UCSD
SOC/A 100: CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
REQUIRED READINGS:
Robert C. Tucker editor, The Marx-Engels Reader.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Hans Gerth & C. Wright Mills editors, From Max Weber.
The Durkheim Reader (from University Reader Printing Service).
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents.
Reading assignments:
INTRODUCTION (August 3)
I. KARL MARX (August 5 & 10 )
From Robert C. Tucker editor, The Marx-Engels Reader:
1. "Theses on Feuerbach" ( numbers III, IV, XI) , pp.107-9.
2. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, "Estranged (or Alienated) Labor," pp.56-67 & "Private Property and Communism," pp.67-75.
3. The Communist Manifesto, pp.335-353.
4. "Preface" to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, pp.3-6.
5. Capital, Part I, Chapter I, Section I: "The Two Factors of a Commodity," pp.198-204; Section 4: "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof," 215-225; Part III, Chapter VII, Section 2: "The Production of Surplus Value" 239-249 Chapter XIII: "Cooperation," 272-276, Section 4: "The Factory," 295-299 (?), Chapter XXX--II: "Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation," 316-318.
And Chapter VI: The Buying and Selling of Labor Power, pp. 167-176 from the Reader, pp. 1-8.
6. "Letter to Joseph Bloch," pp.640-642.
7. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, pp.436-525.
II. Max Weber (August 12, 17 & 19)
1. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, pp. 13-128, 155-183.
From Hans Gerth & C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber:
2. "The Social Psychology of World Religions," pp. 267-292 (also pp.358-359).
3. "The Sociology of Charismatic Authority," pp.245-250.
4. "Bureaucracy," pp.196-239.
5. "Class, Status, and Party," pp.180-195.
6. "Politics as Vocation," pp.77-128.
7. "Science as Vocation," pp.129-156.
8. "Religious Rejections of the World and their Directions," pp.323-350.
Midterm (August 19, in class)
III. Emile Durkheim (August 24 & 26)
From the Reader:
1. The Division of Labor in Society
Reader, pp.9-30
Chapter 7: Organic Solidarity and Contractual Solidarity, 149-175
Conclusion, pp. 329-341.
2. Suicide: A Study in Sociology
Reader, pp.31-88.
Book Two: Chapter 1: How to Determine Social Causes and Social Types, 145-151
Chapters 2 & 3: Egoistic Suicide 152-216
Chapter 5: Anomic Suicide, pp. 241-276.
3. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Reader, pp.89-end.
Chapter 1: Definition of Religious Phenomena and Religion, section III, pp. 33-44
Chapter 7: Origins of these Beliefs: Origin of the Notion of Totemic Principle , or Mana: sections I-V: pp. 207-236
Conclusion: sections I & II: 418-433
IV. Sigmund Freud (August 31 & September 2)
1. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
2. Civilization and its Discontents.
Exam
RECOMMENDED READINGS: MARX:
Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx.
Kevin M. Brien, Marx, Reason, and the Art of Freedom.
Cyril Smith, Marx at the Millennium, 1996.
Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx : His Life and Environment, with a new foreword by Alan Ryan, 1996.
WEBER:
An excellent introduction to Weber's project is in Rogers Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality: An Essay on the Social and Moral Thought of Max Weber.
A very good overview of the current state of Weber scholarship is the collection of essays is Sam Whimster & Scott Lash, Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity, London, Allen & Unwin, 1987.
Donald Levine, "Rationality and Freedom: Weber and Beyond," Sociological Inquiry, 51:1, 1981, pp.5-25.
Gershon Shafir, "The Incongruity between Destiny and Merit: Max Weber on Meaningful Existence and Modernity," The British Journal of Sociology, 36:4, December 1985, pp.516-530.
Regis A. Factor & Stephen P. Turner, "The Limits of Reason and Some Limitations of Weber's Morality," Human Studies, 2:4, October 1979, pp.301-334.
Raymond Aron, "Max Weber and Power Politics," in Otto Stammer ed., Max Weber and Sociology Today, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1971, pp.83-100.
Robert J. Antonio & Ronald M.Glassman, A Weber-Marx Dialogue, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 1985.
DURKHEIM:
The best single introduction to Durkheim's life project is the Introduction to Robert Bellah ed., Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Jeffrey Prager, "Moral Integration and Political Inclusion: A Comparison of Durkheim's and Weber's Theories of Democracy," Social Forces, 59:4, June 1981.
Morris Ginsberg, "Durkheim's Ethical Theory," in Robert A. Nisbet ed. Emile Durkheim, pp.142-152.
Anthony Giddens, Studies in Social and Political Theory.
Stephen Turner ed., Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Moralist.
FREUD:
Charles, Brenner, An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis.
Bartlett H. Stoodley, The Concepts of Sigmund Freud.
C.R. Badcock, Essential Freud, 1988.
Anthony, Storr, Freud, 1989.
Ilham, Dilman, Freud and Human Nature.
BIOGRAPHIES:
Lewis Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought.
Jerrold Siegel, Marx's Fate.
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work.
Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber.
Paul Ferris, Dr. Freud: A Life, 1998.