166-092 Sociology 4A Advanced Sociological Theory

Note

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to Sociology Honours

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 they give rise to. The subject focuses on the current shift from classical sociology, organised around the nation state, to contemporary sociological analyses of globalisation and the contemporary theoretical movement of the return of the actor. Particular attention is given to major approaches to the questions of actor and system: as present in classical sociology, and as a framework to explore the contemporary re-emergence of symbolic interactionism and sociologies of action to neofunctionalist analyses of complexity and rational choice theory. The subject is designed in a seminar format, and links the theoretical questions being explored to student thesis work.

Assessment

A book review and essay totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• A Giddens, Modernity and Self-identiy: self and society in the late modern age. Stanford University Press 1991.
• N Luhmann, Social Systems. Stanford University Press 1991.
• E Goffman, Frame Analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press 1974.
• P Bourdieu, Sociology in Question. Sage 1993.
• J Elster, The Cement of Society: a study of social order. Cambridge University Press 1989.
• A Touraine, Critique of Modernity. Blackwell 1995.