Readings Schedule PDF

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Reading schedule for the year...

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4. Required Readings Textbook: Deborah Brock, Aryn Martin, Rebecca Raby and Mark Thomas (eds.) Power and Everyday Practices Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Second Edition, 2019. (You will also find this textbook referred to as PEP.)   

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Be sure to purchase the second edition (2019) of this textbook, as it has been extensively revised. Of required readings, only textbook chapters are included in the syllabus. You will find them listed by week and topic. Additional required readings and course materials will be posted on the course Moodle website. These include power point slides, videos, short introductory lectures, readings, etc. These materials, or links to these materials, will be available by the Wednesday of each preceding week. Some required readings can be found in the York University Library system. Direct links to these readings will be provided on Moodle. It is your responsibility to download your own copies of these readings. If material posted on Moodle is optional/not required, it will be clearly listed as optional. Otherwise, assume that you are responsible for knowing it.

Schedule (for tutorials held the week of date specified) This schedule lists textbook readings only. You will find plenty of additional required course materials on the course Moodle website. Please give your careful attention to the descriptions and questions that frame each topic below, and to the questions and exercises listed at the end of each textbook chapter. Sept 4: Connect with the course on Moodle and familiarize yourself with the introductory content. Confirm that this is the right course for you! Mandatory course material for the week of September 9 will already be available online. Sept 9: Introduction: Unpacking the Centre What is the centre? Why is it necessary to move beyond an analysis of what happens at the margins? What are the implications for the study of power? Reading: ‘Introduction: Unpacking the Centre’ Sept 16: Thinking about Power 1 How are the ways that you have learned to think about power in your everyday life reflective of power as authority and domination? Why does Marxist theory conceptualize power as domination? How does this approach to power remain relevant and important?

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Reading: ‘Part One: Foundations’ and Ch 1, pp 19-24 and (end of chapter) textboxes on Marx and Gramsci Sept 30: Thinking About Power 2 How does Foucault deepen our understanding of how power works? What is the connection between discourse, power and knowledge? Why does Foucault believe that power in contemporary western societies is most effective through normalization? What does it mean to be governed, to govern oneself, and to govern others? Reading: Ch 1, pp 24-40 and (end of chapter) textboxes on Foucault and Hall Sept 30: Assembling Our Tool Kit How do we learn about the world? How do we know what knowledge we should believe or reject? What are the strategies and tools used for interrogating representations and discourses? Reading: Ch 2 Oct 7: The Politics of Representation, Post-Colonial Thought, Indigenous Ways of Knowing What do you think is meant by “the politics of representation”? How do representation, discourse and ideology shape our perception of everyday objects, people, and practices? How can understanding the politics of representation provide a means for us to critique everyday colonialism and representations of Indigeneity, and open ourselves to alternative (e.g. Indigenous) ways of knowing? Reading: Re-visit the discussion of these topics in Ch 1 and 2. Oct 14:

Reading Week

Oct 21: Test One Oct 28: Fashioning the ‘Normal’ Body Slender, fit, abled and industrious describe contemporary western expectations for a normal body, despite the significant number of people who do not match these expectations. What is the history behind the idea of the normal body? How are these expectations socially produced? Why should we challenge them? Reading: ‘Part Two: The Centre, Normalization, and Power’ and Ch 3 Nov 4: Trans* Gender How are scientific beliefs about biological sexes grounded in cultural beliefs about gender? How have western science and culture reduced bodies to a dualism of two sexes (female/male) and 2

two genders (woman/man)? What are some of the ways in which transgender theory and politics challenge normative assumptions about bodies, genders and sexualities? Why is transgender analysis an exploration of gender, rather than sexuality? Reading: Ch 4 Nov 11: Thinking ‘Straight’ How has heterosexuality come to be understood as normative sexuality? How does our analysis move us beyond liberal claims for tolerance and equal rights, toward a fundamental re-thinking of sexuality? Reading: Ch 5 Nov 18: Whiteness Invented Why can we say that ‘race’ is always contingent on the social and historical context that gives it meaning? How are the everyday experiences of racialization and racial ordering a part of your life? What social spaces can you identify that are considered to be raceless, but in which whiteness occupies the centre? Reading: Ch 6 Nov 25: Being “Middle Class” Why do so many people claim to be middle-class, while their actual social and economic location might indicate otherwise? How is class produced in contemporary Western capitalism? What is neoliberalism, and what is its significance for how we see ourselves now? Reading: Ch 7 Dec 2: Review and Writing Exercise (10%) Jan 6: Growing Up, Growing Old What is the life course? What are some of the limitations of this concept? How can age-based categories be ‘unpacked’ to reveal their social construction and relational character? Reading: Ch 8 Jan 13: Belonging: Citizenship and Borders Borders are as much ideological and discursive as they are real in their effects. What is the role of borders in the making of the nation state and the meanings of citizenship? Reading: Ch 9 3

Jan 20: Test Two Jan 27: Science, Matter, and Power When we look at the history of science, how can we see ‘the social’ shaping the determination of scientific ‘truths’? How does this demonstrate a need to turn a critical eye to contemporary scientific truth making? As you undertake this analysis, please do not lose sight of the importance of evidence-based research. Reading: ‘Part Three: Everyday Practices’ and Ch 10

Feb 3: Are you “Normal”? How has the pathologization of contemporary western societies occurred? Why can we say that we live in a therapeutic culture? How does neoliberalism influence the ways in which we are governed, govern ourselves, and how we govern others, as we are compelled to seek “our own best selves”? What are some alternatives? Reading: Ch 11 Feb 10: Going Shopping How are our ‘free choices’ practices of neoliberal governance? What are some of the techniques of neoliberal governance of our consumer practices? How are both Marx and Foucault’s approaches to power useful for analyses of everyday activities such as shopping? Reading: Ch 12 Feb 17: Reading Week Feb 24: Are you Financially Fit? How have strategies for financial fitness become normalized? How is our relationship to money governed in neoliberal times? What are some alternatives to our current system? Reading: Ch 13 March 2: Let’s Get a Coffee! Why should we do a sociology of coffee? What power relations are found in a cup of coffee? Using the analysis provided here, how would you conduct an analysis of Toronto coffee shops and coffee culture?

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Reading: Ch 14 March 9: Being a Tourist How does the concept of ‘the west’ function? How was it historically created? Why can it only be understood in relation to ‘the rest’? How has tourism developed as a practice of citizens of the west? What is the ‘tourist gaze’? Reflect on your own experiences as a tourist. How does this chapter resonate for you? Reading: Ch 16

March 16: Imagining ‘Indians’ What are some common mis-representations of Indigenous peoples? How have Indigenous peoples been constituted as ‘the rest’ in ‘the west’? How do the Indigenous young people discussed in this chapter challenge everyday colonialism? (Without either dismissing or idealizing Indigenous peoples…) how might an appreciation of Indigenous knowledges, practices, and rights reveal alternatives to dominant ways of knowing and doing in contemporary western societies? Reading: Ch 15, and review the related discussion in chapter one. March 23: Conclusion/Wrap Up/Review Reading: Conclusion March 30: Test Three

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