Office: Gladfelter 744 (7th Floor)
Office Phone: (215) 204-7766 [X1-7766]
Home Phone: (347) 563-6174 (only for emergencies)
Email: dkidd@temple.edu
Office Hours: 10:40-11:40, Monday, Wednesday and Friday; or by appointment
Course Website: Available on Blackboard
Course Meeting Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday; 9:40-10:30am
Course Meeting Location: Ritter Hall, Room 102
Course Purpose: This course examines social theory. A social theory is an idea or set of ideas about society. It may come out of the social sciences, it may come from political practices, it may come from personal experience, or it may come out of the arts. Our goal is to read these ideas, make sense of them (the language of many is difficult), and apply them to contemporary society. The theorists and theories are divided up by their approach to how society is organized. The first half of the semester emphasizes the issue of conflict-between classes, between states, between genders, and between racial groups. The second half of the semester quickly covers some other approaches-the structural-functionalist approach (aspects of society serve to structure our lives in ways that fulfill particular functions), the interpretive approach (the social world is full of systems of meaning, values, and beliefs), and the analysis of the social self (our individual identities are created through social interactions). This course presents ideas about society from the 19th and 20th centuries; from both men and women; from authors across the world; and from authors who speak out of a wide variety of racial and ethnic identifications. The authors present perspectives that include Scientific Positivism, Feminism, Christianity, Marxism, Afro-Centrism, Postmodernism, and more.
This course is demanding. The readings are lengthy, the exams will be long, the ideas are difficult. But these theories have the capacity to transform the way that you engage the world. They will provide you with powerful tools to challenge your everyday lives. Think of Neo, falling down the rabbit hole to escape the Matrix. If you choose to swallow these readings, there is no turning back. The world cannot be the same. If, however, you choose not to swallow them-either by withdrawing, failing, or just keeping a closed mind to the ideas-then you can continue to live in ignorance about the complex and often frightening world around us. Choose carefully.
Books and Articles
Assignments
EXPLANATION OF ASSIGNMENTS
Exams: The midterm and final exam are both take-home exams that are open book. For both exams, I will construct a letter-perhaps from a social theorist, perhaps from a member of your family, perhaps from a high school student-that poses a set of questions to you about theory. Your job is to respond to those questions in a way that is creative and that answers the questions making good use of the readings. A sample exam is on Blackboard, though I promise you that the sample is not the same as either of the exams that you will receive. Exams will be graded for creativity, clarity, and thoroughness of the response to the questions. These questions allow for a great deal of flexibility, so that you can show me what you have learned.
Attendance and Participation: This component of the course highlights the importance of the intellectual community we are building in the classroom. You are expected to be in all classes. Please come to class on time, with a copy of the assigned readings and your journal. Always bring your syllabus and other course materials with you. Attendance is taken at all classes and I will be grading your participation carefully, with high expectations.
Grading rubric for discussion
| Expectation | Weight |
| Participation is consistent (frequency) | 20% |
| Participation moves the conversation forward (substance) | 20% |
| Participation demonstrates careful attention to the reading | 20% |
| Contributes applications and examples, or ideas from other sources | 20% |
| Asks Questions | 20% |
| Alternative (if struggling on any one of the above): group participation | 20% |
Journal: The journal can either be typed or written on notebook paper that is bound together with a simple folder. This allows you to turn your journals in periodically for me to grade, even as you continue writing new entries. Your journal will consist of a summary and response to each reading assignment. You will also be asked to write responses to the various films that are shown in class. At times, I will ask you to write a journal during class, so thought important thoughts will not get lost in the competition to discuss. I will occasionally ask to see your journals in class, which will serve as a homework check to make sure you are prepared for class. If you do not have a completed journal entry for that day, it will lower your overall journal grade. Each missed assignment will result in a 5 point deduction. In other words, you need to read for every class and complete a journal entry. Please resist the temptation to focus on the writing style of the selection, which offers little in terms of fruitful discussion (i.e. do not comment on how hard-to-read a piece may have been-focus instead on the ideas).
