Sociology 2111: Tentative Class schedule and assignments--SPRING 2003
(Subject to change)

If you miss class, it is your responsibility to check the internet schedule so that you complete the appropriate readings before class. Links in the second column are optional, but in many cases, they provide historical background that helps you understand the context in which important sociological ideas emerged. Please notice that Wednesday class sessions meet from 10.00-11.40

Week One:

 WEBSITES AND LINKS IN THIS COLUMN ARE OPTIONAL  ASSIGNMENT
Jan 22  Introductions. Science, Theory, Explanation. Groups. The beginnings of sociological thought.  
Jan 24  Sociological theory vs social theory Lemert, "Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures
Week Two:
Jan 27		 The Emergence of the Social Sciences.
The French Revolution(EB). (If you have time, read about this in the Encyclopedia Britannica online)		 Democracy in America Home Page . Look over the page as a whole, but read Tocqueville's essay: "How Religion in the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies." Click on "American Religion in 1831;" click on "Tocqueville and Religion;" click on "How Religion..."
Jan 29 Groups: Bowling Alone. Sociological pioneers: Comte, Tocqueville. Putnam:"The Strange Disappearance of Civic America". Putnam: "Bowling Alone" This is an application of Tocqueville's theory about the importance of intermediary groups in the maintenance of self-government in America. "The Strange Disappearance..." is a follow-up article.
Jan 31 Karl Marx I
The Industrial Revolution(EB). (If you have time, read about this in the Encyclopedia Britannica online		 Marx the Person(DSS
 Week Three:
Feb 3

Karl Marx. The Great Depression.
(If you have time, read about this in the Encyclopedia Britannica online

 

  Marx: A Summary of Ideas(DSS)
 Feb 5 Video : "Roger and Me". Groups. Karl Marx II.
The Russian Revolution. (If you have time, read about this in the Encyclopedia Britannica online		 Flint update
 Feb 7 Marx III. Groups.

 The Communist Manifesto: Bourgeois and Proletarians:
Week Four:
Feb 10		 Max Weber

 

Weber: the Person(DSS)
Feb 12 Video: "The American Dream at Groton"

The Groton School : just explore some of the links that interest you, in preparation for today's movie.

Feb 14 Weber II
  		Elwell on Weber
Read the links under "The Sociology of Max Weber" in the left-hand column.
 Week Five:
Feb 17

Weber III
British Empire(EB) Read the materials under British Empire in the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica.

Why Work?
Feb 19  Video: "Gandhi"
Gandhi(EB) Read about Mohandas Gandhi in the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica. Pay special attention to the meaning of "mahatma" and "satyagraha" and to the treatement of "fasting as protest".
Feb 21 Bureaucratization and the cooperative natural foods movement Weber: "Politics as a Vocation"
 Week Six:
Feb 24		 Exam One

 Glossary and other course materials
Review

 Feb 26 Video: "Ain't Scared of Your Jails."
Civil Rights Movement Encyclopedia Britannica again 		 
Feb 28 Social Movement theory Freeman: "The Origins of the Women's Liberation Movement"
 Week Seven:
Mar 3

 C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite. Excerpts from the Power Elite

Chapter One from The Sociological Imagination

   Reynolds on the Power Elite
Mar 5  Video: "Inside the School for Assassins."
Media Reform movement 		 
Mar 7 Social Theory and the War on Terrorism
Barber: Jihad vs McWorld

 

 
 Week Eight:
Mar 10

 Wallerstein: The Capitalist World System. If you have time, read about colonialism in the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica.
The Globalization Website

 Assignment:  Virtual Tour: Globalization At the end of this assignment, enter my e-mail address: bmork@d.umn.edu
Mar 12 Video: "The Global Assembly Line"  
Mar 14 Globalization and its discontents

Giddens on Globalization: see UMD library Electronic Reserve, Mork, Soc 2111

 
 Week Nine:
Mar 24		 Bourdieu. Social reproduction theory. Bourdieu
Mar 26 Video: "Taking Back the Schools". Durkheim. Durkheim, the Person,
Mar 28  Durkheim II Durkheim: the Ideas
 Week Ten:
Mar 31		  Kai Erikson on Crime Waves  Durkheim: the Normality of Crime
Durkheim: Anomy and Modern Life; see UMD library electronic reserve, Mork, Soc 2111
April 2

Video: "Making Sense of the Sixties: In a Dark Time" If you have time, read about the Vietnam War in the Online Encyclopedia Britannica

Martin Luther King, Jr.Beyond Vietnam (King was a sociology major as an undergraduate at Morehouse College.)

 

April 4 The Chicago School: Social Disorganization Theory.

W.I. Thomas

Review II
 Week Eleven:
April 7

 

Exam Two

  
April 9  The road not taken: DuBois. Video: "W.E.B. DuBois: a Biography in Four Voices."
"Strivings of the Negro People" 		 DuBois: the Philadelphia Negro: ch 18
April 11

Park and the Chicago School

Becker on the Chicago School

Robert Park
 Week Twelve: April 14

Micro Sociology: Symbolic interactionism
Mind, Self, and Society

 George Herbert Mead

 

April 16 Video:  "Inside the Jury Room." McGrane: the UnTV
April18 Goffman
Becker on Goffman 		 
Week Thirteen:
April 21		  Talcott Parsons and American Functionalism
   Parsons
April 23 Institutions and roles. Video: "Who Will Teach for America?"  
April 25    
 Week Fourteen:
April 28 		Functionalism subverted? Middle range theories. Merton obituary: Guardian
Merton Obituary: NYTimes		 Merton
April 30  Micro sociology: Rational choice theory and exchange. The road not taken: Jane Addams and Feminism. Emily Green Balch. Feminist sociology.

Jane Addams: "Immigrants and their Children"(from Twenty Years at Hull House)  
May 2

Video: "Slim Hopes"

 Lorber and Martin

Week Fifteen:
May 5

Sociological autobiographies due.
Feminism and modern sociology: Dorothy Smith's Standpoint theory.

 
May 7 Group and individual project: Social theory and the War on terrorism. Since you've all worked so hard already, I'll do the work this week. No assignment.
May d9


U.S. in the world

Review 3

  

The final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, May 14, from 8.00-9.55 a.m.