Spring 2012 Courses

Detailed Course Outline
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It's Not Rocket Science, An Introduction To Academic Sociology

Sociology is the first academic discipline in the world to include real live people in its research. First created during the turn of the century in Europe and the United States by theologians, philosophers, historians, missionaries, journalists, social workers, it distinguishes itself from police work and social/political activism, other forms of social scientific inquiry, (such as anthropology or political science), as well as tabloid, literary and popular representations of reality through the use of specific research methods, namely analytic reasoning, ethnography, survey research, experiments and ethnomethodology. In this introductory course, students learn about the rhetorical power of these methods and how they can very effectively show us how to both look and listen for things like local and global cultures and communities, how children and adults are socialized and disciplined, how different social norms and niceties become institutionalized and, finally, different American global forms of systematic oppression, inequality and injustice.

During the Spring 2012 semester, students in my Wednesday Night class should have read/viewed/listened to all the instructional materials listed under Week 6 by W 2/29, as well as have started their Facebook Projects, and will have had the chance to earn 24 points towards their Final Grade, as well as work on 18 more; students in my W/F class should have read/viewed/listened to all the instructional materials listed under Week 5 by W 2/29 and will have had the chance to earn 24 points towards their Final Grade, as well as work on 18 more.

1

Sociology, at its most bare bones level, is the study of how people interact with one another right now, in the present moment. We will explore this question by watching scenes from the narrative documentary/thriller Catfish (2010), a film about the ways people interact over the social networking site Facebook. Emphasis will be placed upon what happens when people tell the truth when they interact with one another versus when they tell a lie.  Students will follow this screening and discussion of Catfish with a series of video, audio and text-based stories about strangers who became friends through modes of communication before there was Facebook, namely, the mail, as well as how Facebook has, for better or for worse, forever changed human interaction.  The history and demographic details of people living in rural, northern communities will also be specifically emphasized to better understand how digital technology literally and figuratively makes the world a smaller place.


2

We look to the not so distant past this week, to try and remember what the world was like before social networking sites like Facebook, then start to figure out all the social things that make and make-up a single person (i.e., self), paying specific attention to those moments when people (re)present themselves as something they are not. At this point in the course, take special note of all the stories we have focused on in class so far which have been located in rural northern communities and, respectively, Latin America.

3

Five different sociological theories of the self are presented in class this week: One from W.E.B. Du Bois (double consciousness), W.I. Thomas (the relationship between creating an identity and telling lies), George Herbert Mead (the self is social), Charles Horton Cooley (the looking-glass self) and Erving Goffman (dramaturgical theory). We also explore ideas with regards to the sociology of death as a way to start thinking about what it means to live a life, as well as how the everyday practice of list-making can be important forms of a person's autobiography. Extended clips from the narrative film My Life Without Me (2003) will be screened in class.


4

We explore the idea of sociological autobiography this week and those parts of a person's life that remain constant over time and space. Short clips from Michael Apt's visual documentary 7-Up (1964 to the present) will be screened alongside the entire episode of This America's Life's visual documentary John Smith (2008). In preparation for next week students will complete Parts 1 and 2 of their Facebook Project.  Instructions will be assigned via email.  They will also start thinking about the ways a Facebook page can be read as a form of sociological autobiography or, (as they are creating through their Facebook Project), sociological biography. *Please note that a couple of links below will not be live until Wednesday 2/15. Students will not be responsible for them until one week after this date.


5

Having started our collaborative course Facebook Project, our discussion will shift from the idea of sociological autobiography to biography. Sociologists Ferdinand Tönnies, Robert Park, Benedict Anderson and Audrey Sprenger's theories of community will be presented alongside a full length screening of the visual community study, Hands On A Hard Body (1997).  Paul Shoebridge & Michael Simons' digital community study, Welcome To Pine Point (see Week 2), will also be revisited.  In preparation for next week students will start Part 3 of their Facebook Project. Instructions will be assigned via email.  They will also start to think a little more formally about what it means to look at the world as academic, scientific sociologists do, which is in scientific or analytic, (i.e., what we have been calling in class, theoretical), terms.  All of the academic, scientific sociologists and their theories we have studied so far (i.e., Du Bois, Thomas, Mead, Cooley, Goffman, Tönnies, Park, Anderson) will also be re-visited.


6

The very basics of academic, scientific sociology are laid out this week and defined in relationship to practical and narrative sociologies. Students learn about the theoretical ideas of Auguste Compte, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud and W.E.B. Du Bois and how to make a distinction between macro and micro theories. Scenes from the narrative film Songcatcher (2000) will be screened to tell the story of ethnomusicologist Olive Dame Campbell and introduce the idea of studying real live people versus simply theorizing about them. In preparation for next week, students start becoming familiar with three different sociological research methods: ethnography, survey research and sociological experiments.