Sociology of Domination
Javier Auyero
FALL 2009 Tuesdays 3 PM – 6 PM
Power and domination are terms frequently used in sociological research but their very definition remains controversial in social theory. This seminar seeks to examine various (both classical and contemporary) theoretical understandings of power and domination and to study diverse ways in which these concepts have been deployed in empirical research. The seminar is opened to beginning and advanced graduate students.
FORM
The course follows a mixed lecture-seminar format, combining formal presentations, short lectures, and group discussion. The requirements are threefold:
1. Weekly electronic reading notes: every Tuesday before 9 AM, participants will submit reading notes (1 single space page maximum) to the instructor and to each other by e-mail. These notes should include: a brief summary of the main points of the readings; a couple of paragraphs outlining possible connections between the assigned readings; a paragraph of questions/topics you would like to discuss in class
2. Active participation in class discussions, including two short oral presentations on a given set of readings. Presentations should be done in groups of two.
3. A term paper of no more than 15 pages. The paper can criticize and contrast two or more of the authors studied, deploy their ideas in the course of an empirical research, etc. Term paper topics should be submitted for approval by the instructor by week 9 (one page abstract).
SCHEDULE (readings mark with * will be on blackboard)
Week One:
Kafka, F. The Trial.
Lukes, S. Power. A Radical View. Second Edition.
Week Two:
* M. Weber, “The Types of Legitimate Domination” in Economy and Society (pp. 212-246).
* K. Marx, Section IV, Chapter I, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secrete Thereof,” in Capital, “Theses on Feuerbach,” The German Ideology, Part I, [Tucker, R. The Marx-Engels Reader pp. 143-200]
Week Three:
*M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” in Dialectic of Enlightenment
* H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Chapter 12, pp.437-459).
* L. Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” in Lenin and Philosophy
Week Four:
* R. Williams, Part II “Hegemony,” in Marxism and Literature.
M. Burawoy. Manufacturing Consent.
RECOMMENDED:
A.Gramsci, Prison Notebooks [5-14; 125-239]
E.P. Thompson, “Introduction: Custom and Culture,” “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism,” in Customs in Common. S. Hall “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms.”
J. Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness. Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley.
Week Five:
M. Foucault, Selections from Discipline and Punish (pp. 3-31, 135-228, 231-256) . Selections from Power/Knowledge (“Two Lectures,” “Truth and Power”).
* D. Kirk, Schooling Bodies. School Practice and Public Discourse 1880-1950 (pp. 5-65).
RECOMMENDED:
S. Hays, Flat Broke with Children. Women in the Age of Welfare Reform.
J. Gilliom, Overseers of the Poor. Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy.
Week Six:
* M. Foucault, “Governmentality,” in The Foucault Effect.
A. Petryna Life Exposed. Biological Citizens after Chernobyl.
Week Seven:
P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, An Introduction to Reflexive Sociology (pp. 1-59)
*P. Bourdieu The State Nobility (Foreword and pp. 1-53).
P. Bourdieu. Language and Symbolic Power (Editor’s Introduction, Chapters 1, 3, and 5).
RECOMMENDED:
P. Bourdieu and J.C. Passeron, Reproduction
McLeod, J. Ain’t No Making It.
Willi,s, P. Learning to Labor.
Week Eight:
P. Bourdieu. The Logic of Practice (pp.1-65).
* L. Wacquant, “Pugs at Work: Bodily Capital and Bodily Labour Among Professional Boxers,” * “The Pugilistic Point of View. How boxers think and feel about their trade,” * “A Fleshpedler at Work.” Alford and A. Szanto “Orpheus Wounded: The experience of pain in the
professional worlds of the piano” *
RECOMMENDED:
L. Wacquant. Body and Soul.
Week Nine:
P. Bourdieu, Masculine Domination
N. Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering
GUEST: Christine Williams
RECOMMENDED:
J. Benjamin, Bonds of Love
Week Ten:
P. Bourgois and J. Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend
* T. Gowan “The Nexus: Homelessness and Incarceration in Two American Cities.”
Week Eleven:
J. Auyero & D. Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.
G. García Marquez. No One Writes to the Colonel.
Week Twelve:
* M. Comfort “Papa’s House: The Prison as Domestic and Social Satellite”
L. Wacquant, Selections from Punishing the Poor