Welcome to Sociology 401!

Introduction

• Syllabus
• About the professor
• Professor's homepage
• On-line sociology resources for Iowa State students

Jan. 11

• Seven theory starting points

Jan. 18

• Durkheim/social facts

Jan. 20

• Summary #1 ("Egoistic Suicide and Anomic Suicide")
• Durkheim on suicide

Jan. 23

• Durkheim on religion
• Hornsby on "Surfing the Net for Community"

Jan. 25

• Structural-Functionalism/Robert Merton

Jan. 27

• Summary #2 ("Some Principles of Stratification")
• Tumin's critique of Davis and Moore

Jan. 30

• Colomy & Greiner on "Criminalizing Trangressive Youth"

Feb. 1

• Marx & The Communist Manifesto

Feb. 3

• Marx's labor theory of value, etc.
• Summary #3 ("Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844")

Feb. 8

• C. Wright Mills/Conflict Theory

Feb. 10

• Zweigenhaft & Domhoff’s “The Ironies of Diversity”
• Wallerstein intro

Feb. 13

• Summary #4 (“Truth as Opiate: Rationality and Rationalization”)
• Wallerstein on commodity chains
• Wallerstein's balance sheet
• Exam #1 review sheet

Feb. 15

• Dilemmas of capitalism
• More on Wallerstein

Feb. 20

• Max Weber and the Protestant Ethic
• Summary #5 (“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”)

Feb. 22 & 24

• Weber on objectivity; class, status & party; and bureaucracy

Feb 27 & March 1

• Introduction to McDonaldization
• More on McDonaldization
• Summary #6 (“The Irrationality of Rationality”)

March 3

• George Herbert Mead

March 8

• Symbolic interactionism/Howard Becker on marihuana users
• Summary #7 (“Society as Symbolic Interaction”)

March 10

• Dramaturgical perspective on engagement proposals

March 20

• Lowney's dramaturgical perspective on talk shows

March 22

• Summary #8 (“Recovery Rules")
• Exam #2 review sheet
• Recent quizzes

March 29

• Sociology of knowledge overview
• Schutz and phenomenology

April 3

• Berger and Luckmann
• Summary #9 (excerpt from "The Social Construction of Reality")

April 5

• Garfinkel and ethnomethodology

April 7

• Joel Best's Random Violence

April 10

• Summary #10 ("Declaring War on Social Problems")
• Connections among claims

April 14

• Dorothy Smith and feminist sociology

April 16

• Lorber and Martin on the socially constructed body

April 19

• Critical theory/Habermas/Marcuse
• Summary #11 ("Three Normative Models of Democracy")

April 21

• Dandaneau on critical theory and Flint, Michigan

April 24

• Postmodernism/Foucault/Lyotard

April 26

• George Ritzer on the new means of consumption
• Final exam review sheet

The final exam is scheduled for Friday, May 5, from 9:45-11:45 a.m.