UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

Classical Sociological Theory asks us to grapple with big questions about how our social world is organized and how it might be organized in the future to create a fairer world. Some of the questions the theorists in this course wrestle with include: What is modernity? What is progress? What utopic social order should we be working towards? What are the forms and consequences of the racial, gendered, and class-based division of labor? We will study the work of canonical theorists, such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber, as well as other early theorists who are also key to contemporary thought, such as Harriet Martineau, W.E.B Du Bois and others who theorized race and gender. Upon completing the requirements for this course, you can expect not only to have a solid knowledge of classical sociological theory but also a critical insight into sociology as a discipline. We will discuss how ''the canon'' of sociological theory was and continues to be constructed and its influence on contemporary scholarship.

Prerequisites

Graduate students in SOCIOL or permission of instructor