Fall Semester 2008
Section A: Tuesday & Thursday 8:00-9:15
Section B: Tuesday & Thursday
11:00-12:15
Dr. David Smilde, Baldwin 115
Tel. 583.8071; e-mail dsmilde@uga.edu
Office hours: 12:15-2pm, Tuesday, or by
appt.
Sara Morris, Baldwin 401
Tel. 542.1275 e-mail: szmorris@uga.edu
Office hours: 12:30-2, Tuesday, or by appt.
It’s interesting,
if you think about it, that there exists a domain of knowledge referred to as
“sociological theory”—most academic sociology programs have required classes
devoted to it, the American Sociological Association even has a section devoted
to it. Isn’t all sociological writing guided by theory either implicitly or
explicitly? Doesn’t all social theory make ample use of empirical examples? So
what is the difference? Indeed, there is little difference. Many of the classic
works in social theory we are going to study were considered empirical
treatments in their day. Certain works are selected out as works of
“sociological theory” because they have become foundational treatments defining
the most basic sociological questions and perspectives still used today. The
hope is that this will give you knowledge of the derivation and history of the
concepts, discourses, and dilemmas still current in social scientific debate.
Such knowledge will facilitate your ability to analyze social problems and
assimilate sociological research.
A classic is a classic because it
continues to engage the attention of readers through different periods and
contexts. The classic text is, in other words, “multivalent,” having various
possible meanings depending on how it engages with the reader. As such there is
no objective “development of sociological theory,” there are only different
perspectives on this development. These different perspectives may be
contradictory, but more often they are complimentary or simply distinct. This
semester we will be looking at this history under the guise of “four
traditions,” as described by Randall Collins. We will also read excerpts from
original texts, collected by Collins. I feel it necessary to include original
texts in this class because only in this way will you be able to fully take
advantage of their multivalence. Furthermore, as
future professionals in an increasingly globalized
and diverse world, the ability to interpret forms of communication that arise
from social, cultural and temporal contexts other than your own is essential.
Learning how to figure out where an author is coming from by looking at his
(unfortunately we will cover no female authors) context and how to see through
odd forms of expression are key abilities you should hone in this class.
Double-entry
journals
Twenty
percent of your
grade will derive from the double-entry journals you will be keeping on the
twenty reading assignments. For each reading you will need to copy down a
passage of four sentences or more, and write 200 words or more reflecting on
that passage. You will write and submit these by e-mail starting Thursday,
August 28. Simply compose an e-mail message to the following address: soci3220@gmail.com write your journal
entry and send it off before class starts. If your e-mail has been sent
correctly, you will immediately receive an acknowledgement of receipt. Note that gmail
will only send this message once every four days. So if you submit a journal
entry on Tuesday and get an acknowledgement, you will not get one on Thursday.
This
is “low stakes” writing. This means that if you simply do the assignment and
have obviously made an effort you will get a four. If you simply do not do it you
will get a 0. Grades such as 1, 2, and 3 will represent intermediates between
these two poles. You will write these and send them as e-mail. Sara Morris will
randomly pick seven days this semester to grade these journals. When she does
she will return your message to you with the grade. At the end of the semester
we will take the top five grades. Or, put differently, we will drop the lowest
two grades.
All readings and journal
entries must be completed before the
class date they are listed on the syllabus. In this way you will be prepared to participate in class
discussion. Journal entries that are chosen for grading will be graded on the
same day they are due. If the time on your e-mail message is later than the
start time of your class (8am for Section A, 11am for Section B) on the day
they are due, you will receive a zero for it.
Five-page papers
You will produce
two five-page papers during the semester each worth forty percent of
your grade. We have four thematic divisions in this class. You will have to
produce a five page paper on the first two (utilitarian tradition and conflict
tradition) as well as on the second two (durkheimian
tradition and microinteractionist tradition). For
each paper you will use the two traditions to understand any current social or
political issue (for example, the utilitarian tradition vs. the conflict
tradition on violence). This class will focus on not only on writing but on the
art of giving and receiving feedback on writing. For each paper, we will
dedicate three classes to this.
Please
note that the first draft will be worth ten percent of your final grade. It is
not optional. If you do not hand it in on time, you will get a zero for that
ten percent. Sara Morris
will get it back to you in one week, and you will submit your final draft
(worth ten percent as well) one week later to soci3220@gmail.com The same pattern
will be followed for the final papers (see session calendar below).
