Contemporary Social Theory
Winter 2004
4 credits
Nitsan Chorev
Purpose:
This seminar surveys the field of contemporary social theory and is designed to provide an overview of selected
contemporary theories and theorists who have had a major impact on the discipline of sociology. The course is
organized by theorist or theoretical area, and will provide an opportunity for students to explore 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.
Requirements:
A. Read thoughtfully in advance and participate. Students are expected to do the reading thoroughly before the class
meeting for which it is assigned, and to participate actively in class meetings.
B. Weekly memos. Students are required to write one memorandum of approximately 1000-1200 words about the
readings once a week (that is, once every two meetings). (Memos should be submitted the night before class. No
credit will be given for memos handed in late.)
Course evaluation
Class participation and activity: 30%
Memos: 70%
***
Readings
1. Introduction: Conceptions of sociological theory
Stinchcombe, Arthur. 1987. Constructing Social Theories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 15-56.
Black, Donald. 2000. “The Purification of Sociology.” Contemporary Sociology 29(5): 704-709.
Additional readings
Camic, Charles and Neil Gross. 1998. “Contemporary Developments in Sociological Theory: Current Projects and
Conditions of Possibility.” Annual Review of Sociology 24: 542-76.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1988. “Toward a Disciplinary Matrix in Sociology.” Pp. [] in Handbook of Sociology, edited
by Neil Smelser. Sage.
Smelser, Neil J. 1988. “The New Theoretical Movement.” Pp. [] in Handbook of Sociology, edited by Neil Smelser.
Sage.
2. Intentionality, Agency, and Rationality
Emirbayer, Mustafa and Ann Mishe. 1998. “What is Agency?” American Journal of Sociology 103: 962-1023.
Coleman, James. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pages TBA [pp. 1-54,
65-71, 91-108, 119-299].
Additional readings
Coleman, James. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pp. 1-54, 65-71, 91108, 119-299.
Symposium on Coleman. 1992. Theory and Society 21: 183-202, 203-217, 219-241, 263-83.
Symposium on Coleman. 1990. Contemporary Sociology 19: 778-783, 783-88.
Macy, Michael and Andreas Flache. 1995. “Beyond Rationality in Models of Choice.” Annual Review of Sociology
21: 73-92.
Hechter, Michael and S. Kanazawa. 1997. “Sociological Rational Choice Theory.” Annual Review of Sociology 23:
191-214.
Heckathorn, Douglas D. 1997. “The Paradoxical Relationship between Sociology and Rational Choice.” The
American Sociologist 28(2): 6-15.
Homans, George Caspar. 1964. “Bringing Men Back In.” American Sociological Review 29(6): 809-18.
3. Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology
Goffman, Erving. 1983. “The Interaction Order.” American Sociological Review 48:1-17.
Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. “Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an “Intersexed” Person,” in
Studies in Ethnomethodology, pp. 116-185, 285-288. Polity.
Additional readings
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of
Knowledge. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Pp. 1-46.
Maynard, Douglas and Steven Clayman. 1991. “The Diversity of Ethnomethodology.” Annual Review of Sociology
17: 385-418.
Atkinson, Paul. 1988. “Ethnomethodology: A Critical Review.” Annual Review of Sociology 14: 441-65.
Heritage, John. 1987. “Harold Garfinkel,” Pp. 224-72 in Social Theory Today, edited by Anthony Giddens and
Jonathan Turner. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1967. “On Face-Work,” pp. 5-45 in Interaction Ritual. New York: Pantheon.
Collins, Randall. 1981. “Three Stages of Erving Goffman.” Pp. 219-54 in Sociology Since Midcentury: Essays in
Theory Cumulation. New York: Academic Press.
4. Neo-Weberian perspectives: Randall Collins
Collins, Randall. 1981. "On the Microfoundations of Macro-Sociology." American Journal of Sociology 86: 9841014.
Collins, Randall. 1995. “Prediction in Macrosociology: The Case of the Soviet Collapse.” American Journal of
Sociology 100: 1552-1593.
Additional readings
Collins, Randall. 1988. “The Micro Contribution to Macro Sociology,” Sociological Theory 6:118-130.
[] Collins, Randall. 1988. Theoretical Sociology. San Francisco: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovitch. Recommended:
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.
[] Mann, Michael, 1986. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D.
1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[] Ritzer, George, 2000a. The McDonaldization of Society. New Century Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge
Press
5. Talcot Parsons: Structural Functionalism and its critics.
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Pages TBA [Ch 2 “The Major Points of
Reference and structural Components of the social system” pp. 24-67; Chapter 11 “The Processes of Change of
Social Systems” pp. 480-535].
