166-244 The Development of Social and Political Theory

Note

Available as 166-344 at 3rd-year level.

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Normally 25 points of first-year Politics; students with only 12.5 points in Politics may apply to the 2nd/3rd-year coordinator.

Contact

Subject Description

An introduction to core perspectives and debates in contemporary social and political theory, from the 1920's to the present. Consideration will be given to the changing relations between self and society, selfhood and culture, sexuality and gender; the trajectory and development of modernity; and the methodological transformations affecting the social sciences today. Of the major traditions of social theory considered, the following are central: the Frankfurt school, structuralism and post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism and postmodernism. On completion of this subject the student will have: knowledge of the major traditions of social theory prominent today; developed a critical appreciation of institutional changes affecting personal, political and cultural life in the late modern age; explored problems concerning relations between self and society, subjecthood and culture, sexuality and gender.

Assessment

Essay work totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• A Elliott, Social Theory and Psychoanalysis in Transition: The Polity Reader in Social Theory.