Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Pauline Johnson
Contact via pauline.johnson@mq.edu.au
W6A 833
Other Staff
Shaun Wilson
Contact via shaun.wilson@mq.edu.au
W6A829
Tues 5-6
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Credit points |
Credit points
3
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
12cp
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
Modernity is characterised by a number of specific developments such as: democracy, capitalism, industrialism, nationalism, individualism and bureaucratisation. These are partly antagonistic, partly complementary tendencies. In this unit we will be examining these diverse trends through the prism of a range of classical theories of modern society. We will consider from among the following: Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim, Mead, the Frankfurt School and Foucault. None of these has the key but we suggest that all remain a vital source of illumination into tendencies and potentials of the contemporary world.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Due |
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workbook | 20% | Ongoing |
Exercise 1 | 20% | week 4 |
Exercise 2 | 20% | week 6 |
Exercise 3 | 20% | week 9 |
Exercise 4 | 20% | week 13 |
Due: Ongoing
Weighting: 20%
Tutorials start in week 2 and are compulsory. In the tutorials, you will have an opportunity to discuss questions raised in the lectures, enter debates about the readings, and participate in class exercises. Attendance of tutorials is compulsory. Given that this is a course on social theory, your success will depend on your tutorial participation. The tutorials are also the place where you can prepare yourself for the written tutorial exercises.
Tutorials require your attendance and participation. They are your “space” where you can raise questions, discuss and clarify readings, concepts or other questions around the unit. Only you can make the tutorial work for yourself. Thus, you will need to prepare for each class. This will mean doing the readings for each week and attend the lecture.
In addition to the participation in the tutorial you are required to keep a workbook. The workbook should contain your reflections on lectures, the tutorial and the readings. It should also be about questions that come to your mind as you prepare for each week, comments about topics, summaries of the readings or questions that emerge as we go through the course week by week.
We will collect the workbook including your reader at the end of the course (week 13) in order to be able to assess your engagement with the material of the course. The workbook is part of the participation mark (20%).
Due: week 4
Weighting: 20%
Tutorial Exercises 1 - 4
You are required to write four (4) tutorial exercises. Each exercise has to be 600 words long. The task at hand is to choose one (1) of the provided questions from a week (before the due date of the exercise) and answer it by using lecture material, the required reading(s) and the suggested readings as provided in the outline.
600 words is not much. You will need to be concise and get straight to the point. We are not asking for a summary of a theorist‟s work but we are asking you to work out a specific idea about modern societies as developed by a theorist.
Due: week 6
Weighting: 20%
Tutorial Exercises 1 - 4
You are required to write four (4) tutorial exercises. Each exercise has to be 600 words long. The task at hand is to choose one (1) of the provided questions from a week (before the due date of the exercise) and answer it by using lecture material, the required reading(s) and the suggested readings as provided in the outline.
600 words is not much. You will need to be concise and get straight to the point. We are not asking for a summary of a theorist‟s work but we are asking you to work out a specific idea about modern societies as developed by a theorist.
Due: week 9
Weighting: 20%
You are required to write four (4) tutorial exercises. Each exercise has to be 600 words long. The task at hand is to choose one (1) of the provided questions from a week (before the due date of the exercise) and answer it by using lecture material, the required reading(s) and the suggested readings as provided in the outline.
600 words is not much. You will need to be concise and get straight to the point. We are not asking for a summary of a theorist‟s work but we are asking you to work out a specific idea about modern societies as developed by a theorist.
Due: week 13
Weighting: 20%
Tutorial Exercises 1 - 4
You are required to write four (4) tutorial exercises. Each exercise has to be 600 words long. The task at hand is to choose one (1) of the provided questions from a week (before the due date of the exercise) and answer it by using lecture material, the required reading(s) and the suggested readings as provided in the outline.
600 words is not much. You will need to be concise and get straight to the point. We are not asking for a summary of a theorist‟s work but we are asking you to work out a specific idea about modern societies as developed by a theorist.
Changes since last offering. No changes.
Technologies used. This unit has a presence on ilearn and you will be required to have regular access to a reliable broadband internet connection and a computer.
Required Readings.
Week 1 Introduction to Theories of Modernity No required readings
Week 2 Karl Marx Marx, Karl „Manifesto of the Communist Party‟ The Marx-Engels Reader R.C. Tucker (ed.) Norton and Co. (1972) pp. 473-500.
Week 3 Karl Marx Marx, Karl „Estranged Labour‟ The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844) The Marx-Engels Reader R.C. Tucker (ed.) (W.W. Norton and Company Inc. 1972).
Week 4 Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche: “Signs of Higher and Lower Culture‟ Human, All Too Human A Book For Free Spirits, University of Nebraska Press (1984).
Week 5 Max Weber Weber, M. 'Science as a Vocation' From Max Weber. Gerth and C.W. Miller (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967) pp. 129-156.
Week 6 Max Weber Weber, Max. 'The Spirit of Capitalism' The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (London: Unwin University Books, 1974), pp. 47-78. Ehrenreich, B. ‟The Dark Roots of American Optimism‟ Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (London: Granta: 2009).
Week 7 Émile Durkheim Durkheim, E. (1933) „The Anomic Division of Labour‟ The Division of Labour in Society, The Macmillan Co.pp. 353 – 373.
Week 8 Émile Durkheim Coser, L. (1984) „Introduction‟, to É. Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, Palgrave: London, pp. ix – xxiv.
Week 9 George Herbert Mead Mead, G. H. (1972) Mind, Self and Society. From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, pp. 135 – 226 (excerpts), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London.
Week 10 The Frankfurt School Horkheimer, M. „Rise and the Decline of the Individual‟ The Eclipse of Reason (Continum, 1974). Week 11 Michel Foucault Foucault, Michel. „Panopticism‟ from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, pp. 195-228 (Allen Lane, 1975).
Week 12 Agnes Heller Heller, A. and Ferenc, F. (1988) „On Being Satisfied in a Dissatisfied Society‟, in The Postmodern Political Condition, Polity: Cambridge, pp/ 14-30.
Course Calender | |||
1 | Lecture (no tutorial!) | Theories of Modernity: Themes of the course | |
2 | Lecture & Tutorial |
de Tocqueville |
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3 | Lecture & Tutorial | Karl Marx | |
4 | Lecture & Tutorial | Karl Marx | |
Tute exercise 1 is due (20%)! | |||
5 | Lecture & Tutorial | Nietzsche | |
6 | Lecture & Tutorial | Max Weber | |
7 | Lecture & Tutorial | Max Weber | |
Tute exercise 2 is due (20%)! | |||
MID SESSION BREAK | |||
MID SESSION BREAK | |||
8 | Lecture & Tutorial |
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9 | Lecture & Tutorial | Émile Durkheim | |
10 | Lecture & Tutorial | The Frankfurt School | |
Tute exercise 3 is due (20%)! | |||
11 | Lecture & Tutorial | Michel Foucault | |
12 | Lecture & Tutorial | Agnes Heller | |
13 | Lecture & Tutorial | Conclusion | |
Tute exercise 4 is due (20%)! |
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