OR
Parsons, Talcott. 1961. “An Outline of the Social System.” Pp. 30-79 in Theories of Society, edited by T. Parsons,
E. Shils, K. Naegele and J. Pitts. New York: Free Press.
Maryanski, Alexandra and Jonathan H. Turner. 1991. “The Offspring of Functionalism: French and British
Structuralism.” Sociological Theory 9:106-115.
Additional readings
[] Parsons, Talcott. 1949 [1937]. The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference
to a Group of Recent European Writers. NY: Free Press. Part I, pp. 3-128; chapter 12, pp. 451-72.
Parsons, Talcott. 1959. “The School Class as a Social System.” Harvard Educational Review 29: 297-318.
Gouldner, Alvin. 1970. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books. Chapter 5 “Early
Parsons” pp. 167-198 and Chapter 6 “Making the world whole: Parson’s as a system’s analyst” pp. 199-213 [and/or]
242-245.
Alexander, Jeffery C. 1998. "Structure, Value and Action: What Did the Early Parsons Mean and What Should He
Have Said Instead.” Pp. 147-160 in Neofunctionalism and After. Malden MA: Blackwell.
Camic, Charles. 1987. “An Historical Reinterpretation of the Early Parsons.” American Sociological Review 52:
421-39
Camic, Charles. 1989. “`Structure’ after 50 Years: The Anatomy of a Charter.” American Journal of Sociology 95:
38-107.
6. Structural and Functional Analyses: Jeffrey Alexander
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1998. “Traditions and Competition: Preface to a Postpositivist Approach to Knowledge
Cumulation” (chapter 2) and “Neofunctionalism Today: Reconstructing a Theoretical Tradition” (chapter 3) in
Neofunctionalism and After.
Additional readings
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1998. “From Functionalism to Neofunctionalism: Creating a Position in the Field of Social
Theory” (chapter 1) in Neofunctionalism and After.
Schwinn, Thomas. 1998. “False Connections: Systems and Action Theories in Neofunctionalism and in Jurgen
Habermas.” Sociological Theory 16:75-95.
Additional readings on structuralism & role theory: Nadel, Blau & White
Nadel, S.F. 1957. Theory of Social Structure. Pp. 1-124. London: Cohen and West.
Blau, Peter M. 1977. Inequality and Heterogeneity: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure. NY: Free Press.
Chapters 1-6, pp. 1-153.
Blau, Peter. 1995. “A Circuitous Path to Macrostructural Theory.” Annual Review of Sociology 21:1-19.
Fararo, Thomas J. and John Skvoretz. 1987. “Unification Research Programs: Integrating Two Structural Theories.”
American Journal of Sociology 92(5): 1183-1209.
White, Harrison C., Scott A. Boorman and Ronald L. Breiger. 1976. “Social Structure from Multiple Networks: I.
Blockmodels of Roles and Positions.” American Journal of Sociology 81: 730-80.
7. Conflict theory: Marxism and social closure
Abercrombie, Nicholas and Bryan Turner. 1978. “The Dominant Ideology Thesis.” British Journal of Sociology
29:149-70.
Collins, Randall. 1971. "Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification." American Sociological
Review 36:1002-1019.
Additional readings
Murphy, Raymond. 1988. Social Closure: The Theory of Monopolization and Exclusion. New York: Oxford
University Press, pp. 1-42.
8. Neo-Marxist perspectives: the Frankfurt school’s critical theory
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. 1988 []. “The Culture Industry” in Dialectic of enlightenment. Pp. 120167. New York: Continuum.
Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press. Pages TBA.
Additional readings
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. 1988 []. “The Concept of Enlightenment” in Dialectic of enlightenment.
Pp. 3-42. New York: Continuum.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1970. “One Dimensional Man: The Critique of Contemporary Society.” In Herbert Marcuse by
Alasdair MacIntyre. New York: Viking Press.
Rose, Brad. 1990. “The Triumph of Social Control: A Look at Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man 25 Years
Later.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 35: 55-68.
Arjun Appadurai. 1986. “Introduction: commodities and the Politics of Value." Pp. 3-63 in The Social Life of
Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stuart Hall. 1996. “Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacy.” Pp. 262-275 in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in
Cultural Studies, edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen. NY: Routledge.
9. Neo-Marxist perspectives: Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas
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. 9-35.
OR
Poulantzas, Nicos. 2000. State, Power, Socialism. New York: Verso. Pp. 1-47.
Additional readings
Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic
Politics. London: Verso.
