Sociology - Recent Theoretical Perspectives
Semester 3 · 15 topics in 5 units
Unit I 2 topics
- Nature of sociological theory: concepts, theories and paradigmsWhat a theory is, how sociological theory differs from social theory, the characteristics of sociological theories, and how concepts, theories and paradigms (Kuhn, Ritzer) fit together.5 min
- Levels and elements of theory; theory and researchGrand theory and middle range theory, Turner's four elements of theory (concepts, variables, statements, formats), and Merton's account of how theory and research shape each other.5 min
Unit II 3 topics
- Social structure: Radcliffe-Brown and Nadel's problem of role analysisRadcliffe-Brown's concept of social structure as a network of actual social relations, structural form, the organic analogy and function; and S.F. Nadel's attempt to build social structure out of roles.5 min
- Talcott Parsons: social action, the social system and AGILParsons's voluntaristic theory of action and the unit act, the social system and pattern variables, the AGIL scheme, and the functional prerequisites of a society.5 min
- Merton's empirical functionalism, social structure and anomie, and neo-functionalismMerton's critique of the three postulates of functionalism, his paradigm of functional analysis, the five modes of adaptation in Social Structure and Anomie, and Jeffrey Alexander's neo-functionalism.5 min
Unit III 3 topics
- Emergence of conflict theory; Marx on class conflict and alienationWhere conflict theory came from and why it rose against functionalism; Marx's theory of class and class conflict, the four forms of alienation, and the main criticisms of Marxian theory.5 min
- Ralf Dahrendorf's dialectical conflict theoryDahrendorf's two faces of society, authority in imperatively coordinated associations, latent and manifest interests, quasi-groups and interest groups, and the conditions governing the intensity and violence of conflict.5 min
- Conflict functionalism of Simmel and CoserSimmel's view of conflict as a form of sociation, and Coser's functions of social conflict: realistic and non-realistic conflict, safety-valve institutions, group binding and the conditions that make conflict functional.5 min
Unit IV 3 topics
- Feminism and sociology: historical roots and principlesWhat feminism is, its development in three waves from Wollstonecraft to intersectionality, Indian roots, the feminist critique of malestream sociology, and the core principles of feminist theory.5 min
- Marxist, liberal and postmodern feminismMarxist feminism from Engels to the domestic labour debate, liberal feminism from Wollstonecraft to Friedan, and postmodern feminism from Beauvoir's Other to Butler's performativity, with criticism of each.5 min
- Eco-feminism and Black feminismEco-feminism from d'Eaubonne to Vandana Shiva and Chipko, with Bina Agarwal's critique; Black feminism from Sojourner Truth to the Combahee River Collective, bell hooks, Crenshaw's intersectionality and Dalit feminism in India.5 min
Unit V 4 topics
- Classical theories of modernity and the idea of modernisationHow Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Simmel each read modern society, and what modernisation means, its characteristics and its process, with the Indian discussion by Yogendra Singh and M.N. Srinivas.4 min
- Giddens's juggernaut of modernity and Beck's risk societyGiddens on time-space distanciation, disembedding, trust and reflexivity in high modernity; Ulrich Beck on manufactured risk, reflexive modernisation, the boomerang effect and individualisation.5 min
- George Ritzer: McDonaldization, globalization and AmericanizationRitzer's four dimensions of McDonaldization and the irrationality of rationality, its roots in Weber, grobalization and glocalization, the globalization of nothing, and Americanization.4 min
- Derrida, Foucault and the critics of modern social theoryDerrida's life, works and deconstruction (logocentrism, binary oppositions, differance); Foucault's discourse, power/knowledge, the panopticon and biopower; and the postmodern critique of modernity with the replies of Habermas and others.6 min