Active
participation in class, in turn, will put you in good shape to write the papers
efficiently and intelligently. If you attend and participate in the feedback
sessions and write a serious first draft, you should have no problem getting a
good grade on these papers and getting a scholarship-renewing or
athletic-eligibility-maintaining grade in this class.
Double-entry
journals 20%
-20 journal entries
-7 randomly graded, 4pt scale
-5 keepers x 4pts = 20
Midterm paper 40%
-first
draft = 10 pts
-peer grading 5 x 2 = 10pts
-final draft = 20 pts
Final paper 40%
-first
draft = 10 pts
-peer grading 5 x 2 = 10pts
-final draft = 20 pts
Policies
Laptops
You are not allowed to use your laptop
during class. I fully
realize that many students now take their notes in class on their laptop.
However, beyond the temptation of checking your e-mail, chatting or researching
spring break hotel packages during class, the use of laptops breaks the flow of
the university class room. Too often I have had excellent students that do not
participate because they have their noses in their laptops trying to transcribe
every word of our discussion. The goal of an upper-level class like this is not
to take copious notes but rather to think, discuss and use the ideas we are
working with. If you keep a register of your classes in word processing files,
you can take this opportunity to develop your skills in jotting down notes and keywords
that can be elaborated later at your computer. In any case, this class has no
midterm or final exam in which you will have to reproduce facts and details
from class. Rather, you should spend your time working with the ideas in class
to get a feel for them to the point that you can work with them in your papers.
The immense
logistic difficulty and expense of getting thirty-odd adults in the same place
at the same time can only be justified by us interacting over the topic of this
class. Thus this class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion.
Participating actively in class will be the best way for you to get a handle on
the concepts and to stimulate participation; I will provide the following
incentive structure.
Enthusiastic
participation +
2pts
Strong
participation +
1pts
Average
participation no
points
Irregular
or substandard participation -
1pt
Negative
or uncooperative participation -
2pts
“Enthusiastic
participation” means you actively contribute to the collective realization of
this thing called SOCI 3220. Negative or uncooperative participation means you
arrive late, leave early, say inappropriate things, treat others
disrespectfully, or are lost when I call on you.
I will frequently
use my name cards to call on people when I ask a question. I will keep track of
whether it seems you are thinking about the issues, are lost, not present, etc.
The idea of class participation is for us to learn to work with ideas verbally.
This is a university which means discussion is open. All political perspectives
and cultural beliefs are legitimate objects of discussion, even if they are
yours. One object of this class is to make clear that beyond the world of cable
TV news, the issues confronting contemporary society cannot be broken down into
conservative vs. liberal, red state vs. blue state. In this class there are no
“politically correct” positions, and you do not even have to believe the
position you are promoting or defending. In fact I recommend you try on an unpopular
idea and take it for a spin. Both policies of calling on people and open
discussion can sometimes cause uncomfortable moments. But that is what
universities are about: freely working with ideas so that you’re ready when
you’re in the “real world.”
Listserv
This class has a
listserv: SOCI3220-L@listserv.uga.edu
that Sara and I will frequently use for announcements. You can also use it for
any pressing concerns, problems, issues or discussion. In fact useful
discussion on the listserv is something I will consider when assigning
participation points.
Attendance
Class will begin
promptly at 11 am and end at 12:15. Please do not arrive late. Attendance will
be taken by sign-up sheet at some point during the class (usually the
beginning). Good attendance will be encouraged through the following incentive
structure.
0-1
classes
missed = 2 points added to final grade
2-3
classes
missed = 1 points added to final grade
5-6
classes missed = 1 point subtracted
7-8
classes missed = 2 points subtracted
>
8 classes missed = automatic withdrawal
There are no
excused absences—if you miss a class on a day when attendance is taken, you
will lose the bonus point regardless of your reason. That is why I give four
freebies. Please do not bring me a medical or other excuse unless it accounts
for more than four absences. It is your responsibility to see to it that you
have signed the sign-up sheet. Anyone signing for someone else is guilty of
academic dishonesty, and will be dealt with through the Office of the Vice
President for Instruction.
The final
grading scale will be the following.