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.
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.
O'Connor, James. 1983. "Historical materialism reconsidered: forces of social production or social forces of
production?" Paper delivered at the Gramsci Institute's Conference Commemorating the 100th year of Marx's Death,
Rome, Italy, November 16, 1983. Available online.
Burawoy, Michael. 2000. “Marxism After Communism.” Theory and Society 29: 151-74.
10. Neo-Marxist perspectives: class, race and gender
Wright, Erik Olin. 1997. Class Counts. NY: Cambridge University Press. Pages TBA [pp. 1-39, 43-55, 79-111, 11545, and 185-233, 251-76].
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist –Feminism in the Late Twentieth
Century.” Pp. 149-181 in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature Routledge: New York.
Robinson, Cedric. 2000. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press. Pages TBA [Chpt. 3, 45-68; Chpts. 8-12; 175-307].
Additional readings
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.
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.” Review of Radical Political Economics 32(3): 1-11.
11. Race and Feminist Theory [1]
Harding, Sandra. 1996. "Standpoint Epistemology (a Feminist Version): How Social Disadvantage Creates
Epistemic Advantage." Pp. 146-160 in Social Theory and Sociology: The Classics and Beyond, edited by Stephen P.
Turner. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Hill-Collins, Patricia. 1990. Black Feminist Thought. Chapter 2, "Defining Black Feminist Thought", pp. 19-40 and
Chapter 11, "Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment", pp. 221-238. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 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, edited by Chandra T. Mohanty, Lourdes
Torres and Ann Russo. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Additional readings
Chavetz, Janet S. 1993. “Feminist Theory and Sociology: Underutilized Contributions to Mainstream Theory.”
Annual Review of Sociology 23: 97-120.
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, edited by Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge.
Wittig, Monique. 1997. “One is Not Born a Woman.” Pp. 265-271 in The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist
Theory, edited by Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge.
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
Smith, Dorothy. 1990. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Boston:
Northeastern University Press. Pages 11-28, 31-57 OR “Women’s Experience as a Radical Critique of Sociology”
and “The Ideological Practice of Sociology.”
Brown, Wendy. 1995. “Postmodern Exposures, Feminist Hesitations.” Pp. 30-51 in States of injury: Power and
Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[] Connell, R.W. 1996. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity.
Demetriou, Demetrakis. 2001. “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique” Theory &Society.
30:337-361.
Stacey, Judith and Barrie Thorne. 1985. “The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology.” Social Problems 32: 30116.
[] Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[] Fraser, Nancy. l989. Unruly Practices. Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
12. Race and Feminist Theory [2]
Gilroy, Paul. 1987. “Diaspora, Utopia and the Critique of Capitalism." Pp. 153-222 in There ain't no black in the
union jack. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
bell hooks. 1990. “Reflections on race and sex”; “An aesthetic of blackness”; and “Choosing the margin as a space
of radical openness.” Pp. 57-64,103-113, and 145-153 in Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South
End Press.
Winant, Howard. 2000. “Race and Race Theory,” Annual Review of Sociology 26: 169-185.
Additional readings
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. “Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.” Pp. 27-47 in Modernity at
large: cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
13. Pierre Bourdieu [1]
Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press, 1992 "Preface" and "Book I" OR pp. 3-41, 53-65,
66-70, 80-92, 112-21.
Calhoun, "Habitus, Field of Power and Capital: The Question of Historical Specificity," Pp. 61-88 in C. Calhoun, E.
LiPuma and M. Postone, eds.: Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1993 also (revised) in
Calhoun: Critical Social Theory: Culture, History and the Challenge of Difference.
14. Pierre Bourdieu [2]
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Practical Reason. Stanford University Press. Pages TBA.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” Pp. 241-58 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology
of Education, ed. J.G. Richardson. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Additional readings
Calhoun, "Pierre Bourdieu" (ms photocopy)
Charles Taylor: "To Follow a Rule," pp. 45-60 in C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma and M. Postone, eds.: Bourdieu: Critical
Perspectives. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1993
[] Bourdieu, Pierre and Loic J.D. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
[] Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Loic Wacquant. 1998. “Pierre Bourdieu.” Pp. 215-28 in Key Sociological Thinkers, ed. Rob Stones. New York:
NYU Press.
Loic J.D. Wacquant. 1989. “Towards a Reflexive Sociology: A Workshop with Pierre Bourdieu.” Sociological
Theory 7:26-63.
[] Swartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
15. Anthony Giddens
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. Pages TBA [Introduction
and pp. 1-37, 41-51, 60-68, 162-63, 169-93, 281-310].
