University of California, Berkeley
Interdisciplinary Studies
Fall 2007
ISF 100A: Introduction to Social Theory and Cultural Analysis
Focus: Modernity, Postcoloniality, Informationalism, Capital Flows
Professor: renate holub
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30-11:00
101 Barker
CCN 45009
Office: 317 Campbell
Tel: 642-0110
Office Hours: Wed: 8:30-11:30 am
Sign up sheet and by appointment
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to key trends, methodologies,
and concepts in critical social theory over the past 150 years (modernity.) First, we
will study the foremost classical texts in modern social and cultural theory: Karl
Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Antonio Gramsci, The Frankfurt School [
Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse] and Patricia Collins’s feminist standpoint theory.
Secondly, we will inquire into the theoretical and ethical limits of mainstream
modernity by discussing the work of Frantz Fanon (on the production of colonialism),
Vandana Shiva (on neo-liberal political economy and trade policy) and Achille
Mbembe (on the conditions of postcoloniality). In the third part of this course we will
be exploring the most recent trends in social theory and cultural analysis which
reflect on fundamental paradigm shifts in the organization of global production,
trade, and consumption systems (Manuel Castells, The Internet Galaxy). These
shifts are best characterized as the transition from industrial capitalism to
informational capitalism. Finally, we will move beyond Manuel Castells theory of
informationalism by focusing on global financial flows of both productive and
speculative capital and raise the question of the limits of globalization. The goal of
the course is to introduce the students to exciting principal texts in social theory, to
broaden methodological awareness, and, above all, to develop critical skills in sociocultural analysis. Students will be able to link the organization of knowledge
production (empirical, conceptual, theoretical) about social and cultural facts to the
organizers of that production and the predominant values they hold: the intellectuals
that is. Students are encouraged to probe the applicability of the conceptual
instruments we are studying in rapidly, and differentially, changing global societies,
cultures, and economies. For more information: http://learning.berkeley.edu/holub
Satisfies the following L&S requirements: IS (International Studies); SBS
(Social and Behavioral Sciences, or PV (Philosophy and Values).
Course requirements: Attendance 30%, Midterm Exam 30 %, Final Exam
30% and Essay 10% (due date of essay is September 18, 2007, before
class).
Student Athletes are required to hand in to appropriate GSI schedule of
absences as approved by University Athletics Policy by the end of second
week of classes. Attendance means Lecture and Section attendance.
Syllabus
Part One
Marx and Weber: Capitalism and the State
Week I
Reading The Marx-Engels Reader:
(1) Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:
(2) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Aug 28
Aug 30
Lecture 1: Introduction to Karl Marx: Culture, Society, Politics
Lecture 2: From Philosophy to the Materiality of Institutions
Week II
Reading The Marx-Engels Reader:
1) Feuerbach Theses
2) The German Ideology
(3) Society and Economy in History
Sep 4
Sep 6
Lecture 3: From Idealism to Materialism (Averroes, Spinoza, Hegel)
Lecture 4: Marxist Methodology
Week III
Reading The Marx-Engels Reader:
1) Grundrisse
2) Das Kapital [Excerpts]
Sep 11
Lecture 5: The Production of Value:
Marx between Adam Smith and F.A. Hayek
Lecture 6: Historical Transformations: Marx, Polanyi, and Dahomey
Sep 13
Week IV
Reading The Marx Engels Reader
1)The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
2)The Communist Manifesto
Sep 18
Essay Due, 5 pp, doublespaced, typed, at beginning of class
Sep 20
Lecture 7: Marx’s Theory of Intellectuals
Lecture 8: How relevant is Marx’s theory in 2007?
Week V
:
Reading From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
1) The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism
Sep 25
Sep 27
Lecture 9: The Grand Refusal of Marx: Weber, Sombart, Durkheim
Lecture 10: ‘Northern’ Intellectuals, Geography, and the State
Week VI
Reading: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
1)
India, the Brahman, and the Castes
2) Chinese Literati
3) The Social Psychology of World Religion
4) Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions
Oct 2
Oct 4
Lecture 11:
Lecture 12 :
Elites, Values, and State Powers
Religion, Domination, and the World System
Week VII
Reading: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Oct 9
Oct 11
Part Two
Class, Status, Party
Bureaucracy
Structures of Power
Science as Vocation
Politics as Vocation
Lecture 13: Marx, Weber, Gramsci: On Religion
Midterm Exam
From the Materiality of Culture to the Struggle for
Rights:
Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, Feminists,
Postcolonial Theorists
Week VIII
Reading: Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
1) On Intellectuals
2) On Philosophy
3) On Education
Oct 16
Oct 18
Lecture 14: Agency, Power, Domination, Hegemony
Lecture 15: Subaltern Pedagogies: Gramsci and Freire
Week IX
Reading: Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
1) Americanism and Fordism
2) State and Civil Society
Oct 23
Oct 25
Lecture 16: North and South: 1927
Lecture 17: Theory of Praxis
Week X
Reading: Selected essays on the Frankfurt School and on
Patricia Hill Collins to be posted on Blackboard
Suggested Reading: Critical Theory. Selected Essays, Max Horkheimer
1) Notes on Science and the Crisis
2) Materialism and Metaphysics
3) Authority and the Family
4) The Latest Attack on Metaphysics
5) Traditional and Critical Theory
Oct 30
Nov 1
Lecture 18: Gramsci and the Frankfurt School: The Concept of Culture
Lecture 19: Black Feminist Thought and Ethics
Week XI
Reading: Selected Essays by Frantz Fanon and Achille Mmembe
to be posted on Blackboard
Suggested Reading, Fanon, Black Skin and White Masks
Achille Mbembe, Postcoloniality
Nov 6
Nov 8
Lecture 20: Colonialism, Social Movements, and Agency
Lecture 21: Postcoloniality and the State
Week XII:
Nov 13
Nov 14
Reading: Vandana Shiva
Lecture 22: Experience and Ethics
Lecture 23: Southern Intellectuality and Sustainability
Part Three
South, North or a Fourth World in the Age of
Informational Capitalism?
Week XIII
Reading: Castells, The Internet Galaxy
Nov 20
Lecture 24: The End of Modernity or the End of Globalization?
Luhman, McLuhan, Bourdieu, Giddens, Habermas, Bobbio
Nov 22
Thanksgiving
Week XIV
Reading: Manuel Castells [continuation
Nov 27
Nov 29
Lecture 25: Theory of Informationalism: The Finnish Model
Lecture 26: The Variable Geography of the Production of Value
Week XV
Reading: Manuel Castells [continuation]
Dec 4
Lecture 27: Productive and Speculative Capital Flows: Asia, Europe,
and North America
Lecture 28: Technopolization, Favelization, Deglobalization
Dec 6
Required Texts: 1. The Marx-Engels Reader
2. From Max Weber
3. Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks
4. Manuel Castells, The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business, and
Society
5. Vandana Shiva, Bioprivacy: the Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
Recommended:
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought
Antonio Gramsci, The Southern Question
Frantz Fanon,
Black Skin and White Masks
Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory, Selected Essays
Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined
Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply
Achille Mbembe, On Postcoloniality
ALL TEXTS, required and recommended, ARE AVAILABLE ON RESERVE