp. 1-126. Lecture 20, pp. 374-380.
Gouldner, Alvin. 1975. "Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology," in
Gouldner, For Sociology. New York: Basic Books, pp. 3-26.
Talcott Parsons. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Weeks of February 21 and 28th
Neo-Marxist and Neo-Weberian perspectives.
This week we will explore some of the directions that theorists took in expanding
Marxian and Weberian assumptions. This included influences from philosophy,
linguistics, and psychoanalysis, in both Europe and the USA.
What theoretical changes occurred in Marxism and Weberian thought over the 20th
century?
Do new theoretical approaches completely discount older perspectives?
What can we say about theory change vis-à-vis other forms or levels of social change?
On the Continent . . .
Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes toward an
Investigation.)” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review
Press.
Poulantzas, Nicos. 1979. Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. New York: Verso. Pp. 935.
Poulantzas, Nicos. 2000. State, Power, Socialism. New York: Verso. Pp. 1-47.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. “’The Only Way to Find Out If You Can Swim Is to Get
into the Water’: An Introductory Interview.” In The Castoriadis Reader. David Ames
Curtis (Ed.) Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1987. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press. Pp. 1-70.
And Stateside.
O’Connor, James. 1999. “A Prolegomenon to an Ecological Marxism: Thoughts on the
Materialist Conception of History.” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist
Ecology. 10(2): 77-106.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science Technology, and Socialist –
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature. Routledge: New York. pp. 149-181.
Robinson, Cedric. 2000. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Chpt. 3, 45-68; Chpts. 8-12; 175-307.
Collins, Randall. 1998. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual
Change. Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ Press., Ch1, “Coalitions of the Mind”, pp.
19-53; Ch 2 “Networks across the Generations”, pp. 54-70; Ch 15, “Sequence and
Branch in the Social Production of Ideas”, pp.787-857. Recommend: Ch 14
“Writers’ Markets and Academic Networks: The French Connection”, pp 754-784.
Recommended Readings
Amin, Samir. 1998. Specters of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions.
Monthly Press Review: New York. pp. 94-115 and pp. 123-132.
Collins, Randall. 1986. Weberian Sociological Theory. Boston: Cambridge Press. pp. 3744; and pp. 247-209 ix
Collins, Randall. 1986. Max Weber. Masters of Social Theory Vol 3.Sage: Newbery Park,
CA.
Collins, Randall and Sal Restivo. 1983. "Conflicts and Developments in the Sociology of
Science," Sociological Quarterly 24:185-200.
Collins, Randall. 1988."The Micro Contribution to Macro Sociology," Sociological
Theory 6(Fall):118-130.
Collins, Randall. 1994. Four Sociological Traditions. NY: Oxford U Press. Entire
volume.
Collins, Randall. 1988. Theoretical Sociology. San Francisco: Harcourt, Brace and
Jovanovitch.
Chapter 4, "Conflict and Social Change", pp. 118-147, Chapter 5, "Multidimensional
Conflict Theory and Stratification", pp. 149-184; Chapter 11, "The Micro-Macro
Connection", pp. 375-409.
Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1959. Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press.
Giddens, Anthony; David Held. eds. 1982. Classes, Power, and Conflict: Classical and
Contemporary Debates. University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles.
King, Mary. 1999. “Keeping People in Their Place: An Exploratory Analysis of the Role
of Violence in the Maintenance of ‘Property Rights’ in Race and Gender Privileges in the
United States” in Review of Radical Political Economics 32(3): 1-11.
Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a
Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
MacKinnon, Catherine A. 1989. “Feminist Critique of Marx and Engels” pp.13-36 and
“A Marxist Critique of Feminism” pp. 37-59. In Towards a Feminist Theory of the State.
Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, UK.
McClellan, David. 1979. Marxism after Marx. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Ryan, Michael. 1982. Marxism and Deconstruction: A Critical Articulation. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Weeks of March 7th and 14th
Race, Feminism(s) and Feminist Theory.
Required
Patricia Hill-Collins. 1990. Black Feminist Thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Especially
Chapter 2, "Defining Black Feminist Thought", pp. 19-40 and Chapter 11, "Knowledge,
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment", pp. 221-238.
Patricia Hill Collins. 1998. Fighting Words: Black Women And The Search For Justice.
Pages 44-76.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and
the Privilege of Partial Perspective” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of
Nature. New York: Routledge. 183-201.
Hartsock, Nancy. “Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a specifically
Feminist Historical Materialism” pp.. 216-240 In The Second Wave: A Reader in
Feminist Theory. Linda Nicholson ed. Routledge: New York and London.
Wittig, Monique. 1997. “One is Not Born a Woman” pp.265-271. In The Second Wave: A
Reader in Feminist Theory. Linda Nicholson ed. Routledge: New York and London.
Recommended
Dorothy Smith. 1990. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of
Knowledge. Boston: Northeastern U Press. Pages 11-28; pages 31-57.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty. 1991. “Introduction: Cartographies of Struggle Third World
Women and the Politics of Feminism” pp. 1-41. in Third World Women and the Politics
of Feminism. Chandra Talpade Mohanty; Ann Russo; Loudres Torres. eds. Indiana
University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis.
Sandra Harding. 1996. "Standpoint Epistemology (a Feminist Version): How Social
Disadvantage Creates Epistemic Advantage." In Social Theory and Sociology: The
Classics and Beyond, Stephen P. Turner (Ed.), Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996, 146160.
Brown, Wendy. 1995. States of injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity.
"Postmodern Exposures, Feminist Hesitations" pp. 30-51
Demetriou, Demetrakis. 2001. Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A
Critique” Theory & Society. 30:337-361.
February 14
Week 6
Neo-Marxist and Neo-Weberian perspectives.
First short paper due
February 21
Week 7
Neo-Marxist and Neo-Weberian perspectives.
February 28
Week 8
Race and Feminism.
March 7
Week 9
Race and Feminism.
March 14
Week 10
The State: Structure and political economy.
March 21
Week 11
The State: Structure and political economy.
March 28
Week 12
The State II: Cultural reproduction of authority.
April 4
Week 13
The State III: Culture, power, and the state.
Second short paper due
April 11
Week 14
Risk theory.
April 18
Week 15
Risk theory.