SIS-705+Social+Theory+Proseminar

toc =Overview= This wiki belongs to students of SIS - 705 course at American University.

“Social Theory” is a sweeping body of arguments and research that transcends the social sciences and the humanities. //International Relations// is a field that is increasingly inter-disciplinary in its research program and in its theoretical repertoire. The recent predominance of constructivist theories and methodologies in particular indicates that scholars of international relations are increasingly conversant and indeed, knowledgeable about the traditions of social theory that have developed largely //outside// the field of international relations. This course is not intended to provide a survey of international relations social theory but rather, review the larger scope of writings and debate about social theory – that ultimately informs research in international relations and will contribute to your ability to develop a research program as well as contribute to a wider community of scholarship.

=Syllabus=

Jan 13 – Introduction
· Alford//,// Robert R. (1998) Page 1-4 and Chapter 3 //“//The Construction of Arguments//”// from //The Craft of Inquiry, Theories, Methods, Evidence.// New York: Oxford University Press. (ONLINE) · Charles Tilly (2003) “Why Read the Classics” (ONLINE) · Richard Ned Lebow “If Mozart had died at your age: Pyschologic Versus Statistical Inference” //Political Psychology// Volume 27 Issue 2, pp 157 – 172 (ONLINE)
 * //__ Pre-class Readings __// **
 * Plato, “Allegory of the Cave,” **
 * [] **
 * Immanuel Kant “What is Enlightenment” **
 * [|http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html] **
 * Charles Tilly “Sociological Resources for the study of International Relations” Remarks for International Studies Association Session on “The Sociological Turn of International Relations,” Portland, Oregon, Thursday 27 February 2003 (ONLINE) **
 * //__ Recommended on Theory and Academic Arguments __//**

Jan 20 – Let’s Begin: Initial Thoughts & Marx


 * Charles Lemert “Social Theory: its uses and pleasures” (Lemert, pp. 1-22) **


 * “On the Jewish Question" [] **
 * “Contribution to the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction” []) **
 * “Theses on Feuerbach" [] **
 * Excerpts from “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844;” “The German Ideology: Part I;” “The Communist Manifesto;” and “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte." (Lemert, pp. 32-50) **
 * “Estranged Labour” **
 * “Camera Obscura” **
 * “The Manifest of Class Struggle, with Frederich Engels” **
 * “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” **


 * Excerpts from “Capital, Vol I.” (Lemert pp. 51-67) **
 * “Capital and the Values of Commodities” **
 * “Capital and the Fetishism of Commodities” **
 * “Labour-Power and Capital” **

Jan 27: Durkheim

 * Excerpts from “The Division of Labor in Society;” “Suicide: A Study in Sociology;” and “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life” (Lemert, pp. 73 – 89; 94-103) **
 * “Mechanical and Organic Solidarity” **
 * “Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor” **
 * “Sociology and Social Facts” **
 * “Suicide and Modernity” **
 * “The Cultural Logic of Collective Representations” **
 * // Other Key Early Modern thinkers // : **
 * Sigmund Freud: “Civilization and the Individual” (Lemert) **
 * Ferdinand de Saussure “Arbitrary Social Values and the Linguistic sign” (Lemert) version 1 **
 * Ferdinand de Saussure “Arbitrary Social Values and the Linguistic sign (2)” (Lemert) version 2 **

Feb 3 – Weber
“ ** The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism **” **translation by Stephen Kalberg. (Read the entire essay. Commentary essays are recommended but not required) **
 * “Objectivity in Social Science and Science Policy” in Appleby, J . et al (Eds.) //Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective// (ONLINE) **
 * “The Bureaucratic Machine” (Lemert) **
 * “What is Politics?” (Lemert) **
 * “The Types of Legitimate Domination” (Lemert) **
 * “Class, Status, Party” (Lemert) **

Feb 10 – Mid 20th Century Theory: Functionalist, Micro-social, and Structural Approaches

 * // Functionalism //**
 * Talcott Parsons “The Unit Act of Action Systems” and “Action Systems and Social Systems” (Lemert) **
 * Robert Merton “Manifest and Latent Functions” (Lemert) **


 * //Interactionist and Micro-Social Perspectives// **
 * George Herbert Mead “The Self, the I, and the Me (Lemert) **
 * Erving Goffman “On Face-Work” (Lemert) **
 * Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann “Society as a Human Product” (Lemert) **


 * //Structuralism// **
 * Claude Levi-Strauss “The Structural Study of Myth” (Lemert) **
 * Louis Althusser, “Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses, Doubts and Reservations” (Lemert) **
 * // Culture: Synthesis and Critique //**
 * Jeffrey Alexander “The Strong Program in Cultural Theory: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics” (ONLINE) **
 * Clifford Geertz (summary 1) “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” in //Appleby// (ONLINE) **
 * Clifford Geertz (summary 2) **** “ Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture ” in //Appleby// (ONLINE) **
 * // Recommended // : **
 * //Institutional Culture// **
 * Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields” (ONLINE) **

