Social Theory began as an attempt to come to grips with the massive social transformations in Europe beginning around 1500. Modernity was understood in three ways. It concerned the development of a capitalist economy based on the use of science to develop new technology, the emergence of states with bureaucracies allied with military organizations, and the decline of religious authority as the main arbiter of moral values accompanied by the rise of the model of the self-interested purposive actor. Social theory was produced not just to create an understanding of these changes and the problems they caused, but also to be used to propose how society ought to be structured. In this class, we examine how classical thinkers, like Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim among others, proposed how to analyze those changes and in doing so created theories of society.

These are exciting times for classical social theory – the canon of Marx, Weber and Durkheim is under assault. In this course we will consider one such challenge coming from recent interpretations of W.E.B. Du Bois as founder of US sociology. He lived a long and productive life from 1868 to 1963. In the face of his challenge there are different views as to what to do with the canon – restoration, retreat, revolution or reconstruction. This course will take the latter perspective by bringing Du Bois into conversation with Marx, Weber and Durkheim. The course will progress through Du Bois’s life by starting with The Souls of Black Folk (1903) in dialogue with Emile Durkheim’s Division of Labor in Society; proceeding to Darkwater (1920) in dialogue with Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and various essays such as Bureaucracy and Class Status and Party; and ending with Black Reconstruction (1935) in dialogue with Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engels), The German Ideology, Wage Labor and Capital and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. We will begin with alternative perspectives on the relation between W.E.B. Du Bois and the existing canon; we will end with an assessment of those perspectives. This course is ONLY open to first year sociology graduate students.

This course is ONLY open to first year sociology graduate students

Credit Restrictions

Students will receive no credit for 201A after taking 201.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.