SOCIOLOGY

An interesting article for Theory and Culture students: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/opinion/27shweder.html NY Times Op-Ed Contributor RICHARD A. SHWEDER Published: October 27, 2007 Chicago IS the Pentagon truly going to deploy an army of cultural relativists to Muslim nations in an effort to make the world a safer place? A few weeks ago this newspaper reported on an experimental Pentagon “human terrain” program to embed anthropologists in combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. It featured two military anthropologists: Tracy (last name withheld), a cultural translator viewed by American paratroopers as “a crucial new weapon” in counterinsurgency; and Montgomery McFate, who has taken her Yale doctorate into active duty in a media blitz to convince skeptical colleagues that the occupying forces should know more about the local cultural scene. How have members of the anthropological profession reacted to the Pentagon’s new inclusion agenda? A group calling itse

FINAL PAPER TOPICS AND INSTRUCTIONS Sociology of the Arts and Popular Culture Prof. Gabe Ignatow Chilton 397A Instead of taking the mid-term (25%) and final exam (40% of your grade), you may choose to write two original research papers. The first paper is due in class during the second mid-term exam , and should be 4-5 pages plus references . The final paper can be based on the first paper. Here are the requirements for the final paper: Due the time and day of the final exam, in the final exam room, or else in my office mailbox on the 3 rd floor of Chilton Hall. Length: 6-7 pages plus 1 or more pages of references References : APA or MLA style Approximately 5 from the course readings, and 5 from other books and articles not read in the course You should use books or articles, plus not more than one web site Where to find books and articles on your topic: Scholar.google.com http://iii.library.unt.edu/ Sociological

Prof. Gabe Ignatow Chilton 397A Instead of taking the final exam (40%) of your grade, you may choose to write an original research paper. Here are the requirements for the paper: Due the time and day of the final exam, in the final exam room, or else in my office mailbox on the 3 rd floor of Chilton Hall. Length: 6-7 pages plus 1 or more pages of references References : APA or MLA style Approximately 5 from the course readings, and 5 from other books and articles not read in the course You should use books or articles, plus not more than one web site Where to find books and articles on your topic: Scholar.google.com http://iii.library.unt.edu/ Sociological Abstracts: UNT Library Home Page à Electronic Resources à Sociological Abstracts Please discuss the topic with me beforehand, preferably during my office hours . The paper can be mainly theoretical , or you can discuss a topic of interest to y

New Syllabus for Sociology of the Arts and Popular Culture Week 1, Introduction William Sewell jr., The Concept(s) of Culture Philip Smith, Introduction: What is Culture? What is Cultural Theory? Lynn Spillman, Introduction: Culture and Cultural Sociology (in reader) Weeks 2-3, Marx on Religion & Critical Theory Philip Smith, 37-57 Max Horkheimer and Theodore W. Adorno, "Society" Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (in reader) Habermas, Jurgen “ On Systematically Distorted Communication ” 1 st Mid-term Exam, Wednesday, October 10 Weeks 4-6, Max Weber and Religious Values Philip Smith, 13-18 Max Weber, “ The Social Psychology of the World Religions ” Max Weber, “ The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism ” Weber on Islam and Capitalism Bryan Turner, Islam, Capitalism and the Weber Theses Neo-Weberian Sociology Samuel Huntington, Cultures Count and Lawrence Harrison ,

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Principles_of_Sociology/ Moral_Maps,_First_World_Conceits,_and_the_New_Evangelists

Lecture Notes What is theory? In the world right now there are thousands of students taking classes that are about only theory, smart people are writing books about theory. Some people spend their careers studying only theory. So we will have to be brief here, because this is an introductory course. Sociological theory is the ‘queen of sociology,’ as philosophy has been called the queen of the sciences. Sociological theory involves the analysis, critique, and development of the ways in which we think about and discuss social reality. The American sociologist C. Wright Mills argued, in “The Sociological Imagination,” that the facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a person is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a person takes new heart or goes br

Introduction The “cultural turn” in the social sciences and humanities Immediately after WWII, the human sciences took the natural sciences as their model—especially in America. Search was for “laws” of human society e.g. classical economics, Marxism Newtonian paradigm: search for cause-and-effect relationships Positivism hypothesis testing, independent and dependent variables, statistical tests This model is now mostly, but not entirely, out of fashion Generally, this search has not yielded the kinds of results once hoped for also, Marxism fails in practice civil rights, women’s rights, antiwar movements in the 60s and 70s couldn’t be understood or predicted in terms of scientific laws. More a matter of history and agency. modernization projects are seen to disappoint The contemporaneous “linguistic turn” (initiated by Noam Chomsky’s critique of B.F. Skinner) The linguistic turn in philosophy: Wi