Feb 17 – Historical Research: Humanistic and Social Scientific

 * Stephen Toulmin - __Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Entire book)__ **
 * Charles Tilly “Lullaby, Chorale, or Hurdy-Gurdy Tune?” from __The Rational Choice Controversy in Historical Sociology__, Roger Gould Ed. (2004). (ONLINE) **


 * Charles Tilly “Historical Analysis of Political Processes” in Jonathan H. Turner, ed., __Handbook of Sociological Theory__ (2001) New York: Kluwer/Plenum (ONLINE) **


 * William H. Sewell (2005) “Theory, History, and Social Science” Chapter 1 from __Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation__. (ONLINE) **


 * //Recommended// **
 * Fernand Braudel, "History and the Social Sciences: The //Longue Durée”// American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 3, No. 6, 3-13 (1960) (ONLINE) **

Feb 24 – Neo-Marxism, Critical Theory, “Empire”

 * Richard Devetak (1996) "Critical Theory," in __Theories of International Relations__, ed. Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater, 145-78. New York: St. Martin's. (ONLINE) **
 * Jurgen Habermas, “The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society” in Theory of Communicative Action (Reprinted in __Contemporary Sociological Theory__, Blackwell, 2002, p. 377-400) (ONLINE) **
 * Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey (2002) “Retrieving the Imperial: Empire and International Relations” __Millenium: Journal of International Studies__ 31(1) 109-127 **
 * Antonio Gramsci, “Intellectuals and Hegemony” (Lemert) **


 * Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry as Deception” (Lemert) **


 * Walter Benjamin, “Art, War, and Fascism” (Lemert//)// For the full essay, see “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” [] **


 * //Recommended// **
 * Immanuel Wallerstein “The Modern World System” (Lemert) **
 * Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1991. “Call for a Debate about the Paradigm.” Pp. 237-256 in //Unthinking Social Science. The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms//. London: Polity Press. **
 * Colin Sparks “Stuart Hall, Cultural Studies, and Marxism” in Morley and Chen (ed.) __Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies__. (ONLINE) **

March 3 – Foucault & Post-structuralism - First PRECIS DUE

 * “What is Enlightenment?” [] **


 * “Panopticism” and This is the old one Panopticism **
 * [] **


 * “Power as Knowledge” (Lemert) and here we go with the old one Power/Knowledge **


 * “Questions of Method" and “Governmentality" from Burchell, Graham, __The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, with Two Lectures by and an Interview with Michel Foucault__. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 (ONLINE) **
 * Jacques Derrida “The Decentering Event in Social Thought” (Lemert) **
 * Charles Lemert “The Uses of French Structuralisms in Sociology” in __Frontiers of Social Theory__ (ed. George Ritzer) (ONLINE) **
 * // Recommended //**
 * Lamont, Michèle. l987. "How to Become a Dominant French Philosopher: The Case of Jacques Derrida." //American Journal of Sociology//. 93 (3): 584-622. (ONLINE) **

__ SPRING BREAK: March 6-13 __

__ MIDTERM DISTRIBUTED: March 13 (Due March 18) __

March 17 – Dealing with the Post-Modern Moment __NO CLASS__! (ISA Montreal)
à MIDTERM DUE MARCH 18 Richard Rorty “Private Irony and Liberal Hope” (Lemert)
 * (Starred readings are key) **
 * Charles Lemert “After Modernity” (Lemert) **
 * Jean-Francois Lyotard “The Postmodern Condition” (Lemert) **

Seyla Benhabib __“Feminism and the question of postmodernism” from Appleby, et al (ONLINE)__ Anthony Giddens “Postmodernity or radicalized Modernity?” (Lemert) David Morley “Euram, Modernity, reason, and alterity; or, postmodernism, the highest stage of cultural imperialism” in Morley & Chen (Eds.) __Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (1996) (ONLINE).__
 * //Skeptics// **

//After Postmodernism// Charles Tilly, “Future Social Science and the Invisible Elbow” (Lemert) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, “The Rhizome/ A Thousand Plateaus” (Lemert) Giorgio Agamben, “Sovereign Power and Bare Life” (Lemert) // Recommended // Jeffrey Alexander “The Postpositivist Case for the classics” (Lemert)

