Daily Schedule and Announcements Page

Note: This page is subject to change; check it regularly

Fri. Sept. 5 : The Discovery of Society: Early Visions of Sociology
Read Collins and Makowsky (C&M), Introduction and Chapter 1.

Complete all bulleted tasks to the right by Monday.

for Part One readings. Please use it and come prepared to respond to the questions for this and the next two classes.

PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Complete the following tasks before next Monday's class at the latest:
Access the online syllabus. Read it carefully and explore its links. Remember that your print copy may soon be outdated.
Sign into the Sakai course website and post a response to my question on Online Class Discussion forum no later than Sunday night. Read your classmates' responses for class discussion on Monday.
Update your email address if necessary at https://www.acs.rutgers.edu:8892/studentdir (this is important for receiving course and departmental emails). Be sure to keep your registered email address current in order to receive important course and departmental information.
Get a Student Photo ID (available from the Impact Booth in the Campus Center) right away if you don't have one.
Familiarize yourself with the department website, including the resources at its web-enhanced curriculum. Pay special attention to the plagiarism and citation webpages.
Declare your sociology major at the registrar's office if you have not already done so (this is important for getting departmental news and information)

The Dead Sociologists Index has useful supplementary material on Auguste Comte. Having read about Comte's obsession with Clotilde, you may want to check out Project Clotilde, which includes a portrait of her.

(click on appropriate link to access text)
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Please prepare by using the
for Marx readings.

Recommended: Marx & Engels Internet Archive

Be sure to use the reading guide on the left to prepare for class discussion and to master the material.

Wed. Sept. 17: Marx and Structural Political Economy
Read: Marx, "Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)" (online) and
Lewis Coser, A Summary of Ideas:"The Sociology of Knowledge" at Dead Sociologists Index (online) and
Marx on the "opium of the people" (useful Wikipedia online discussion for Marx and MicroCase question)
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Prepare for the Marx and MicroCase assignment. MicroCase CP can be accessed in three ways: 1) It can be accessed in the Statistics Folder in all the student computer labs. 2) The program and five data sets may be downloaded separately from the Sakai site and installed on your home computer. 3) You may borrow a program disk and install the full program and all its data sets (about 600 megabytes worth) on your computer. It is posible that you may have installed it for another course.

Mon. Sept. 22: Marx and Anthropology
Read: Salzman, Ch. 4: Determining Factors: Cultural Materialism and Political Economy, pp. 49-66, and "Contra Materialism," pp. 130-131 and

PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Wed. Sept. 24: Background to de Tocqueville: Marx, the Enlightenment, and the Anti-Modernists
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout
Marx and MicroCase Exercise due at the beginning of class.

Fri. Sept. 26: Alexis de Tocqueville on Democratic Barbarism and Liberty
Read C&M Ch. 3 on Alexis de Tocqueville
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Explore: Democracy in America website
Strongly Recommended for Sakai Online Class Discussion: Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." An interesting "deTocquevillian" analysis of contemporary American society. See also "The Tocqueville Files" for critiques of Putnam.

Nietzsche, Repression and the Irrational
Read: C&M, Ch. 4 and "The Madman" (online)
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Please prepare for this class and the next by using this

Recommended: one hour BBC film on Nietzsche on YouTube:

Study guide for first exam available

For a useful primer on Darwin, watch Evolution Primer#2: Who Was Charles Darwin? on YouTube

Recommended: The Emile Durkheim Archive. Note: Depending on your browswer and printer, you may find that the links on the left to readings from this website may not print out properly. What I did was to highlight and copy the text, paste it into a Word document, and print it out from there.

Fri. Oct. 10: Durkheim's Suicide: A Study in Sociology
Read: Lewis Coser, "Individual and Society," at Dead Sociologists Index (online) and Kenneth Thompson, "Suicide" (online)
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Be sure to read the two online readings on the left for this class!

Wed. Oct. 15: Durkheim and Functionalism in Anthropology
Read: Salzman, Ch. 2, Interdependence in Human Life: Social Structure and Function, pp. 13-30, and "Contra Functionalism," pp. 128-129.
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Mon. Oct. 20: Film: Margaret Mead: An Observer Observed (excerpts)

Durkheim and MicroCase Short Paper due at the beginning of class.

Explore: Vershehen: Max Weber's HomePage

For a cute little video on Weber's basic methodological ideas, check out Sociology: Max Weber on YouTube
Please use the reading guide to prepare for class discussion in this section on Weber. Bring the reading material to class each day.

 Mon. Nov. 3: In Weber's Footsteps: Cultural Meaning and Ethos
Read: Salzman, Ch. 5, Coherence in Culture: Dominant Patterns and Underlying Structures, pp. 67-86, and "Contra Culture Patterns," pp. 131-132 and
David Berreby, "Unabsolute Truths: Clifford Geertz," [Sakai Resources]
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Study Guide and Essay Questions for Exam 2 available

Mon. Nov. 17: The Chicago School and the Theory-Research Divide
Read: C&M Chapter 10: The Discovery of the Ordinary World: Thomas, Park, and the Chicago School

Wed. Nov. 19 : W.E.B. DuBois
Read: C&M Ch. 11: The Emergence of African-American Sociology: DuBois..." pp. 175-190.
Film Excerpt from W.E.B.DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices
No PowerPoint today

Mon. Nov. 24: The Sociological Imagination
Read C&M, Ch. 13 (Michels, Mannheim, Mills), pp. 206-228 and
Excerpts from Mills, The Sociological Imagination
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout

Fri. Dec. 5: Sociological Theory & Science
Read: Stephen Cole, "Why Sociology Doesn't Make Progress Like the Natural Sciences." Sociological Forum 8,1 (1994) part one and part two [Sakai Resources]
PowerPoint Presentation - PDF Handout