MAPS 30000 Perspectives in Social Science Analysis Autumn 2020 PDF

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MAPS 30000

Perspectives in Social Science Analysis Autumn Quarter 2020 Instructors Mark Hansen, Chad Cyrenne, Darcy Hughes Heuring, Samantha Fan, John McCallum, Amit Anshumali, Cate Fugazzola, Victoria Gross, Dawn Herrera, Ella Wilhoit, Sophie Fajardo, Resney Gugwor, Julius Jones, Sarath Pillai, Wen Xie, Yan Xu Lecture Posted by Monday by 4:30 p.m. Chicago time (–5:00 hours GMT) on Canvas. Discussion section Name of Preceptor Time Zoom link on Canvas You should attend the section led by the preceptor to whom you have been assigned. Your section will become your M.A. Thesis Workshop in the Winter Quarter. Preceptors will post their office hours availability. Mark Hansen ([email protected]) will hold office hours on Mondays from 3:30 to 5:30 on Zoom. Objectives of the course Perspectives in Social Science Analysis is an introduction to graduate-level research and writing in the social sciences. It has two primary objectives. First, Perspectives will familiarize you with some of the main traditions of theoretical argument in the social sciences today so that you can participate effectively in your courses. Second, together with your methods course, Perspectives will enhance your ability to formulate and execute a successful master’s thesis. Each week, a member of the MAPSS staff will present an overview of a “perspective” on the nature of social life and individual behavior. They will draw upon readings deemed to be exemplary of the perspective as applied in empirical research. Each week, you should learn o What is entailed in making an argument from the perspective; o The main assumptions that undergird the perspective; o The central concepts that analysts in the perspective deploy; o The methodological affinities of researchers in the perspective; o The points of advantage and points of critique. Each week, you will discuss the perspective in seminar with your preceptor and your classmates. In addition to the week’s common readings, the preceptors have each selected a reading intended

to relate the perspective to the more specific interests of the students in their section, in order that you have an idea of how the ideas in the perspective have influenced your area of interest. Some of you will enter Perspectives to find the way (or ways) of thinking about social life and individual behavior that is most congenial to you. Others of you may know the perspective you already favor. Either way, we intend that the course will give you deeper insight into each perspective, that it will unsettle you in the encounter with the familiar, and that it will stimulate you in the encounter with the unfamiliar. As you will see during your time in the program, some of the most important work in the social sciences is the product of scholars who were willing to think beyond the confines of a single perspective. Evaluation The evaluation of your performance in Perspectives will be based primarily on three papers. In the first essay (2 to 3 pages), you will present a close reading and analysis of one of the section readings. This assignment is due the evening before your section meeting in third week. The second assignment (3 to 5 pages) will require you to develop an “external critique” of one of the section readings. It is due the evening before your section meeting in sixth week. For the final assignment (8 to 10 pages), you will apply two perspectives to your own M.A. thesis topic. A perspective might serve your research as an inspiration or as a foil. The last assignment will be due on Wednesday during finals week. Specific instructions for each assignment will be provided one week before the due date. The first paper will count for 20 percent; the second, 30 percent; and the last, 40 percent of your grade. The remaining 10 percent of your grade will depend upon your participation in your section. You should come to your section having done all the readings and having prepared to participate in the discussions. Diversity, Inclusion, and Disability In this course we will explore challenging ideas, unfamiliar arguments, and ways of viewing the world that may differ markedly from our own. Our conversations, both in and out of the classroom, present an opportunity to interrogate our assumptions about the social sciences and each another. This will require an open mind, patience, and mutual respect. If at any point you are not treated with respect, or you have concerns about a conversation you have had or witnessed, please do not keep it to yourself. Contact our program’s diversity and inclusion representative Darcy Heuring, Mark Hansen, or another trusted member of the MAPSS program staff as soon as possible. The MAPSS website also has links to other forums for addressing concerns, including concerns raised anonymously. We also welcome your suggestions for how we might improve our efforts to foster an inclusive learning environment where everyone feels welcome and treated equitably.

