How Societies Work (or Don't)

Undergraduate / Graduate

How do societies work? Why do they so often seem to break down and fail? Should we even expect societies to "work" as cohesive entities, or should we assume that they are always rife with conflict, inequality and power struggles? In in this class, we will address these and other questions by taking a deep dive into different schools of social thought: materialism, which sees the production of goods and services as the force that shapes social organization; structural functionalism, which argues that society's various parts work together to strengthen social cohesion; social action theory, which argues values, worldviews and social institutions (e.g. religion and family) shape individual activities; symbolic interactionism, which focuses on micro-relationships; and, finally, post-modernism, which avoids any over-arching theory of society. Through these explorations, we will also address topics such as race, class, gender, technology, capitalism and modernity. Our readings will include works by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, George Herbert Meade Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler and others.