SOCIOLOGY 202

“CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY”

Thursdays, 9:35 am – 12:30 pm in SSB 101

Prof. Steven Epstein

Department of Sociology

University of California, San Diego

Spring 2001

Office phone: 858-534-0489

E-mail: sepstein@ucsd.edu

Home page: http://sociology.ucsd.edu/~sepstein

Office hours: Tue 4:00-5:00pm & Wed 2:00-3:00 pm in SSB 476

This course is devoted to understanding the works of four theorists of the latter part of the twentieth century whose writings have been fundamental for rethinking the practice of sociology: Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Jürgen Habermas (1929- ), Anthony Giddens (1938- ), and Pierre Bourdieu (1930- ). Through close analysis of primary texts, we will approach each theorist systematically—looking at the larger theoretical project, and searching for the inner logic, rather than simply pulling out a few central ideas.

As we read the works of these theorists, please keep the following questions at the forefront:

· What is each theorist’s broader conception of the current epoch of human society (“modernity,” “late modernity,” “postmodernity,” or however characterized), including its central problems and likely tendencies?

· How does each theorist explicitly or implicitly draw on or criticize the works of classical sociological theorists, such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim?

· How does, or how might, each theorist criticize the ideas and approaches of the other three?

· How does each theorist intervene in metatheoretical debates (that is, debates about social theory itself and how it should be developed)?

· What sort of empirical research agenda or methodology follows from each of these theories of society?

Readings:

There are 6 required books, available for purchase at Groundwork Bookstore in the old Student Center:

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, [1977] 1995).

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume One (New York: Vintage, [1978] 1985).

Philip Cassell, ed., The Giddens Reader (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990).

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J.D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

Although I urge you to purchase the books, they are also on reserve at the library.

In addition, there will be a course reader containing a substantial number of additional readings. I will announce how the course reader may be obtained.

Requirements:

You are required to write two essays. In each case, I will supply a choice of questions about two weeks beforehand, though you may also propose your own topic upon consultation with me. The questions I propose will be specific enough to focus you, but general enough to force you to devise your own thesis and figure out how to argue it. No secondary sources or additional research materials are required for these papers.

· The first paper (8-10 pages) will focus on Foucault (due Monday, April 30, 3:00 pm in my mailbox). The questions will allow you either to write on Foucault alone or to compare Foucault to Marx, Weber, or Durkheim.

· The second paper (12-14 pages) will involve a comparison of any two of the remaining three theorists (due Wednesday, June 13, 3:00 pm, in my mailbox).

I will also ask each student to prepare discussion questions for one class meeting during the quarter. These questions must be emailed to all participants in the seminar by 4:00 pm on the day before class. Each of you will need to sign up for a week at the first meeting of the course.

Your grade for the quarter will be based on the following formula:

Paper #1: 35%

Paper #2: 55%

Class participation and discussion questions: 10%

Secondary sources:

Although no secondary sources are assigned for this course, many students find it helpful to consult some. In the case of these four theorists, secondary sources are too numerous to list. Here are just a few:

Foucault:

Barry Smart, Michel Foucault (introductory)

Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics

Charles Lemert, Michel Foucault: Social Theory and Transgression

Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (essays)

Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby, Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance (essays)

Didier Erebon, Michel Foucault (intellectual biography)

James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault (intellectual bio, more controversial)

Habermas:

Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas (by his translator)

John B. Thompson and David Held, eds., Habermas: Critical Debates (essays)

New German Critique 35 (Spring/Summer 1985) (Special issue on Habermas)

Raymond Guess, The Idea of Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School

Giddens:

Ian Craib, Anthony Giddens

David Held and John B. Thompson, eds., Social Theory of Modern Society: Anthony Giddens and his Critics (essays)

Bourdieu:

Rogers Brubaker, “Rethinking Classical Social Theory: The Sociological Vision of Pierre Bourdieu,” Theory and Society 14 (1985)

Paul DiMaggio, “Review Essay on Pierre Bourdieu,” American Journal of Sociology 84 (1979)

Derek Robbins, The Work of Pierre Bourdieu

Richard Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu

Schedule:

NOTE: Readings marked with double asterisks (**) can be found in the course reader.

