Marx: January 18 -
February
20
All readings for Marx are found in The Marx-Engels Reader. All readings for Sennett are found in The Corrosion of Character.
Thursday, January 18
Introduction
Tuesday, January 23
C. Wright Mills, "The Promise."
"Time Out!" (Suck.com, August 29, 2000).
Recommended readings
Collins and Makowsky, introduction and chap. 1 in The Discovery of Society [available at reserve library only]
Questions to guide reading1. How does sociology analyze personal troubles?
2. Where do (a) the times in which the founding sociologists wrote and (b) contemporary society "stand in human history"? What has remained the same between these two periods?
Thursday, January 25
Marx, pp. 70-105 of Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Recommended readings
Collins and Makowsky, chap. 2 in The Discovery of Society [available at reserve library only]
Giddens, chap. 1 in Capitalism and Modern Social Theory [available at reserve library only]
Questions to guide reading1. How do common sense ideas about work, property, and money obscure the social relationships beneath these?
2. What are those social relationships?
Tuesday, January 30
Marx, pp. 148-166, 172-175 of The German Ideology
Marx, Alienation and Social Classes
Vandana Shiva, "Soy Imperialism and the Destruction of Local Food Cultures" [hand-out]
Fox Hunting Ban is Voted by Legislature in Britain (by Warren Hoge, New York Times, January 18, 2001) [free registration is required to read this]
Questions to guide reading1. What is historically specific about the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat? What is historically enduring (if not universal) about this conflict?
2. How does production determine politics, law, culture, religion, etc.?
Thursday, February 1
Marx, Wage Labour and Capital
Marx, "The Fetishism of Commodities…" (pp. 319-329)
Recommended readings
Giddens, chaps. 2-3 in Capitalism and Modern Social Theory [available at reserve library only]
Questions to guide reading1. What is the structural contradiction of capitalism?
2. How do commodities dominate us?
Tuesday, February 6
Marx, The Coming Upheaval
Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Melvin L. Oliver, James H. Johnson, Jr., and Walter C. Farrell, Jr., "Anatomy of a Rebellion" [hand-out]
Questions to guide reading1. What does an exploited class (a) become revolutionary and (b) revolutionize society?
2. Do other categories of social divisions (cultural, racial, etc.) reflect relations of production? Or do they have a "material" reality that Marx does not take into account?
Thursday, February 8
Sennett, chapters 1-2
Questions to guide reading1. How has work changed in the period Sennett writes about?
2. What is character? Does Sennett have a Marxist theory of character?
Tuesday, February 13
Sennett, chapters 3-5, 7-8
Recommended readings
Davos is Not Real (Michael Hirsh, MSNBC.com, January 31, 2001).
Questions to guide reading1. Has the exploitation and alienation that Marx theorized disappeared in the flexible economy?
2. How do popular ideas about risk and failure reflect capitalism?
Thursday, February 15
Exam review: no reading
Tuesday, February 20
Take in-class exam or turn in observation paper.
