Readings in Social Theory

Preface

Introduction: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism: An Overview

Part One: The Classic Tradition

1. Karl Marx: Alienation, Class Struggle, and Class Consciousness

Introduction

From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party

From Karl Marx, The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof

From Karl Max and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology

2. Emile Durkheim: Anomie and Social Integration

Introduction

From Emile Durkehim, The Rules of Sociological Method

From Emile Durkheim, "Egoistic Suicide and Anomic Suicide"

From Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

3. Max Weber: The Iron Cage

Introduction

From Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

From Max Weber, "Bureaucracy"

From Max Weber, "Class, Status, Party"

From Max Weber, "Power, Domination & Types of Authority"

4. Georg Simmel: Dialectic of Individual and Society

Introduction

From Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life"

From Georg Simmel, "The Stranger"

5. George Herbert Mead: The Emergent Self

Introduction

From George Herbert Mead, "Mind, Self, and Society"

Part Two: Contemporary Sociological Theory

6. Functionalism

Introduction

From Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, "Some Principles of Stratification"

From Talcott Parsons, "The System of Modern Societies”

From Talcott Parsons, Age and Sex in the Social Structure of the United States

From Robert K. Merton, "Manifest and Latent Functions"

7. Conflict Theory

Introduction

From Ralf Dahrendorf, "Social Structure, Group Interests, and Conflict Groups"

From C. Wright Mills, "The Structure of Power in America"

From Richard L. Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, "The Ironies of Diversity"

8. Exchange Theory and Rational Choice

Introduction

From Peter Blau: "The Structure of Social Associations"

From James Coleman, "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital"

9. Phenomenological Sociology and Ethnomethodology

Introduction

From Peter Berger, "The Sacred Canopy"

From Harold Garfinkel, "Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities"

10. Symbolic Interaction

Introduction

From Herbert Blumer, "Society as Symbolic Interaction"

From Erving Goffman, "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"

From Arlie Hochschild, "Exploring the Managed Heart"

Part Three: Modernism and Post-Modernism

11: Critical Theory

Introduction

From Herbert Marcuse, "One-Dimensional Man"

From Jurgen Habermas, "Religion in the Public Sphere"

12. Post-Modernism

Introduction

From Michel Foucault, "The Carceral"

From Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge"

Part Four: After Post-Modernism

13. Sex, Gender, Queer Theory

Introduction

From Dorothy Smith, "Women's Experience as a Radical Critique of Sociology"

From Patricia Hill Collins, "Black Feminist Thought"

From Candace West and Don Zimmerman, "Doing Gender"

From Steven Seidman, "Deconstructing Queer Theory"

14. Critical Race Theory

Introduction

From David Hollinger, “The Concept of Post-Racial”

From From W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

From From Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory

From Anthony Appiah, "Reconstructing Racial Identities"

Part Five: Globalization

15. Global Society: Two Perspectives

Introduction

From David Held and Anthony McGrew, "Divided World, Divided Nations"

From Joseph Stiglitz, "Globalism's Discontents"