SOCI 303
HISTORY AND FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
FALL 2006
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Class: Tuesday-Thursday 12:30-13:45 at SOS Z21
Office: SOS 228 ext. 1309
Office Hours: Wednesday 11:30-12:30, Thursday 14:30-16:00, and by appointment
e-mail: dyukseker@ku.edu.tr
Course web page address: http://home.ku.edu.tr/~dyukseker
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course provides an introduction to classical sociological
theory (with an emphasis on Durkheim, Marx and Weber). Contemporary theoretical
perspectives on structural-functionalism, gender and racial inequality and postmodernism are
also explored. Emphasis is placed on understanding the theoretical constructs as well as on
applying them in the analysis of current social issues.
REQUIREMENTS: (1) You should attend class regularly. Attendance is a must for your
success in this course. Irregular attendance will result in a reduced course grade. (2) You
should do the reading assignments for each week BEFORE coming to class. The readings are
intense and some are difficult. Therefore you should read carefully and make sure to keep up
with the reading load. (3) There will be one midterm exam and a final. (4) You will also write
two short papers “applying” theoretical perspectives or concepts discussed in the course to
current social issues. The format of the papers will be discussed in class.
Attendance and participation: 5 percent
Two papers: 2 x 20 = 40 percent
One midterm exam: 25 percent
Final exam: 30 percent
ETHICS: In this course, you must be honest and truthful. Ethical violations such as cheating,
plagiarism, re-use of others’ essays, improper use of the internet, unauthorized collaboration,
alteration of graded essays, and forgery and falsification will not be tolerated. If you commit
any such ethical violation in an exam, you will get a score of “0” on that exam and be
reported to the Disciplinary Committee.
Readings: A reader will be available at the Copy Center at SKL.
Schedule:
Week 1: September 26-28
Introduction: Why Should We Study Sociology? The Birth of Sociology
*C.Wrigt Mills, “The Sociological Imagination” (in Charles Lemert, Social Theory. The
Multicultural and Classical Readings, 1999) (photocopy distributed in class)
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Week 2: October 3-5
Cont’d.
*George Ritzer, “Social Forces in the Development of Social Theory,” Sociological Theory
(4th Edition), pp. 3-9.
*Peter Hamilton, “The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science,” in Modernity. An
Introduction to Modern Societies, pp. 19-54.
Karl Marx
*George Ritzer, “Karl Marx: the Dialectic,” Sociological Theory (4th edition), pp. 41-56.
*Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (in David McLellan, ed. Karl
Marx: Selected Writings, 2nd Edition, 2000), pp. 245-262.
Week 3: October 10-12
Karl Marx (cont’d)
*Marx: Excerpts from Das Kapital, pp. 452-480; The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte, pp. 329-355 (in David McLellan, ed. Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 2nd Edition,
2000), pp. 452-480; and from Economic and Political Manuscripts of 1844, pp. 30-36 (in
Charles Lemert, Social Theory. The Multicultural and Classical Readings, 1999).
Week 4: October 17-19
Karl Marx (cont’d)
Week 5: No class on October 24 and 26: BAYRAM HOLIDAY
Week 6: October 31-Nov. 2
Max Weber
*George Ritzer, “Max Weber: Methodology” and “Substantive Sociology,” Sociological
Theory (4th Edition), pp. 109-154.
*Weber, Excerpts from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Economy and
Society, pp. 100-125 (in Lemert, Social Theory. The Multicultural and Classical Readings,
1999).
TURN IN FIRST PAPER
Week 7: November 7-9
Emile Durkheim
*Randall Collins, “The Durkheimian Tradition” pp. 181-194 and 211-214 in Four
Sociological Traditions (1994)
*Emile Durkheim, Excerpts from The Division of Labor in Society, 33-57; Elementary Forms
of the Religious Life, pp. 117-135 (in Kenneth Thompson, ed. Readings from Emile
Durkheim, 1985); and from Suicide, pp. 71-82 (in Lemert, Social Theory: The Multicultural
and Classical Readings, 1999).
Week 8: November 14-16
Review and Midterm Exam
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Week 9: November 21-23
Structural-Functionalism
*George Ritzer and Douglas Goodman, “Structural Functionalism,” Modern Sociological
Theory (6th Edition), pp. 91-115.
*Talcott Parsons, “Sex Roles in the American Kinship System”
*Robert Merton, “Manifest and Latent Functions” (both in Lemert, Social Theory. The
Multicultural and Classical Readings, 1999), pp. 300-309.
Week 10: November 28-30
Challenges to Classical Social Theory: Women
*Patricia M. Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley, “Modern Feminist Theory,” Modern
Sociological Theory (6th Edition), pp. 302-346.
*Dorothy Smith, “Women’s Experience as a Radical Critique of Sociology,” in The
Conceptual Practices of Power (1990).
*Patricia Hill Collins, “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination” (in Lemert,
1999)
Week 11: December 5-7
Challenges to Classical Social Theory: Race
*W.E.B. Dubois, “Of Our Spiritual Striving,” in The Souls of Black Folk (1989) [1903], pp. 312.
TURN IN SECOND PAPER
Week 12: December 12-14
Challenges to Modernity: Postmodernism and poststructuralism
*George Ritzer and Douglas Goodman, “Structuralism, Poststructuralism and the Emergence
of Postmodern Social Theory,” Modern Sociological Theory (6th Edition), pp. 449-486.
Week 13: December 19-21
Challenges to Modernity: Focus on Michel Foucault
*Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power” pp. 51-75; “The Body of the Condemned” pp. 170178; “Docile Bodies” pp. 179-187 and “Right of Death and Power over Life” pp. 258-272 (all
in Paul Rabinow, ed. The Foucault Reader, 1984)
Week 14: December 26-28
Foucault (cont’d); Review for final exam.
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