This course is an invitation to sociological theory. To others, it may sound irrelevant to our personal lives. It is true that theorists often write at some level of abstractness, and we will inevitably come across some abstract ideas. I have tried, however, to balance this with readings about more concrete things in our lives. Thus, we will encounter sociological theories as they are applied to the analysis of social problems, as well as in relatively abstract arguments.
Sociological theory is a diverse field.
We will look at four major theoretical camps, namely, symbolic interactionism, rational choice theory, functionalism, and conflict theory. Historically, sociology as a discipline developed in response to the changing conditions of modern society. Theorists struggled to understand and explain the course of the modernization of traditional societies. In the last few weeks of this course, we will look at how social theorists have analyzed some new social formations in our contemporary world. The response essays should summarize the main ideas of the readings and raise critical questions for class discussion.