** March 24 – Bourdieu & Giddens: Agency, Structure, Practice **
William H. Sewell, Jr., “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation." //__American Journal of Sociology__// 98 (1992). (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2781191 Anthony Giddens @“Some New Rules of Sociological Method” and “Agency, Structure” (ONLINE)  Pierre Bourdieu and L. Wacquant “The Logic of Fields" (pg. 94-114) and “Interest, Habitus, Rationality," (pg. 115-140) from __An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology__ (University of Chicago Press, 1992) Pierre Bourdieu, “Political Representation: Elements for a Theory of the Political Field" (pp. 171-202) and “Delegation and Political Fetishism," from __Language and Symbolic Power__ (Harvard University Press, 1991) (pp. 203-219). Luc Boltanski & Eve Chiapello (2005) “The New Spirit of Capitalism” //International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society// 18(3/4) pp 161-188  Recommended:  Calhoun, Craig. 1995. “Habitus, Field, and Capital: Historical Specificity in the Theory of Practice”. Pp. 132-161 in __Critical Social Theory__. Oxford: Blackwell (Online)

** March 31 – Critical Perspectives PART I: Race, Gender, Difference **
Saskia Sassen, “Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy” (Lemert) Gloria Anzaldúa, “The New Mestiza” (Lemert) Henry Louis Gates “Race as the Trope of the World” (Lemert) Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” (Lemert) Nancy Hartsock, “A Theory of Power for Women” (Lemert) Michelle Barrett “Words and Things: Materialism and Method in Contemporary Feminist Analysis” (ONLINE) Stuart Hall “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference” (ONLINE)

** April 7 – Critical Perspectives PART II – Post-Colonial Thought **
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak? (Lemert) Chandra Mohanty, “’Under Western Eyes’ Revisited,” ch.9 in Mohanty, __Feminism Without Borders__//,// Duke University Press, 2004 (ONLINE) Partha Chatterjee “Whose Imagined Community?” in Ackbar Abbas & John Nguyet Erni (eds.) //Internationalizing Cultural Studies// pp. 406-412 (ONLINE) Paul Gilroy, __The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness__ (Excerpt ONLINE) Marwan Kraidy (2002) “Hybridity in Cultural Globalization” //Communication Theory// 12(3) 316-339

// Recommended // Homi Bhabha, "Signs Taken for Wonders," ch.4 in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin, eds. //The Post-Colonial Studies Reader//, Routledge, 1995 (ONLINE) Edward Said __Orientalism__ __Bryan Turner, //Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism//, Routledge, 1994.(Part I)__

**April 14 Habermas, Publics, Deliberation**
Craig Calhoun "Habermas and the Public Sphere” in Appleby, et al. (ONLINE) Jurgen Habermas “Civil Society and the Political Public Sphere” from __Between Facts and Norms__ (ONLINE) Ernesto LaClau and Chantal Mouffe, “Radical Democracy: Alternative for a New Left,” (Lemert) Nancy Fraser “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” (ONLINE) Nina Eliasoph “Making a Fragile Public: A Talk-Centered Study of Citizenship and Power” [|//Sociological Theory//], Vol. 14, No. 3 (Nov., 1996), pp. 262-289 (ONLINE)

//Recommended// Michael Warner “Publics and Counterpublics” //Public Culture// 14.1 (2002) 49-90 (ONLINE) Jurgen Habermas“The Rationalization of the Lifeworld” from __Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason__ (ONLINE) __S. Eisenstadt & W. Schluchter, “Paths to Early Modernities – A Comparative View,” ch.1 in Eisenstadt, Schluchter and B. Wittrock, eds. Public Spheres and Collective Identities, Transaction Publishers 2001 (ONLINE)__

// From last semester: //

- Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. II (Boston, Beacon, 1981), selection on “The Uncoupling of System and the Life World.”

** April 21 Rethinking Globalization, Nationalism, Citizenship **
James Mittelman “What is critical globalization studies?” //International Studies Perspectives// 5 (3) 219-230 (ONLINE) Nestor Garcia Canclini (2001) __Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts__ (Excerpts ONLINE) Tomlinson “Cultural Imperialism” (2007) from David Held, Anthony G. McGrew, and Gareth Schott (eds.) __Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies__ (2007). (ONLINE) Ulrick Beck “World Risk Society” (Lemert) Stanley Hoffman “The Clash of Globalizations” (Lemert) // Recommended // Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” (ONLINE) Stanford Encylopedia of Philosphy entry: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/ Roland Robertson “Social Theory, Cultural Relativity, and the Problem of Globality” in Anthony King (Ed__.)__ __Culture, Globalization, and the World System__ (ONLINE)
 * __ à __ __ SECOND PRECIS DUE __**
 * __FINAL EXAM DISTRIBUTED – APRIL 22__ **

**April 28 – Networks and Society**
Manuel Castells (2009) __Communication Power__ – (Excerpts ONLINE ) Amelia Arsenault “Networks: Emerging Frameworks for Analysis” Handbook of Contemporary Social and Political Theory. London: Routlege. (March 2011, forthcoming) David Grewal “Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization” Lecture Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, December 3, 2008. Bruno Latour (2006) __Assembling the Social__ (Excerpts ONLINE TBD)
 * FINAL EXAM DUE**

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