166-484 Sociology 4A Advanced sociological theory

Note

This is a compulsory subject for Sociology Honours

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission into Honours Sociology

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject examines major theoretical orientations defining contemporary sociology, with particular emphasis on the problems around which they converge, and the competing research directions that these orientations give rise to. The subject examines major approaches to the questions of actor and system - from the contemporary re-emergence of symbolic interactionism and sociologies of action to neo-functionalist analyses of complexity and contemporary system theory. The subject focuses on the current shift from classical sociology, which link system and actor within the nation-state, to the attempts to construct sociological analyses of contemporary social transformation. The subject is designed in a seminar format, where students linking debates in contemporary sociological theory to the research projects around which theses are organised.

Assessment

Essay work totalling 6,000 words

Prescribed Texts

• A. Touraine, Critique of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
• Jeffrey Alexander, Structure and meaning: rethinking classical sociology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.