DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
SOCI0024 MODERN SOCIAL THEORY
SOCI6008 MODERN THEORY AND SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
A Review and a Preview
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Modernity: the agenda and the ‘answers’ in the classical theories
Socio-economic changes in the 20th century
Political changes characterizing the modern society
Changes happening at the individual level
Preview of the persistent and new issues, and contemporary ways of theorizing
them
Suggested Readings
1. Philip Abrams, Historical Sociology. Pp.23-31, 33-43, 82-107 (respectively
on Durkheim, Marx and Weber)
2. Jeffrey Alexander, ‘Durkheim’s Problem and Differentiation Theory Today’, in H.
Haferkamp & N. Smelser (eds.), Social Change and Modernity. Pp.179-187.
3. Craig Calhoun, ‘The Infrastructure of Modernity: Indirect Social Relationships,
Information Technology, and Social Integration’, in H. Haferkamp & N. Smelser
(eds.), Social Change and Modernity. Pp. 205-36.
4. C. Sabel, ‘Moebius-Strip Organizations and Open Labour Markets: some
consequences of the reintegration of conception and execution in a volatile
economy’, in P. Bourdieu & J. Coleman (eds.) Social Theory for a Changing
Society. Westview Press 1991.
5. Z. Bauman, ‘Sociology and Postmodernity’, in P. Joyce (ed.), Class. 1995.
pp.74-83.
6. A. Touraine, ‘Sociology and the Study of Society’, in P. Joyce (ed), op.cit. pp.
83-89.
7. G.. Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World. Polity Press 1999.
Introduction.
8. C. Lemert, Thinking the Unthinkable: the Riddles of Classical Social Theory.
Boulder: Paradigm Publishers 2007.
9. S. Seidman, ‘The End of Sociological Theory’, in Seidman (ed.), The
Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on Social Theory. Cambridge Univ Press
1994.
T. Wong Jan 23, 2013