As the main advanced course in sociology and anthropology that can be taken during the second year of undergraduate studies at all Sciences Po campuses, Global Sociological Debates is a continuation of Introduction to Sociology, as well as an important complement to the other.- more descriptive, methodological and hands-on classes - which are mandatory in the Economy and Society major. However, it welcomes students from all three majors and will familiarize them with some of the main contemporary social scientific controversies and debates currently going on. It will achieve this through the presentation of several theoretical and analytical paradigms, as well as the study of their development, operationalization and consolidation through empirical research. The course will focus on major issues, selected for both their social and political relevance and their sociological complexity, including the multilevel tension between micro-, meso- and macro-explanations. It will also develop an international comparative perspective, showing how each of the issues and controversies addressed are structured and discussed in national- and regional-specific ways. Therefore, this will also be an introduction to how sociology and anthropology are practised and written in different countries, with distinct scientific and intellectual traditions, and to the complementarity between the transnational character of the main debates and how they are conjugated and renewed in particular contexts. 06.10.2024 1 The various sessions of the course will explore questions such as: How does sociology address and analyze individual merit and responsibility? How does it answer questions about what a just society might look like and what are acceptable levels of inequality? What are (if any) social explanations for love and other emotions? How and why should sociology study racialization? (Is it everywhere?) How to explain and prevent violence? How to explain and encourage creativity? Can anthropologists and sociologists fully understand and analyze the relationship of believers to God? The course will take place over the twelve weeks of the semester and will include one two-hour weekly lecture and one two-hour weekly section devoted to an in-depth discussion of two papers (scholarly articles or book chapters) previously read by the students. For these sections, students are divided into teams of about 20 with dedicated teaching assistants (chargés de conférence).
Your overall grade will be determined by 4 assignments.
In the context of the discussion sessions, whose grade counts for 2/3 of the overall grade:
- you will be asked to provide every week a few notes or answers about the texts assigned for reading (which will count for 40% of the discussion sessions' grade),
- you will have to give a brief presentation on one of the complementary readings (20%),
- and to sit for a midterm exam graded by your discussion teacher (40%).
In addition, at the end of the semester you will have to sit for a final exam, which will count for 1/3 of the overall grade.
As a teacher, I have two main intellectual goals for this course. The first is to introduce students to a kind of intellectual gymnastics: Being able to interpret the same phenomenon using different theoretical tools. The second one is to learn the art of theorising in Sociology, so to say to appropriate different rigorous theoretical languages, aware of the limits and potentials of each framework to deal with very controversial contemporary social issues.
Students should read all the assigned readings before the class and come to section's classes with comments and criticisms on the readings, to present the main contents, consistently participate in class discussions, and respect deadlines.
Two academic papers will be read each week. They will form the basis of the master lecture in the amphitheater and the discussion with the course assistants in the special sections.
A book: Nan de Graaf and Dingeman Wiertz. 2019.Social Problems as Public Evils. London: Routledge
Not as required reading, but as a reference book to help study and delve into different theoretical frameworks: George Ritzer & Jeffrey N. Stepnisky (2021).Sociological Theory. London: Sage (11th edition).
For exchange students who have never taken a sociology course, the following textbook will be very helpful and must be read during the summer: Frank van Tubergen. 2022.Introduction to Sociology. London: Routledge.