SOCIOLOGY 201B:

          CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND ITS SUCCESSORS (II):
             WEBER, DURKHEIM, MEAD, FREUD, CHODOROW, AND RUBIN



                           Prof. Steven Epstein
                          Department of Sociology
                    University of California, San Diego
                                Winter 1997

                        Office phone: 619-534-0489
                         E-mail: sepstein@ucsd.edu
           Home page: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~sepstein/index.htm




Class:                                  Office Hours:
Thu, 2:30-5:20 pm                            Mon., 2:00-3:00 & Tues., 2:00-3:00
in SSB 101                                   in SSB 476



The purpose of this course is:

         to provide a deep understanding of certain "classic" works and a systematic grasp
          of selected central figures in sociological theory;

         to thereby consider the theoretical origins of contemporary sociology, and the ways
          in which the canonical texts inform and inspire subsequent theorizing; and

         to encourage an appreciation for the nature and uses of social theory in general.

The course continues and extends themes developed in Sociology 201A, which is a prerequisite.
In class discussions we will draw frequent comparisons to theorists discussed in Sociology 201A
(Marx and Tocqueville).

A substantial portion of the quarter (five weeks) will be devoted to the works of Max Weber and
Emile Durkheim. We will emphasize their overall analyses of modern society and its trajectory,
their conceptions of social power and social order, and their methodological and philosophical
claims about how the discipline of sociology should be conceived and practiced. 

Next, we focus briefly on two theorists, Mead and Freud, who were fundamentally concerned
with understanding the social constitution of selfhood and the relation between the individual and
the larger society. These particular concerns in sociological theory are prefigured in the works
of Weber and Durkheim but are developed more fully by Mead and Freud (though in very
different ways, of course).

We conclude with a brief consideration of the appropriation of classical theory by contemporary
feminist theory. The work of Nancy Chodorow suggests the possibilities both for developing a
more sociologically adequate variant of psychoanalytic theory and for using such a theory to
explain the social construction of gender differences, gender power, and gendered subjectivities.
Gayle Rubin's essay, "The Traffic in Women," synthesizes the perspectives of Freud (via Lacan),
Durkheim (via L‚vi-Strauss) and Marx and Engels to explain the reproduction and internalization
of the "sex/gender system" and the "political economy" of sex.


The course is organized around close readings of texts. There are 7 required books, available at
Groundworks:

Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (New York: Free Press, 1984).
Emile Durkheim, Suicide (New York: Free Press, 1951).
Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1966).
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton, 1961).
H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber (New York: Oxford, 1946).
George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1934).
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1996).

NOTE: Two other editions of The Protestant Ethic, published by Scribners and by Routledge, are
identical page-by-page. Either of these may be substituted.

All additional readings are found in the course reader, which should be purchased from Cal Copy
at 8657 Villa La Jolla Dr. #115 (in La Jolla Village Square).


Requirements: Two papers, each 8-10 pages in length. The first paper is due Tuesday, February
18, and the second paper is due Thursday, March 20. In each case, I will supply a choice of topics
about two weeks beforehand, though you may also propose your own upon consultation with me.

I will also expect each student to prepare discussion questions for one class meeting during the
quarter. These questions must be in my box by 12:30 pm on the day of class. I will photocopy
them for distribution to the seminar.                                 Schedule:


NOTE: Readings marked with "**" can be found in the course reader.


Jan 9: Introduction


Jan 16: Max Weber: Social Action, Meaning, and Legitimation; Rationalization and
the "Iron Cage" of Modernity

     **Weber, "The Definition of Sociology and of Social Action," and "Types of
          Legitimate Domination," Economy and Society, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: Univ. of
          California Press, 1978), pp. 4-26 and 212-216.

     Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (entire).

     **Klaus Lichtblau, "Eros and Culture: Gender Theory in Simmel, T”nnies and
          Weber," Telos 82 (Winter 1989-90), pp. 98-106.


Jan 23: Weber: Bureaucracy and the Future of Capitalism

     Weber, "Science as a Vocation" (From Max Weber, pp. 129-156).

     Weber, "Bureaucracy" (From Max Weber, pp. 196-244).

     **Weber, "Socialism," in W.G. Runciman, ed., Max Weber: Selections in Translation
          (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 251-262.

     Recommended: Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York: Free
          Press, 1949), pp. 1-112.


Jan 30: Weberian Approaches to Classes, Status Groups, and Ethnicity

     Weber, "Class, Status, Party" (From Max Weber, pp. 180-195).

     **Frank Parkin, "Internal Class Cleavages and the Ethnic Factor" and "Social Closure
          as Exclusion," in Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique (New York:
          Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), pp. 29-73.


Feb 6: Emile Durkheim: The Division of Labor and the Roots of Social Solidarity

     Durkheim, Division of Labor in Society:
          Preface to the First Edition
          Introduction
          Book I:
               Chapter 1
               Chapter 2
               Chapter 3
               Chapter 5, pp. 118-123.
               Chapter 7
          Book II:
               Chapter 2
               Chapter 5, last paragraph only
          Book III:
               Chapter 1
               Chapter 2
          Conclusion
          Preface to the Second Edition

     Recommended: Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York: Free
          Press, 1938), pp. xxxvii-lx, 1-75.


Feb 13: Durkheim: Social Cohesion, Religion, and the Sociology of Knowledge

     Durkheim, Suicide: 
          Introduction
          Book Two, ch. 1-5
          Conclusion

     **Terry R. Kandal, The Woman Question in Classical Sociological Theory (Miami:
          Florida International Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 79-88.

     **Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York: Free
          Press, 1965), pp. 13-33 and 462-496 (introduction and conclusion).

     **Emile Durkheim, "The Dualism of Human Nature," in Essays on Sociology and
          Philosophy, ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), pp. 325-
          340.


Feb 20: George Herbert Mead: The Social Construction of the Self

     Mead, Mind, Self & Society, parts II, III, and IV.

     Recommended: Jrgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2
          (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), pp. 1-111.


Feb 27: Sigmund Freud: Sexuality, Unconscious Meaning, and the Social
Construction of the Self

     Freud, Introductory Lectures: 
          "Introduction" (pp. 17-28); 
          "Children's Dreams" (pp. 154-166); 
          "The Censorship of Dreams" (pp. 167-182); 
          "The Sense of Symptoms" (pp. 318-337); 
          "The Sexual Life of Human Beings" (pp. 375-396); 
          "The Development of the Libido" (pp. 397-420).

     **Sigmund Freud, "Femininity," in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
          (New York: W.W. Norton, 1965), pp. 99-120.


Mar 6: Freud: The Individual vs. Society

     **Sigmund Freud, "The Dissection of the Psychical Personality," in New Introductory
          Lectures on Psychoanalysis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1965), pp. 51-71.

     Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (entire).


Mar 13: Gender and the Social Construction of Selfhood and the Social Order

     **Nancy J. Chodorow, "Gender, Relation, and Difference in Psychoanalytic
          Perspective," in Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (New Haven: Yale Univ.
          Press, 1989), pp. 99-113.

     **Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex," in
          Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna Rapp Reiter (New York:
          Monthly Review Press, 1975), pp. 157-210.