Theory Study Guide #2

Please arrive on time on Monday, November 13th for the second exam. You should bring your typed essay with you. The multiple-choice part of the exam will count for 50% of your exam grade; your essay the other 50%. . Bring a #2 pencil with a good eraser.

In working on the question you choose, keep in mind that these are questions that require you to take an analytic approach to the readings and other course materials. Simply describing what the readings say is insufficient--your job is to analyze them in terms of the specific issues raised by the question you choose. I do not encourage the use of websites other than those assigned; any ideas or statements taken from online sources must be properly credited and cited in APA style.

A Note on Plagiarism. You are responsible for having familiarized yourself with the information on plagiarism at the department’s website. In addition, however, let me try to be clear about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in terms of group work. I do not mind if you discuss the questions in a general way with others. However, you should not get down to the level of defining common answers to the question, and no written work should circulate among students . If I receive essays that have common wording and/or content, both will be considered plagiarized and will receive Fs. Learn from others in general discussion, but make it your own work when you get down to writing.

1. Max Weber once cited Nietzsche and Marx as the two most important theorists for his generation. Discuss how the influence of each can be seen in Weber's work. What do you think Weber meant by his famous statement? How did he use the ideas of these two theorists? How did he change or revise them?

Note: Be as specific as possible in your discussion of each of these three questions. If you take this question, you will want to go back and review the sections on Marx and Nietzsche.

2. Many scholars believe that Durkheim’s book, Suicide: A Sociological Study, was an attempt to deliver on the claims for sociology that he had made in Rules of the Sociological Method. Write an essay that addresses the following questions:

Note: Be specific as possible in each part of this question. Provide detail to support what you say

3. Suppose that Marx, Durkheim and Weber were to return to this world and to engage each other in a discussion of whose theory had best withstood the test of time. Construct a script in which they debate the continued usefulness and correctness of their basic theoretical insights and in which they respond to the claims of the others. At the end of the script, introduce your own voice and state what conclusion you would draw from their discussion.

Note: Your task in your script will be to show mastery of the key theoretical ideas of these three theorists and an understanding of how their applicability to contemporary societies could be debated, pro or con. (Introducing a touch of humor into the discussion is ok, but don't lose sight of the key objective of this essay option.)

Study Guide for Multiple-Choice Questions

Emile Durkheim:
His focus on the bases of social order
Key ideas in The Division of Labor in Society: precontractual solidarity; mechanical vs. organic solidarity; society as a moral order.
Durkheim's analysis of the functions of crime
Rules of the Sociological Method: The concept of social facts. Durkheim's three central claims in this book.
Suicide: why Durkheim chose to study suicide and why he thought he could explain it sociologically; his central argument and two key independent variables; the four types of suicide. Durkheim's conception of the relationship between society and the individual.
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: what Durkheim was trying to do in this work and what his research strategy was; his analysis of the relationship between religion and society. The sacred and the profane. What he meant by saying: "god and society are one."
Durkheim's main shortcoming, according to Collins and Makowsky

Functionalism and Durkheim's legacy in anthropology
Know who Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown were
Holism and interdependence
Synchronic ethnography and the "ethnographic present"
The nature of functionalist analysis in anthropology

Know the distinction between etic and emic analysis and be able to recognize examples of each

Max Weber:
His tribute to Nietzsche and Marx
His "sociology of world history"
Verstehen
Ideal Types
Sociology's "eternal youth"
Weber's relationship to positivism
His theory of stratification; three competing principles of group formation. Three stratification orders and what it means to call their relationship "problematic."
His definition of the state and his typology of authority. Be familiar with his discussion of charisma and the concept of the routinization of charisma.
Rationalization and the rise of capitalism. The "disenchantment of the world."
The "peculiarity" of the spirit of capitalism
His argument about the role of Protestantism in the rise of capitalism
Logical vs. psychological consequences of ideas. Unintended consequences.
The iron cage
The ethic of ultimate ends vs. the ethic of responsibility

Margaret Mead (from the film as well as Salzman and class discussion:
The influence of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict
The plasticity of culture
Cultural relativism
Culture and Personality
Cultural determinism and the rejection of biology
From "salvage anthropology" to scientific problems
Her public role on behalf of anthropology

Clifford Geertz: his notion of culture. His focus on meaning and ethos. Explication and thick description. Interpretive anthropology.
Contexualization. Geertz's "anti-anti-relativism."
Claude Levi-Strauss: Deep structure and the social patterns of daily life.

What Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead,Clifford Geertz and Claude Levi-Strauss have in common with each other and with Weber.

Freud:
The unconscious and repression. The importance of The Interpretation of Dreams in leading him to these insights.
Id, ego, superego.
Freud as a "sociologist"
The basic argument in Civilization and Its Discontents

Be able to answer questions relating to the Durkheim and MicroCase Exercise. You may be asked to interpret a relevant scatterplot.

November 5, 2006