THE FALL SEMESTER UPON US

And come next Tuesday, I shall be flying up to NY every week to teach with Todd Gitlin.  For those who are interested, here is the syllabus:

Mystifications of Social Reality

SOCI GU4600

Fall 2019

Tuesdays, 2:10-4 pm

Pulitzer Hall 202

Instructors:  Professors Todd Gitlin (Sociology, Journalism, Communications) and Robert Paul Wolff (Philosophy, Afro-American Studies)

I.                    Rationale for the course

            The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were marked by the discovery of a new object of systematic inquiry in addition to Nature and the Individual:  Society.  First Economics, then Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science developed strikingly new understandings of the actions, beliefs, and institutional arrangements of men and women in society, which were seen as obeying regular laws not derivable from, or reducible to, either the laws of nature or the laws of individual behavior.  But these new disciplines, which came to be called the Social Sciences, were different from their predecessors in one fundamental and centrally important way:  They revealed the study of society, and indeed society itself, to be mystified, ideologically encoded, shaped and distorted by the interests and beliefs of men and women even though those living in society or studying it often were oblivious of this fact.

            In this course we shall read in depth a series of texts by authors who explored the ideological mystifications of social reality in their disciplines.  The goal of the course is not merely to inform students of these authors and their ideas but to strengthen the ability of students to understand their own involvement in, indeed complicity in, ideological mystification.

II.                  Major Readings [there may be other assigned and suggested readings and videos]

1. Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One; Communist Manifesto; “Alienated Labor” [Economics]
2. Max Weber, Economy and Society [Sociology, https://archive.org/stream/MaxWeberEconomyAndSociety/MaxWeberEconomyAndSociety_djvu.txt]
3. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [Sociology, History; https://www.ttu.ee/public/m/mart-murdvee/EconPsy/1/Weber_Max_1930-2005_The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism.pdf]
4. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia [Political Sociology]
5. Edwin Wilmsen, Land Filled With Flies [Ethnography]
6. Charles Mills, The Racial Contract [African-American Studies]
7. Robert Paul Wolff, Autobiography of an Ex-White Man [African-American Studies]
8. Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams:  Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars [Sociology]

III.       Weekly assigned reading

Sept. 3:            Intro to seminar.  No assigned reading

Sept. 10:          Marx, Communist Manifesto (1848); “Alienated Labor” (1844)

Sept. 17:          Marx. Capital, Chapters 1-6

Sept. 24:          Marx, Capital, Chapters 7-10

Oct. 1:             Weber, Economy and Society, Part One, Chapters I and III, i-v

The Types of Legitimate Authority: The Basis of Legitimacy, The Three Pure Types of Authority: Traditional Authority, Legal Authority, Charismatic Authority; pp. 212-231,  241-254

Oct. 8:             Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

                        Short paper due

Oct. 15:           Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, Parts I and II

Oct. 22:           Mannheim, Part IV

Oct. 29:           Wilmsen, Land Filled With Flies. Watch Professor Wolff’s four YouTube lectures on

                        Wilmsen. The first is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbU3yW2xIGE.

                          Students should bring comments and questions.

Nov. 5:             Mills, The Racial Contract

Nov. 12:          Wolff, Autobiography of an Ex-White Man

Nov. 19:          Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams (excerpts)

Dec. 3:             General discussion and afterthoughts

Dec. 14:           Final paper due

III.               Writing Assignments

Each student is required to submit a 7-10 page mid-term essay on a topic of the student’s choosing, and a 15-20 page final essay due December 13.  The topic of the final paper must be approved by the Instructors no later than November 12.  Students are asked to submit two hard copies of assigned work, one for each Instructor, along with an electronic copy.

IV.                Grading

 Roughly one-third of the grade will be based on the mid-term essay and two-thirds on the final essay, with adjustments made on the basis of class participation.

V.                Supplements

Students who wish to explore the subject matter of the seminar in greater depth are invited to read Professor Wolff’s two books on the thought of Karl Marx, Moneybags Must Be So Lucky and Understanding Marx, the remainder of his book on race in America, Autobiography of an Ex-White Man, and to watch on YouTube his series of lectures on The Thought of Karl Marx and the other six lectures not assigned in his series of lectures on Ideological Critique.

It will also be beneficial to read Max Weber’s essays, “Science as a Vocation” and “Politics as a Vocation,” both online.