Week 1 (Thu, April 5): Introduction

Week 2 (Thu, April 12): Foucault: From “Archeology” to “Genealogy”

** Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage [1965] 1973), xi-xiv (“Preface”).

** Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage [1970] 1973), ix-xxiv (“Foreword to the English edition” and “Preface”).

** Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic (New York: Pantheon, 1973), ix-xix, 195-199 (“Preface” and “Conclusion”).

Discipline and Punish (all).

Week 3 (Thu, April 19): Foucault: Power and Subjectivity

History of Sexuality (all).

** Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1980), 78-133 (“Two Lectures” and “Truth and Power”).

** Michel Foucault, “Afterword: The Subject and Power,” in Herbert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 208-213 only.

** Michel Foucault, “Governmentality,” in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 87-104.

Week 4 (Thu, April 26): Habermas: Knowledge, Interests, Reason, and Politics

** Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Cambridge, England: Polity, [1972] 1987), 301-317 (“Appendix: Knowledge and Human Interests”).

** Jürgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science, and Politics (Boston: Beacon, 1970), 62-122 (“The Scientization of Politics and Public Opinion” and “Technology and Science as ‘Ideology’”).

** Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon, 1979), 69-94 (“Moral Development and Ego Identity”).

Week 5 (Thu, May 3): Habermas: Public Sphere; Communicative Action

** Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 1-26, 181-222.

** Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Boston: Beacon, 1984):

“Translator’s Introduction” (v-xxxvii)

“Author’s Preface” (xxxix-xlii)

“Introduction: Approaches to the Problem of Rationality” (10 and 85-101 only).

** Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), 392-403 (“The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society” [partial]).

Week 6 (Thu, May 10): Habermas: Critique of Postmodernist Theory;

Giddens: Structure and Structuration

** Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987):

“Lecture IX: The Critique of Reason as an Unmasking of the Human Sciences: Michel Foucault” (238-265)

“Lecture X: Some Questions Concerning the Theory of Power: Foucault Again” (266-293)

“Lecture XI: An Alternative Way out of the Philosophy of the Subject: Communicative versus Subject-Centered Reason” (294-296 and 314-315 only).

Giddens Reader, 38-175 (chapters 1-2)

Week 7 (Thu, May 17): Giddens: Conceptualizing Modernity

Giddens Reader, 176-283 (chapters 3-4)

Consequences of Modernity (all)

Giddens Reader, 288-294, 303-316

Week 8 (Thu, May 24): Bourdieu: Fields, Structure, Strategy, and Capital

** Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in John G. Richardson, ed., Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241-258.

** Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72-73 (“Structures and the habitus”).

** “On Symbolic Power,” in Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 163-170.

** Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 168-170 (“Doxa, orthodoxy, heterodoxy”).

Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 94-140.

** Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski, “Changes in social structure and changes in the demand for education,” in S. Giner and M.S. Archer, eds., Contemporary Europe: Social Structures and Social Patterns (London: Routledge, 1978), 197-227.

** Pierre Bourdieu, “The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason,” Social Science Information 14, no. 6 (1975): 19-47.

Week 9 (Thu, May 31): Bourdieu: Culture, Class and Classification

** Pierre Bourdieu, “The Market of Symbolic Goods,” Poetics 14 (1985): 13-44.

Distinction (Preface, Introduction, Chapters 1-5, 7-8, Conclusion).

Week 10 (Thu, June 7): Bourdieu: Classification, Representation, and Politics

** Pierre Bourdieu, “The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups,” Theory and Society 14, no. 6 (November 1985): 723-744.

** Pierre Bourdieu, Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 35-63 (“Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field”).

** Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 171-201 (“Political Representation: Elements for a Theory of the Political Field”).

** Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 220-228 (“Identity and Representation: Elements for a Critical Reflection on the Idea of Region”).

Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 62-94, 140-215.