Forums
This week, we begin thinking through what it means to examine the world sociologically. Berger states,
"Any intellectual activity derives excitement from the moment it becomes a trail of discovery...The excitement of sociology is [not always to penetrate] worlds that had previously been quite unknown...for instance, the world of crime, or the world of some bizarre religious sect, or the world fashioned by the exclusive concerns of some group such as medical specialists or military leaders or advertising executives. [M]uch of the time the sociologist moves in sectors of experience that are familiar to him and to most people in his society..."
Think about your everyday life and begin asking questions about how it comes to be. Why do I brush my hair or my teeth? Why do I eat where and what I eat? What brought me to college, to this college?
This week we will be exploring the implications of language, sign systems, and signification. What is a sign, a signifier, a signified? How does language work to produce our cultural reality? See if you can link non-verbal communication and Goffman's view of everyday life to the ideas presented by Oswell in this difficult chapter on language.
This week we will examine what it means to do research. How do sociologists look at the world, gather data, and make sense of that data? What are the various methods we have at our disposal for understanding the world around us? What are their strengths and weaknesses? To what type of research do you find yourself drawn?
This week we read about various forms of deviance and obedience. We explore the various ways that meaning gets made, symbolic life gets constructed, and humans believe in their changing symbolic worlds. Think about your own symbolic life. How are you subject to the definitions of your world? In what ways do you conform to the world around you? Are their things you would do differently if you felt empowered?
This week we deal with the notion of race. From a biological perspective, race no longer exists. Yet the effects of race and racism continue to negatively impact large number of humans. Race continues to be profoundly linked to income, wealth, incarceration, educational attainment, employment opportunities, and status. What are the implications of these facts? How are we to contend with and understand race as a social reality? In what ways are each of us impacted by the realities of race?
This week we read about the global impact of technology and how networking as both a concept and a material reality has fundamentally altered our social world. The topic is huge and requires that you think simultaneously about the entire global matrix of humanity as well as the very micrological realities of experience. Some questions you might ask are: How has networking and the Internet changed what it means to be human? What kinds of cultural practices exist solely because of (networked) computers? Is the Internet a social structure? In what ways do globalization and technology connect? How do networked technologies impact your life? How would your life change if you lost all of your communication technologies?
This is our week to discuss the sociology of religion. For better or worse, one of the markers of every society is some sort of religious belief system. While science in the era of capitalism has tried to challenge some fundamental notions of the 'belief' in god, religion remains a primary characteristic of all societies on the planet. Think about your own relationship to religion. What beliefs do you hold? Where do they come from? How do the create a particular kind of 'reality' for you and others? What are the sacred aspects of this reality, and how is behavior (your's or other's) directed, constrained, enhanced, or controlled by this reality?
This weeks readings focus on how we are socialized as gendered beings. There are a number of interesting things to think about when dealing with gender and socialization. How much is gender learned behavior? How much is biological? What are the ways men and women learn to communicate differently? What types of problems do these differences create? Is it possible to change your gender without changing your biological sex? What would happen you you suddenly changed your gender role? In what ways did you learn gender?
This week we read about inequality, status and stratification. When you think about your own experience at BC, how has this institution impacted who you are? In what ways do you perceive stratification operating here? What different types of status function at BC and in what ways? How do these types of status and stratification help create the realities on campus? What are your experiences of other types of institutions? What institutions have the deepest impact on who you are as a person?
Every human society creates rituals and taboos surrounding death and the processes of dying. What function do these rituals serve? How do you understand the particular rituals of death and dying in your cultural field? How do you think these rituals impact memory, ancestry, and family? What institutions surround the death and dying process and in what ways do these institutions determine acceptable practices? What are your personal views of the death and dying? From where do those views emerge?
This week we read about conceptions of popular culture and everyday life. Can you think of ways that power relations get played out in popular culture? How are you involved in popular culture? How does popular culture impact your daily life? What is everyday life and how is it co-produced along side popular culture?
This week we deal with the concept of identity and how identity impacts equity in the social world. How does race and gender impact your everyday life? Can you think of yourself in racial terms? Can you understand how your gender produces the way you engage in the world? Did you have resistances to the readings for this week? Why do you think that is?
Exploring the ideas of Technology and Culture last week might give you good fodder for examining some of the larger implications of power. Can you think of ways that Oswell's conceptions of power impact your daily life? In what ways might you feel the effects of ideology? How do you live out hegemony at this moment in history (you might want to address economic-class here)? Can you think of ways that your identity might be marked by power, following Laclau and Mouffe? What about culture as regulatory? Might you address the ways post-industrial culture regulates your behavior (perhaps you might consider Woolgar's 'configuring the user')? And for the really brave, can you make sense of bio-power (discussed in Oswell pp. 70-71 and 149-156)? In what ways is your life-world marked, changed and/or impacted by the manipulation of life itself?
Economic Sociology questions many aspects of classic economics. What differences do you see between economic sociology and economics proper? Are their ways you might understand your own life differently when thinking of economic sociology? What about your assumptions regarding economics? Are there things you can garner from this readings about the financial crisis and our current economic situation?
For lack of good PDFs, we return to Oswell this week. This reading is a bit easier and should give you some interesting insight regarding Marx and recent changes in the mechanisms of capitalism. What is the relationship of language to the commodity in late capitalism? Can you make connections between sign systems and commodification? How does Althusser understand structure and how do those structures impact you? What is the relationship between economy and culture?
This week we read about globalization and what it means from a corporate culture perspective and a world historical perspective. What are the implications of globalization? How does it impact your life? How might it impact the lives of others in other parts of the world? What are the social implications of this phenomenon?
Based on last week's class, I want you to think about social change as an active process that involves institutions and agents and, more specifically, agents reactions to institutional structures. We addressed two things in Wednesday's class pertinent to the readings for this week. One, the way BC students create stereotypical, hyper-sexualized gender roles for women (in the party scene). Can you explore this phenomenon in relation to the Women in the Military article? Second, the fundamental violation of your privacy by the BCPD. In what ways should the BCPD change their practices? What ways can you think of to pursue those changes? Can you imagine yourself as an agent of change on the BC campus? Why or why not?
This week we push the limits of propriety and discuss the symbolic implications of the clitoris, the male orgasm, college gender norms for women, the vaginal exam, and dead bodies. Why not go out with taboos? Can you take the time to think of these topics sociologically? What are the implications for gender, sexuality and pleasure? In what ways does stigma play a role in these topics? Can you talk about them, write about them, and how does doing so impact your experience?
This week we read about cyborgs, the body, life as a cultural concept and culture as a living concept. Take this as a free form blog (since I'm certain most of you didn't read). Maybe you could reflect on the ritualized social process of thanksgiving. Who does the cooking in your family? Who plays what roles? What are the various cultural signs you saw this week?