A 94-100
A- 90-93
B+ 87-89
B 84-86
B- 80-83
C+ 77-79
C 74-76
C- 70-73
D 60-69
F 0-59
Please note that
since bonus points are so easy to earn, I will not round up fractional points;
that means, for example, that if a student has a final point score of 86.99,
the student will receive a final grade of a B.
In the bookstore
you will find two texts you must purchase:
Randall
Collins. 1994. Four Sociological Traditions.
Randall
Collins (ed.). 1994. Four Sociological Traditions:
Selected
About the Instructors:
David
Smilde is Associate Professor of Sociology at UGA. He received
his Ph.D in sociology from the
Sara Morris is a graduate student in UGA’s Sociology Department. Her MA thesis focused on the
behavioral effects of corporal punishment.
Her research interests focus on behavior problems in children, specifically
juvenile delinquency and how it is affected by family relationships.
Class Schedule
Tuesday 8/19.
First
day shop keeping: roll, syllabus, expectations. The Rise of
the Social Sciences” Four Sociological Traditions pp.3-46.
“The
Rational / Utilitarian Tradition” Four Sociological Traditions
pp.121-153
George
Homans “Social Exchange among Equals and Unequals” pp.135-144; and Mancur
Olson “Public Goods and the Free Rider Problem” pp.162-170 FST: Selected
“The Rational / Utilitarian Tradition” Four
Sociological Traditions pp.153-180.
James March and Herbert Simon “Bounded
Rationality and Satisficing” and Thomas Schelling
“Tacit Coordination” FST: Selected Readings pp.145-161.
James
Coleman “The Realization of Effective Norms” FST: Selected
Tuesday 9/9
“The Conflict Tradition” Four
Sociological Traditions pp.47-81.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels “History as
Class Struggle,” and “Materialism and the Theory of Ideology,” FST: Selected
Readings pp.4-17.
Tuesday 9/16
Writing
Instruction I: How to Research your Topic
Karl Marx “The Class Basis of Politics and
Revolution” FST: Selected Readings pp.17-35.
“The Conflict Tradition” Four
Sociological Traditions pp.81-118.
-------------------
IV. Midterm Papers
Tuesday
9/30
Group
discussion of paper topics
Thursday 10/2
Draft
grading session
[3 hard copies of first draft
must be brought to class]
Tuesday 10/7
Draft
discussion session.
Thursday 10/9
“The Durkheimian
Tradition” Four Sociological Traditions pp.181-224
Emile Durkheim “The Progressive
Preponderance of Organic Solidarity” [Packet].
[Submit final version of paper
to soci3220@gmail.com by midnight]
Thursday 10/16
Emile Durkheim “Social Rituals and Sacred
Objects” FST: Selected Readings pp.206-18.
Tuesday 10/21
Writing
Instruction II: Sources, Citation and Academic Honesty
“The Durkheimian Tradition” Four
Sociological Traditions pp.224-241.
Tuesday 10/28
Erving
Goffman “The Nature of Deference and Demeanor” FST:
Selected Readings pp.244-261
Thursday 10/30
“The Microinteractionist
Tradition” Four Sociological Traditions pp.242-260.
Tuesday 11/4
Charles
Horton Cooley “Society Is in the Mind” FST: Selected
George Herbert Mead
“Thought as Internalized Conversation” FST: Selected
“The Microinteractionist
Tradition” Four Sociological Traditions pp.260-290.
Thursday 11/13
Herbert
Blumer “Symbolic Interactionism”
FST: Selected
VII. Final Papers
Tuesday 11/18
Writing
Instruction III: Reviewing, Commenting and Revising
Thursday 11/20
Group
discussion of paper topics
Tuesday 12/2
Draft
grading session
[Three hardcopies of first
draft must be brought to class]
Tuesday 12/4
Draft
discussion session.
Monday 12/15
Final drafts must be submitted
to soci3220@gmail.com by 8am
Student responsibility
agreement
I have closely read
they syllabus and fully understand what is expected of me in Sociology 3220,
Fall Semester, 2008, and agree to the terms
Name:
__________________________________________________________
Signature:
_______________________________________________________
Date:
___________________________________________________________
[You have until the
third class 8/26 to either withdraw or hand this in, or you will be
automatically withdrawn]