I will assign a GPA unit to each entry, using the scale below. All of those grades will then be averaged together at the end of the semester to produce your final grade for the class. You may write extra entries as ideas about the readings and theorists hit you. This will decrease the value of any single entry.
Grading Scale for Journals:
4.0=100%
3.5=95%
3.0=90%
2.5=85%
2.0=80%
1.5=75%
1.0=70%
0.5=65%
0.0=55%
Policies
Enrollment: Enrollment is solely the responsibility of the student. I will not
expand the course size or sign students in.
Attendance: You are expected to attend all classes. Tests are designed to benefit students with perfect attendance. Your attendance grade is calculated in GPA units. You receive a 4 for each class that you attend and are on time for. Whenever you arrive late or leave early, you receive a 3. If you are absent, you receive a 0. Whenever you miss class, you are invited to write a short paper on the day's readings, which can earn you up to a 3 for that class. You may only do this up to 4 times. No distinction is made between excused or unexcused absences. Please do not submit doctor's notes or other paperwork regarding your absence. Instead, do the make-up assignment and hand it in at the next class meeting. For classes where there is not a reading, contact the instructor for an alternative (proposals are welcome).
Classroom Community: We learn better when we know and trust each other. Please try to get to know some of your classmates and your instructor. I will try to learn your names. Please visit my office hours. Also, I encourage you to exchange phone numbers and email with one or more of your classmates. Finally, intellectual community is best built when you contribute to classroom discussion.
Food: Eating and drinking is allowed and (if it helps you concentrate) encouraged.
Extra Credit: No extra credit will be given in this course.
Prerequisites: No Prerequisites are required for this course.
Learning Needs and Disabilities: Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me to discuss the specific situation as soon as possible (by week three). Contact Disability Resources and Services at (215) 204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.
Communication: I may occasionally contact you by email for class purposes. For issues pertinent to a particular class meeting, I will email no later than 5pm on the previous day of class and will expect you to have received the email before class. That means that if I need to tell you something for Monday, I will send it by Friday at 5pm and expect you to have received it by class time on Monday (for class on Wed., I'll email by Mon. at 5pm; for class on Fri., I'll email by Wed. at 5pm). In most circumstances, greater notice will be given. Please check email regularly and be responsive when I contact you individually. Also, make sure that I have a phone number for you so that I can reach you in emergencies.
You may communicate with me by email, telephone, in office hours, in informal meetings on campus, and in class. Sending me an email with a question about an assignment does not absolve you from completing the assignment by the due date, even if I do not get a chance to reply. Please do not call later than 9pm and please do not assume I will always answer my phone or be able to get back to you immediately. If I am traveling or otherwise not available, I may not get back to you until the next Tuesday or Thursday.
It is important for you to become familiar with the course website on Blackboard, know how to navigate it and how to access all of the available resources, and be able to submit assignments on the site.
Late Papers: No late papers will be accepted for any assignment. That includes tests. You must plan to be in class on the day of the tests and you must make arrangements to submit papers on time.
Honor Policy: I expect you to uphold the University's Code of Conduct at all times (http://www.temple.edu/assistance/udc/coc.htm). Plagiarism and other honor violations will result in the receipt of an F for the course and a referral to the honor investigation committee. Regarding specific assignments, here's what that looks like:
Journals: Your journals must be original work. I will notice if there is significant similarity across journals. You may reference conversations that you have had with others, but any ideas presented in your journals should be yours, unless you give credit to someone else.
Discussion: Cheating in discussions is hard to do, but it is possible. I would consider it cheating if you presented the ideas of another student as if they were your own. For instance, if you were to have a conversation with another student outside of class, and then come to the next discussion and share the ideas of that student as if they were your ideas.
Tests: Tests are take-home, open-book, and open-notes. So, obviously, looking at your notes, the readings, or other sources is encouraged. Copying other sources and claiming their work as your own is cheating. Citing sources within an argument that is your own is encouraged. Studying for the test with other students is encouraged. Collaborating with other students after the exam questions have been distributed is cheating.
