Theories of Society and Development

Catalog description

This course explores the development of social theory from the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century to contemporary debates about the status and limits of sociological knowledge. It introduces the key texts of the most influential forerunners of modern sociological thought - Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel - in the context of the social and political transformations of their time. The course is organized into two parts. The first part explores the contrasting accounts of modernity developed by these classical social theorists, placing particular emphasis on aspects of their thought concerned with the nature and direction of society as a whole. The second part examines contemporary critical engagements with the classical heritage from a variety of vantage points: globalization, postmodernism, feminism, race and cultural difference, and notions of multiple or alternative modernities.