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Revised Syllabus for Sociology of the Arts and Popular Culture

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”

1st 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, Why Culture Matters

Cultural Anthropology

Clifford Geertz, Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture (in reader)

Richard Shweder, Moral Maps, "First World" Conceits, and the New Evangelists

Week 7, Cultural Boundaries and Repertoires


Michele Lamont, Symbolic Boundaries and Status (in reader)

Bethany Bryson, Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes (in reader)

Weeks 8-10, The Sociology of Culture and Cultural Production


Philip Smith, 167-182

Richard Peterson, Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music (in reader)

Paul DiMaggio, Market Structure, the Creative Process, and Popular Culture (in reader)

Wendy Griswold, American Character and the American Novel (in reader)

Pierre Bourdieu, Cultural Power (in reader)

Richard Peterson and Roger Kern, "Changing Highbrow Tastes: From Snob to Omnivore"


2nd Mid-term Exam, Friday November 16

Week 11-12, Durkheim’s “Religious Sociology”

Philip Smith, 9-13, 74-96

Emile Durkheim, from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Lynn Hunt, The Sacred and the French Revolution

Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith, The Discourse of American Civil Society

Jeffrey Alexander, The Sacred and Profane Information Machine

Carlo Tognato, In the Name of Money: Central Banking as a Secular Religion

Week 13, Culture and Cognition

Karen Cerulo, Deciphering Violence (in reader)

Eviatar Zerubavel, The Fine Line (in reader)

Weeks 14-15, Globalization and Postmodernism

John Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture

Philip Smith 214-247

Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (in reader)

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