Grades: I use grades to compare your performance to the ideal performance. Ideal performance is something just above an A. An 'A' for an assignment in this class requires consistent and satisfactory attention to all requirements plus a substantial demonstration of creativity and originality. A 'B' for an assignment in this class requires consistent and satisfactory attention to all requirements and some indication of creativity and originality. A 'C' for an assignment in this class would either 1) have consistent and satisfactory attention to all requirements, but no creativity and originality, or 2) have some creativity and originality but an inconsistent attention to the details. A 'D' for an assignment would lack creativity and originality and miss several of the requirements. An 'F' for an assignment would fall short on all points.
If you wish to request a re-grade, you must do so within a week of receiving the papers and you must have a clear reason of what should be reconsidered and why. After the week has passed, I will not reconsider the grade. Further, you cannot ask for a re-grade immediately after the assignment has been returned. You need to take a day and consider why the grade was given. For a paper returned on Tuesday, you cannot ask for a re-grade on Tuesday. You may ask starting on Wednesday, but not after the following Tuesday. For assignments returned after the term ends, you will have a period of three weeks to challenge those specific assignments.
Responsibilities of the Teacher:
To facilitate an educational experience with high standards that will provide
fruitful knowledge to the students
To be prepared for each class
To grade consistently and fairly
To return assignments promptly
To treat all students with respect
To abide by the Code of Conduct in the role of a faculty member, such that students
are trusted and the instructor is trustworthy
To acknowledge, apologize for, and correct for any mistakes that might be made
To be available for outside meetings and discussions, so long as they are arranged
reasonably in advance
Responsibilities of the Student:
To enroll in the class through the appropriate university mechanisms at the
start of the term
To come to all classes, on time, prepared for discussion
To manage her/his own time, so that all assignments are completed on time
To manage his/her own personal life so that all classes may be attended and
all assignments completed
To treat the instructor and other students with respect
To be an active member of the classroom community
To communicate with the instructor about any special needs or concerns
To abide by the Code of Conduct in the role of a student, trusting other students
and the instructor, and being a trustworthy member of the class
To show up on time for any scheduled meetings with other students or the instructor
Course Schedule
Getting Started
Wednesday, January 18th: Introductions
Friday, January 20th: "Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures," Lemert (pp. 1-20)
Monday, January 23rd: "The Sociological Imagination," C. Wright Mills (pp. 348-352), Society as a Human Product, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (pp. 383-388)
Wednesday, January 25th: "Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination,"
Patricia Hill Collins (pp. 535-546); "Knowing a Society from Within: A
Woman's Standpoint," Dorothy Smith (pp. 388-390)
Social Life as Conflict
Class Conflict
Friday, January 27th: "Estranged Labour," Karl Marx (29-36), "Class Struggle," K. Marx and Friedrich Engels (37-41)
Monday, January 30th: "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," Marx (pp. 41-48); "The Values of Commodities," Marx (pp. 49-53); "The Fetishism of Commodities," Marx (pp. 58-60)
Wednesday, February 1st: DuBois, Chapter IV: On Labor, Economics, and Politics
Friday, February 3rd: DuBois continued, no reading; Submit journals to date
Monday, February 6th: "Structures, Habitus, Practices," Pierre Bourdieu (pp. 435-440); "Global Economic Changes and the Limits of the Race Relations Vision," William Julius Wilson (pp. 651-654)
Conflicts of State Power
Wednesday, February 8th: DuBois, Chapter III: On International Relations
Friday, February 10th: "What Is to Be Done?," V. I. Lenin (pp. 211-213); "Identity, Struggle, Contradiction," Mao Tse-tung (pp. 263-266), "The End of the Modern Era," Vaclav Havel (pp. 572-574)
Monday, February 13th: "Nonviolent Force: A Spiritual Dilemma," Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (pp. 261-263), "The Power of Nonviolent Action," Martin Luther King, Jr. (pp. 344-348)
Wednesday, February 15th: "Between Colonizer and Colonized," Aimé Césaire (pp. 342-344), "Infinite Layers/Third World?," Trinh T. Minh-ha (pp. 526-531)
Friday, February 17th: "Intellectuals and Hegemony," Antonio Gramsci (pp. 259-261); "Discourse on the West," Michel Foucault (pp. 409-413)
Conflicts of Gender & Sexuality
Monday, February 20th: "The Yellow Wallpaper," "Women and Economics," Charlotte Perkins Gilman (pp. 168-174); "Woman as Other," Simone de Beauvoir (pp. 339-341)
Wednesday, February 22nd: DuBois, Chapter V: On Women
Friday, February 24th: NO CLASS
Monday, February 27th: "The Problem That Has No Name," Betty Friedan (pp. 355-358); "Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory" bell hooks (handout)
Wednesday, March 1st: "The New Mestiza," Gloria Anzaldúa (pp. 547-553); "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism," Paula Gunn Allen (pp. 568-572)
Friday March 3rd: "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," Judith Butler (pp. 557-568); "Sexual Identification is a Strange Thing," Jeffrey Weeks (pp. 553-557); Midterm Distributed; Submit journals to date
Midterm
Monday, March 13th: Begin watching The Corporation
Wednesday, March 15th: Continue The Corporation
Friday, March 17th: Complete The Corporation. Midterm due.