This course is open to all students who meet the academic requirements for participation. Any student who has a documented need for accommodation should contact Student Disability Services (773-702-6000 or [email protected]) and Mark Hansen as soon as possible. Academic Honesty It is imperative that we all know how to distinguish between our own ideas and statements and those of others. You are expected to acknowledge the contributions of others in your work. If you have any questions about acceptable and unacceptable use of others’ research and writings, please consult Charles Lipson’s Doing Honest Work in College (University of Chicago Press, 2008), two chapters of which are in the Course Documents on Canvas, and/or contact your preceptor before submitting your work. Readings Orientation Week: Introduction to Perspectives Wayne C. Booth, et al., The Craft of Research (University of Chicago Press, 2016): chapters 1–11, 13–14. Week 1: Feminisms Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Vintage Books, 2011 [1949]): Introduction, pp. 1– 17; Childhood, pp. 283–312; Married Woman, pp. 439–50, 511–23. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Cambridge: Pluto Press, 2000 [1984]): chaps. 1, 4. Week 2: Critical Race Theory Derrick A. Bell Jr., Race, Racism, and American Law (Little, Brown, 2008 [1973]): section 1.9 to 1.14, pp. 26-50; section 7.2 to 7.4.3, pp. 542-560; section 7.6.5 to 7.7, pp. 586-616; section 7.11 to 7.12, pp. 634-61. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, 6 (July 1991): pp. 1241-1299. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2012): chap. 3. Week 3: Post-Structuralism Michel Foucault “Foucault,” in Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose, eds., The Essential Foucault (New Press, 2003): pp. 1–5. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Vintage, 1995): I.1, pp. 3-31; I.2, pp. 47-50; III.3, 195-228.

“Lecture 2 – 14 January 1976,” in Colin Gordon, ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980): pp. 92108. “The Birth of Social Medicine” in Rabinow and Rose, The Essential Foucault: pp. 319-337. Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” Ch. 8 in Stephen Morton and Stephen Bygrave, Foucault in an Age of Terror (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): pp. 152-82. Week 4: Rational Choice Gary S. Becker Economic Analysis of Human Behavior (University of Chicago Press, 1976): chap. 1. “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach,” Journal of Political Economy 76, 2 (1968): 169-217 (chap. 2 in Economic Analysis of Human Behavior). “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory,” Journal of Political Economy 70, 1 (1962): 1–13 (chap. 8 in Economic Analysis of Human Behavior). Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1990): chaps. 1, 3, 6 [part], pp. 1-28, 58-102, 182-185 Week 5: Marxism The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert Tucker, 2nd ed. (W. W. Norton, 1978): Karl Marx, from the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859): pp. 3–6. Marx, from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844): pp. 70–105. Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach” (1845): pp. 143–45. Marx, from The German Ideology (1845–46): pp. 148–75. Marx, Wage Labour and Capital (1849): pp. 203–17. Marx, from Capital (1867): pp. 302–08, 319–29. Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 2000 [1983]): chaps. 1, 2. Week 6: Structuralism W. E. B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1899): chaps. 9, 16. Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology 78 (May 1973): 1360-80. Mario Luis Small, Someone to Talk to: How Networks Matter in Practice (Oxford University Press, 2017): chaps. 5–7. Week 7: Cognitive Science Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, “Racial identification and preference in Negro children,” in E. L. Hartley, Readings in Social Psychology (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1947): 169–178.

Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, “Emotional factors in racial identification and preference in Negro children,” Journal of Negro Education 19/3 (Summer 1950): 341–50. Solomon E. Asch, “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Scientific American 193, 5 (1955): 31-35. Leon Festinger and James M. Carlsmith, “Cognitive consequences of forced compliance,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, (1959): 203-11. Leon Festinger, “A theory of social comparison processes,” Human relations, 7, 2 (1954): 117-140. Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Basic Books, 2006): chaps 1 and 2 (pp. 1-44). Week 8: Cultural Hermeneutics Zora Neale Hurston Mules and Men (Harper/Collins, 2008 [1935]): Preface (by Franz Boas), Introduction, and chap. 1. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo." (New York: HarperCollins, 2018); Foreword, Introduction, Preface, and chaps. 1, 2, pp. x-xxv, 7-32. Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” Daedalus 101, 1 (Winter 1972): 1-37. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973) pp. 3-30. João Biehl, “Life of the Mind: The Interface of Psychopharmaceuticals, Domestic Economies, and Social Abandonment,” American Ethnologist 31, 4 (2004): 475–96. Week 9: Thanksgiving Week (no class) Week 10: Historical Narrative E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Vintage, 1966 [1963]): Preface and chap. 14, section 2, 4, 6. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W.W. Norton, 2008): Introduction, chaps. 9, 15, 28 (pp. 592-605 only), and 29 (pp. 613-628 only)....