Answer the pair of questions for each essay set in 4-6 pages total. Use your personal experiences and observations as the basis of each essay; do not discuss events or experiences that happened to someone else or are in the news unless these have a direct connection to your life. Cite the readings (author's name and page number) to support your sociological claims. The essays will be graded on the originality and insight of your analysis, and the accuracy and depth with which they integrate course ideas.
The essays are due at the beginning of class on each due date. Since the questions are available well in advance of the due date, I encourage you to begin thinking about and writing your essays as soon as we have covered the relevant course materials.
1. Describe an example of nothing that people think is something. What kind(s) of nothing is it? How do people who use it consider it as something? To what extent is the appearance of its something-ness an ideology that expresses the interests this nothing's producers? Alternately, does the appearance of its something-ness suggest that genuine social interaction cannot be eradicated by the producers of nothing?
2. To what extent is globalization really just Americanization? Discuss with reference to a particular object, experience, or service you consume in America that originates from elsewhere. In what form does it appear: as nothing and/or something? Is it an example of glocalization or grobalization? Does it suggest that Americanization is not necessarily the end result of globalization?
3. Coin your own sociological concept á la George Ritzer's idea of "McDonaldization": (a) select an institution, object or activity; (b) define its essential traits; (c) explain these as social processes; and (d) analyze its applicability to other institutions, objects or activities. What new insights does sociological theory gain from your concept?
1. Describe a recent long-distance friendship, online community, public-figure obsession, or instant rapport that you participated in. How does this relationship reveal the existence of a mental pathway to a sociomental connection? How has this connection structured your mind -- in terms of how you mentally model the world, what you emphasize, and what you ignore? What was the social consequence of this relationship: personal change, material benefits, community formation, etc.?
2. How much did class shape your childhood socialization? (Be sure to identify your class.) Did your daily schedule, use of language, and interactions with professionals and bureaucracies correspond to the class patterns described in Unequal Childhoods? At this stage in your life, to what degree do you believe your childhood socialization has prepared you to reproduce your parents' class position?
1. Describe two different personal situations or experiences, one corresponding to mechanical solidarity, the other to organic solidarity. How does each example indicate you were under the sway of mechanical solidarity (as collective consciousness, the repression of deviance, etc.) and of organic solidarity (as expression of individuality, anomie, etc.)? With which collectives were you in solidarity in each case, and how? Which form of solidarity do you believe has influenced your life more, mechanical or organic?
2. Discuss the visibility of diverse classes in your life. In what settings and contexts do you tend to see people of different classes? Be clear about your class position from both a Weberian and Marxist framework and which classes are different from yours; for example, if you are middle-class, explain how and then discuss the visibility of the rich and poor in your life. How has this experience affected your beliefs and values about particular classes and class in general? What kind of social change might decrease the class segregation you experience?