Additional readings
Giddens, Anthony. 1993. The Giddens Reader, ed. Philip Cassell. London : MacMillan, Pp. 1-36 and 88-176.
Held, David and John B. Thompson. 1989. Social Theoory of Modern Societies: Anthony Giddens and His Critics.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Cohen, Ira. 1989. Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens and the Constitution of Social Life. London: Macmillan
1989.
Cohen, Ira. 1998. “Anthony Giddens.” In Key Sociological Thinkers, ed. Rob Stones. New York: New York
University Press.
16. Michel Foucault [1]
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon. Pages TBA.
17. Michel Foucault [2]
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon. Pages TBA.
Additional readings
Lash, Scott. 1990. “Postmodernism: Towards a Sociological Account.” Pp. 1-52 in The Sociology of
Postmodernism. London: Routledge.
Pescosolido, Bernice and Beth Rubin. 2000. “The Web of Group Affiliations Revisited: Social Life, Postmodernism,
and Sociology.” American Sociological Review 65: 52-76.
18. Jurgen Habermas [1]
Habermas, Jurgen. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into the Category of
Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: MIT Press. Pages TBA [1-56, 73-88, 141-80, 236-50].
Calhoun, Craig. 1992. “Introduction” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun and Greig
Calhoun. Cambridge: MIT Press.
19. Jurgen Habermas [2]
Habermas, Jurgen. 1985. “Remarks on the Concept of Communicative Action,” in Social Action, edited by Gottfried
Seebass.
Additional readings
Habermas, Jurgen. 1985. Theory of Communicative Action. Beacon Press.
McCarthy, Thomas. 1981. The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. Cambrige: MIT Press.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms. MIT Press. Chapters 1 (esp. 1.1 and 1.2), 2, 8.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1999. The Inclusion of the Other. Cambridge: MIT Press. Part III (chs. 4-6): "Is There a Future
for the Nation-State?"
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. Situating the Self. New York: Routledge.
Solum, Laawrence Byard. 1989. Pp. 55-57 and 86-106 in “Freedom of Communicative Action: A Theory of the
First Amendment Freedom of Speech.” Northwestern University Law Review 83: 54-135.
Honneth, A., Hans Joas. 1991. Communicative Action: Essays on Jurgen Habermas’s The Theory of
Communicative Action. Trans. J. Gianes, D.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wuthnow, Robert, James Davison Hunter, Albert Bergesen, and Edith Kurzweil.. 1984. “The Critical Theory of
Jurgen Habermas.” Pp. 179-239 in Cultural Analysis: The Work of Peter L Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault
and Jurgen Habermas. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ku, Agnes S. 2000. “Revisiting the Notion of `Public’ in Habermas’s Theory – Toward a Theory of Politics of
Public Credibility.” Sociological Theory 18: 216-40.
Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. The Habermas Reader. William Outhwaite, editor. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
20. Niklas Luhmann
Luhmann, Niklas. 1977. “The Differentiation of Society.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 2: 29-53.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1982. “The World Society as a Social System.” International Journal of General Systems 8:131138.
Additional readings
Luhmann, Niklas. 1982. The Differentiation of Society. New York: Columbia University Press, chapter 10.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1995. Social Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pp. 103-123, 278-290.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1987. “The Evolutionary Differentiation Between Society and Interaction.” Pp. 112-31 in The
Micro-Macro Link, edited by Jeffrey Alexander et al. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Luhmann, Niklas. 1989. “Law as a Social System.” Northwestern University Law Review 83: 136-50.
Lee, Daniel. 2000. “The Society of Society: The Grand Finale of Niklas Luhmann.” Sociological Theory 18: 322-30.
21. Globalization.
Beck, Ulrich. 2000. What is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press. Pages TBA.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press:
Minneapolis, Minn. Selected Readings. Pages TBA.
Castells, Manuel. 1996. Rise of the Network Society. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Pages TBA.
Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997. Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science.
Berkeley: University of California Press. Introduction. Pages TBA.
Recommended theory overviews
Collins, Randall. 1988. Theoretical Sociology. Harcourt.
Collins, Randall. 1994. Four Sociological Traditions. NY: Oxford U Press. Entire volume.
Giddens, Anthony and Jonathan Turner, eds. 1987. Social Theory Today. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rule, James B. 1997. Theory and Progress in Social Science. New York: Cambridge.
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1987. Constructing Social Theories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Turner, Jonathan H. 1974 The Structure of Sociological Theory. Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press.
Craig, Calhoun. []. Critical Social Theory. [].