Saint-Louis University - Bruxelles
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ESPO1161 - Sociology



Credits : 5

Lecturer :
Mode of delivery :
Face-to-face , first term, 30 hours of theory.

Timetable :
First term
Thursday from 10:45 to 12:45 at 109 Marais 210

Language of instruction :
Dutch (and some English reading).

Learning outcomes :
The course is an in-depth introduction to sociology. Rather than surveying the field, it explores some of the field's classics and key-authors. So doing, it aims at raising the students' awareness about the stakes at play in each sociological undertaking. These stakes are theoretical, practical, but also political and even existential. Debates and divergences amongst sociologists will thus be emphasized. More generally, the course aims at giving the students the necessary reference points and overall understanding of sociology for their future orientation in the social and human sciences.

Prerequisites :
None

Co-requisites :
None

Course contents :
We'll start by introducing the use and stakes of the disicipline and more particularly the sociological imagination i.e. the kinds of framing and problematising offered by sociology (William Thomas, Charles Wright Mills, a.o.). Then we'll spend a few sessions studying and exploring social inequality, its objective and subjective dimensions as well as the connexion between class, gender and race inequality. We'll conclude by tackling thories on collective identitaties and comunity dynamics.
Next, we'll look at modern society. What does modernity (and post-modernity, see Bauman a.o.) mean today ? What did it mean in the past ? And, last but not least, what are the structural evolutions that characterize this modern society. More specifically, we'll look at secularisation (from Weber onwards), globalisation (Castells a.o.), consumption society (Baudrillard a.o.) and risk society (Beck a.o.)
Only then will we go back in time and look at the fouders of socioloy (Durkheim, Weber). During the last sessions we'll explore theories of cultural performativity in its broadest sense (Clifford Geertz, Judith Butler, a.o.).



Planned learning activities and teaching methods :
The course is of the participatory kind. Students will have to prepare the sessions by reading 20 pages or so of a manual. During class, the teacher will develop what was read, delve into it or extend the exploration, half by answering questions, half by lecturing. The exam assesses all that has been read, prepared, given and developed as well as the reading and basic understanding of some extra scientific articles, but nothing more. The collective elaboration of knowledge and shared exploration of the discipline is at stake here.

Assessment methods and criteria :
Open-book oral exam.

Recommended or required reading :
Manual / Course's leitmotiv:
Rudi Laermans, 2012, De maatschappij van de sociologie, Amsterdam : Boom.
Extra required reading:
• Charles Wright MILLS, 1959, “Chapter 1: The promise” in The sociological imagination, Oxford University Press.
• Bea CANTILLON en Natascha VAN MECHELEN, 2013, Armoedebestrijding en sociale zekerheid: barsten in een beleidsparadigma, Centrum voor Sociaal Beleid Universiteit Antwerpen.

• Ta-Nehisi COATES, 2015, Tussen de wereld en mij, Amsterdam University Press.
• Kimberlé CRENSHAW, 1989, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Femenist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, University of Chicago Legal Forum, volume 1989, issue 1, pp. 139-167.
• Judith BUTLER, 1990, “Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions” in Gender Trouble : Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge, pp. 128-142 (existe aussi en français, Trouble dans le genre, éditions La Découverte, pp. 248-266).




Other information :
Face-to-face , first term, 30 hours