This text provides an accessible survey of Western social thought from the early twentieth century to today by tracing the emergence, evolution, and consequence of ideas expressed by recognized social and political theorists as well as poets, novelists, and visual artists.
Note: Every chapter includes:
- Learning Objectives
- Introduction
- Conclusion
- Questions for Reflection
Intoduction
Part One: From Disillusionment to the Abyss
1. Modernism and Discontent
The Great War
Durkheim and Weber: Nationalism and
Gender
- Emile Durkheim
- Max Weber
Modernism and Doubt
- Varieties of Modernism
Early Feminism
Virginia Woolf
- The Feminine Construction of Reality
- Feminism and Patriarchy
2. The Bolshevik Revolution and Western Marxism
The Anti-Soviet Internal
Émigrés
Theories of Reform and Revolution
The Bolshevik Revolution
The Nature of the Revolution
- Stalin and Soviet State Socialism
- Bolshevism and the "Woman Question"
European Marxism
- Karl Korsch
- George Lukács
Fordism
- Antonio Gramasci
3. The
Polarized 1930s
The Chicago School
- William Thomas
- Robert E. Park
- Helen MacGill and Everett Hughes
Literature and Art: Social Realism
- John Steinbeck
Depression and Keynesianism
African-American Social Thought
- Marcus Garvey
The Harlem
Renaissance
- Langston Hughes
4. Fascism and Critical Theory
Futurism and Fascism in Italy
Nazism in Germany
- Nazism and Women
Friendly Fascism
The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory
- The Culture Industry
- Walter Benjamin
Part Two: From
Repression to Rebellion
5. Theory and Society in the Cold War
Cold War and the Intellectuals
Sociology During the Cold War
Talcott Parsons and Structural Functionalism
- Social Systems
- Pattern Variables
Robert Merton
- Functions and Dysfunctions
-
Deviance and Social Structure
The "Red Scare"
American Dissidents
Behaviourism
Exchange Theory
- Rational Choice Theory
6. Post-War Critical Social Thought
White-Collar Angst
The Middle Mass at Mid-Century
C. Wright Mills
- Status Panic and the
Work-Leisure Split
- Mills on Power
Post-War Feminism
Simone De Beauvoir
- The Second Sex
Margaret Mead
Betty Friedan
Post-War African-American Social Thought
- Civil Rights
Black Power
- Malcolm X
- Angela Davis
7. Existentialism, Counter-Culture,
and McLuhan
Existentialism and the Absurd
- Phenomenology and Heidegger
Albert Camus
- The Absurd and Existentialist Revolt
Jean-Paul Sartre
- Freedom, Bad Faith, and The Flies
- Search for a Method
The 1950s Counter-Cultures
- The Beats
- From
Counter-Culture to Pop Culture
Media and Marshall McLuhan
- The Medium Is the Message
- The Gutenberg Revolution
- The Electronic Age and the Global Village
8. Post-Colonial Social Thought
Frantz Fanon
- Black Skin, White Mask
- Fanon and Algeria
- The
Wretched of the Earth
Evolution and Development
Underdevelopment and Dependence
- Andre Gundar Frank and Underdevelopment
- Dependent Development and Branch Plant Economy
Immanuel Wallerstein
- New Age of Transition
Edward Saïd
PART Three: From Radicalism to
Juggernaut
9. The New Left and Feminism
Counter-Cultures
The New Left
Herbert Marcuse
- Eros and Civilization
- One Dimensional Societies
Che Guevara
- Guerilla Warfare
- From Guerilla Warfare to Bureaucracy
- The New Human Being
Second-Wave
Feminism
- Kate Millett
- Shulamith Firestone
Dorothy Smith
- Relations of Ruling
- Women's Standpoint
10. Structuralism, Interactionism, and Foucault
Lévi-Strauss and Structuralism
- Louis Althusser
Interactionism
Erving Goffman
- Asylums and
Stigma
- Dramaturgy and the Presentation of the Self
Herbert Blumer and Symbolic Interactionism
- Meanings and Interpretive Action
Harold Garfinkel
- Taken-for-Granted Features of Routine Life
- Ethnomethodology
The Social Construction of Reality
- Society as
Objective Reality
Michel Foucault
- Madness and Civilization
- Archaeology of Knowledge
- Genealogy of Knowledge/Power
11. Post-Structuralism and Third-Wave Feminism
Postmodernism and Post-Structuralism
- The Failures of the 'Left'
- The Rejection of
Enlightenment Rationalism
- Discourse and Deconstruction
Jean Baudrillard
- The Consumer Society
- The Death of the Political and the Social
Third-Wave Feminism and Gender
Patricia Hill Collins
bell hooks
Judith Butler
- Performativity
- Radical
Resignification
12. Social Theory in Late Modernity
Neo-Liberal Globalization
Jürgen Habermas
- Early Critical Theory
- Communicative Action
- Lifeworld and System
Anthony Giddens
- Class Structuration
- The Duality of Agency and Structure
- Late or
Radical Modernity
- Utopian Realism
- Identity and Life Politics
Pierre Bourdieu
- Distinction
- Volume and Structure of Capital(s)
- Habitus and Field
Conclusion: Twenty-First-Century Socialism Ecology
Glossary
Notes
Index
Instructor's Manual:
For each chapter:
Detailed lecture outline
5-10 discussion questions
4-6 suggestions for primary source readings
3-5 suggested media resources with 3-5 discussion questions for each resource
E-Book (ISBN 9780199020898)
Anthony Thomson was a professor in the Department of Sociology at Acadia University until his retirement in 2015. He earned his B.A., B.Ed., and M.A. from Dalhousie University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. In addition to social theory, his areas of interest include
intellectual history, post-revolutionary societies, Canadian labour history, and criminal justice. He is the author of The Making of Social Theory: Order, Reason, and Desire, 2e (OUP, 2010).
