Courses

This course is meant to introduce students to the development of social theory after its classical phase, represented by the dialogue between the emancipatory, positivist and critical theories of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. It presupposes, therefore, that students are already familiar with classical social theory. While much of later theory is a response to the problems and questions raised by the classical theorists –and to the premature structural-functionalist “synthesis” of Talcott Parsons – the response is often in a “minor key” that completely transforms the original problematic. This is especially true of the works of Schutz, Goffman, Grafinkel and Joas, where one finds a fresh start on Durkheim’s problematic, though with distinctly Weberian tools informed by phenomenology, pragmatism and a concern with empirical observation of the everyday order of society. By the same token, Bourdieu, Foucault, Latour and Boltanski and Thevenot continue the Weberian project of critical theory, but with the tools of post-structuralist analysis. In feminist theory, finally, one finds a concern with the problematic of emancipation inherited from Marxism, yet ultimately its radical subversion.