Syllabus
Course Syllabus
This course is open only to the students of the Social Sciences BA study programme.
The course will take place in an in-class form.
PART I: THE DISCIPLINE AND ITS PARADIGMS
Week 1 (2 October): Intro/Sociology: A multiple paradigm science (JB)
Ritzer, G. (1975) “Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science”. The American Sociologist , 10(3): 156–167.
Week 2 (9 October): The Social-Facts Paradigm (JB)
Lee, D. (1994). “Class as a Social Fact.” Sociology , 28(2): 397–415.
Week 3 (16 October): The Social-Definition Paradigm (JB)
Guess TJ. (2006). The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence. Critical Sociology. 2006;32(4):649-673.
Week 4 (23 October): The Social-Behaviour Paradigm (JB)
Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 63, 597–606.
PART II: SOCIETIES AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS
Week 5 (30 October): Analysis of Social Institutions of Modernity and Late Modernity: Socio-economic Dimension (OC)
Harrington, A. Modern Social Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 16-24 (modernity and its dimensions), 41-50 (Marx), 286-288 (Beck and Giddens).
Marx, K. and F. Engels. 1848. Manifesto of the Communist Party. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf, excerpt (pp. 14-26).
Week 6 (6 November): Analysis of Social Institutions of Modernity and Late Modernity: Political Dimension (OC)
Harrington, A. Modern Social Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 64-76 (Weber), 292-299 (globalization).
Weber, M. 1919. Politics as Vocation. http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf, excerpt (pp. 1-6).
Week 7 (13 November): Reading week: no class
Week 8 (20 November): Analysis of Social Change and Stability: Civil Society and Associations (OC)
Harrington, A. Modern Social Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 51-58 (Durkheim).
Putnam, R. 1995. Bowling Alone. http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/content/paper/putnam-r-d-1995-bowling-alone-americas-declining-social-capital-journal-democracy-6-1-, pp. 65-78.
PART III: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ITS CONSTRUCTIONS
Week 9 (27 November): Analysis of Socialisation and Family (DN)
Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. London: Allen Lane. pp. 147-166.
Week 10 (4 December): Analysis of Social Structure and Inequalities (DN)
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason: On the theory of action Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1-18
Week 11 (11 December): Analysis of Social Role of Language and Communication (DN)
Mooney, A. & Evans, B. (2015). Language, society and power: An introduction . Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-19.
Week 12 (18 December): team work at distance: term papers preparation
Week 13 (January - the exact date will be specified): Final seminar with a discussion of the term papers. (DN)
The final version of the detailed syllabus is published on Moodle: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=10124¬ifyeditingon=1
Annotation
This course is open ONLY to the students of the Social Sciences BA study programme.
The course will take place in an in-class form.
The course looks into major sociological themes in two ways; first, the focus is on level of analysis embracing disciplinary agendas, institutions, organizations, social structures, interactions and communications. The task here is to clarify and critically discuss how these levels of analysis can account for social phenomena and how a specific phenomenon can be narrowed down and analyzed through different levels of analysis. The second set of themes represent contemporary perspectives for analyzing today’s complex societies, both picking up on classical sociological approaches and engaging with recent developments in the formation of sociological knowledge.