Conflicts of Race
Monday, March 20th: DuBois, Chapter I: On the Meaning of Race
Wednesday March 22nd: DuBois continued, No reading
Friday, March 24th: DuBois, Chapter II: On Race Relations
Monday, March 27th: "Black Power and Stokely," C.L.R. James (pp. 413-422); "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," Audre Lorde (pp. 440-443); "The Afrocentric Idea," Molefi Kete Asante (pp. 494-496)
Wednesday, March 29th: "The New Cultural Politics of Difference," Cornel West (pp. 505-515); "'Race' as a Trope of the World," Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (pp. 515-521)
Friday March 31st: "The Colored Woman's Office," Anna Julia Cooper (pp. 174-180); "Decolonizing, National Culture, and the Negro Intellectual," Frantz Fanon (pp. 358-363)
Society as Structures with Functions
Monday, March April 3rd: "Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor";
"Sociology and Social Facts"; "Suicide and Modernity," Emile
Durkheim (pp. 70-83)
Wednesday, April 5th: "Social Structure and Anomie," Robert K. Merton (pp. 225-237); "Manifest and Latent Functions," R. K. Merton (pp. 303-309)
Friday, April 7th: No Reading. If we need to use this class as a make-up, we
will. Otherwise, I'll show a documentary about DuBois's life. Submit journals
to date
Social Life as Meaning
Monday, April 10th: "The Spirit of Capitalism and the Iron Cage,"
Max Weber (pp. 99-104); Class, Status, Party, Max Weber (pp. 115-125)
Wednesday, April 12th: "Arbitrary Social Values and the Linguistic Sign," Ferdinand de Saussure (pp. 148-156); "The Structural Study of Myth," Claude Lévi-Strauss (pp. 309-314)
Friday, April 14th: "The Sociology of Knowledge and Ideology," Karl Mannheim (pp. 213-217); "Moral Man and Immoral Society," Reinhold Niebuhr (pp. 243-244)
Monday, April 17th: "Art, War, and Fascism," Walter Benjamin (pp. 255-256); "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf (pp. 257-258)
Wednesday, April 19th: "The Postmodern Condition," Jean-François Lyotard (pp. 457-460); "Simulacra and Simulations: Disneyland," Jean Baudrillard (pp. 470-471)
Friday April 21st: No Class
The Social Self
Monday, April 24th: "Dream-Work and Interpretation," Sigmund Freud
(pp. 125, 130-134); "Oedipus, the Child," Freud (pp. 134-138); "Remembering,
Repeating, and Working-Through," Freud (138-141); "Civilization and
the Individual," Freud (pp. 145-148)
Wednesday, April 26th: "The Stranger," Georg Simmel (pp. 180-184); "The Looking-Glass Self," Charles Horton Cooley (pp. 184-185)
Friday, April 28th: "Psychoanalysis and Sociology," Erich Fromm (pp. 217-219); "The Self, the I, and the Me," George Herbert Mead (pp. 220-225)
Wrap-Up (Last Class)
Monday, May 1st: "Ghostly Matters," Avery Gordon (pp. 635-640). Final
Exam distributed. Submit journals to date
Final papers accepted until May 8th at 5pm.