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Course Description and Objectives:
This is a survey course in the sociology of culture. The course
will
introduce you to the major themes of a field that has "fuzzy
boundaries"--it is not an institution or social process that can
empirically be treated as distinct from others (e.g., family, religion
or the economy); it does not have have a well-developed and/or
relatively
standard set of methods that can provide an initial focus for
study; and, it is one of the fastest-growing areas of research, and so
"canonical texts" are both created and put out-of-vogue rapidly.
The course begins with an overview of the field, as others see
it. We then approach the field through several traditional
theoretical paradigms: Durkheimian, Marxist, Semiotic and Historical
Cultural Sociology. Our focus then shifts to units that some
would consider theoretical traditions, while others might identify them
as "units of analysis:" cultural fields, the production of culture,
consumption/reception, and production (the artists' view). We
spend the next week considering stratification in the U.S.--this will
introduce students to several audience studies. We then work
on "Culture Worlds," or monographs where scholars have examined a
single zone of production, text and reception in depth, and to
acclaim. We will wrap up the course with a week on programmatic
and prescriptive statements, and finally, return to where we started by
reexaming the early pieces that "set up the field" for us.
I have tried to ensure that the readings overlap as little as
possible
with material from other courses offered by the department. I
know that a generation of students has passed through our department
since this course was last taught, so I plan to offer some fresh
material and perspective for our students. I expect this course
will help students prepare for area exams, or for further study in the
Sociology of Culture. This course therefore strives to be both
broad and deep.
However, as with all exercises, the course will be what students make of it.
Requirements:
This course is a seminar, so it goes without saying that students are
expected to attend each meeting, do the reading thoroughly and in
advance, and participate actively in class. The emphasis is on
mastering the material and responding to it constructively and
creatively, with an eye toward your own research interests.
In addition to attendance, reading and participation, three other kinds of work are required:
a. For each week after the first, and
excluding the last three, students will volunteer to prepare brief
memos and presentations. Each memo (of about 1,000 words) should
be emailed to the class, no later than midnight, SUNDAY before
class. The memo should contain a brief précis of each reading,
and a set of synthetic, analytical questions for thought and
discussion. Students will lead discussion for half of the class,
using their questions as starting points for discussion—students should
prepare preliminary responses to the questions to prompt us. 15% of final grade.
b. Each student will prepare an annotation for one book in Week 11:
“’Best of’ Case Studies” (c. April 5th). We will hold a lottery
in Week 9 (c. March 22nd) to determine who will prepare which
text. The annotations should: identify the main questions,
theoretical foundation, methods, and findings of the text; suggest the
strengths and weaknesses of the text; and identify the most
helpful/useful/controversial portions. These are due to me in
digital form (in the text of an email, or as a Word or Rich Text Format
attachment) by midnight, Saturday before class. 15% of final grade.
c. Two essays (of about 2,500 words) addressing the course
material. Essays may not be based on current or future weeks’
readings (i.e., they must retrospectively react to the material),
and therefore must incorporate (but avoid repeating) class
discussion. Each essay must incorporate a through discussion of
at least two assigned readings, by different authors, and must
articulate a comparison based on a distinct concept/idea/passage.
Alternatively, more advanced students may write a literature review of
5,000 words using course material, and relating to an on-going or
future research project. These essays can be turned in on any
date, but are due to the instructor no later than noon on Thursday,
April 28th, 2005. 70% of final grade.
The course is open to any graduate student in Sociology, or other
social science departments. Students from other departments need
prior approval before enrolling. I must approve all auditing
students before the second week of class.
Readings
All required readings will be available for copying in the sociology
department copy room, from the reserves at the Central Library, online
from j-stor or another online source. This course website will
host a set of links to online resources for the course, including
reserve or digital copies of the readings.
I think the following books would be worthy additions to your
sociological library, and many of our course readings draw from them:
Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Steven Seidman (eds.)., Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.) AS
Crane, Diana (ed.). The Sociology of Culture. (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1994.) C
Mukerji, Chandra and Michael Schudson (eds.). Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). MS
Smith, Philip (ed.). The New American Cultural Sociology. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.) S
Plus, we will read substantial portions of the following texts:
Becker, Howard. Art Worlds. (Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1982).
Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process Volume 1: The History of Manners. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994).
I have NOT ordered copies of these books for purchase at the University
bookstore. I encourage you to procure them from independent
booksellers in the Nashville area (e.g., Davis Kidd, Bookman/Bookwoman,
Rhino Books) or oneline (e.g., Half.com, Labyrinth Bookstore).
Please budget your time wisely so that you will have copies of the
texts when you need them.
January 18
Week 1: Preliminaries: Orientation
Williams, Raymond, “Culture.” In Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Expanded edition. (New York: Oxford UP, 1976; London: Fontana, 1988).
Alexander, Jeffrey C.. “Analytic Debates: Understanding the Relative Autonomy of Culture,” pp. 1-27 in AS.
Skim:
Mukerji, Chandra and Michael Schudson, “Introduction: Rethinking Popular Culture,” pp. 1-61 in MS.
Recommended, but not required
Crane, Diana. “Introduction: The Challenge of the Sociology of Culture to Sociology as a Discipline.” Pp. 1-20 in C.
Peterson, Richard A.. “Revitalizing the Culture Concept,” Annual Review of Sociology 5 (1979): 137-166.
Smith, Philip. “The New American Cultural Sociology,” pp. 1-14 in S.
Here's one of the tables that I promised in class. This one is a standard 2 X 2 table, laying out the field of culture with respect to the axes: meaning/action and relations/objects.
And here's the second one...providing you an opportunity to schematize the main threads of theory we'll explore.
January 25
Week 2: Culture and Social Structure: Durkheim
Douglas, Mary, “Symbolic Pollution,” pp. 155-159 in AS.
Durkheim, Émile, The Elementary forms of Religious Life (Free Press, 1997). “Introduction” (pgs. 1-18), and “Conclusion” (pgs. 418-448).
Martin, John Levi, “What do Animals do all day? The division of labor,
class bodies and totemic thinking in the popular imagination,” Poetics, 27 (2000), pp. 195–231.
Sahlins, Marshall. “Food as Symbolic Code,” pp. 94-101 in AS.
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, “Sex as Symbol in Victorian purity,” pp. 160-170 in AS.
Recommended but not required
Alexander, Jeffrey. Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies.
Cambridge UP. 1990. Especially the Rothenbuhler essay ("The
Liminal Fight: Mass Strikes as Ritual Interpretation") and the Randall
Collins essay ("The Durkheimian Tradition in Conflict Sociology").
Douglas, Mary, “Jokes,” in Implicit Meanings (London: Routledge, 1975), pp. 90– 114. Also in MS.
Douglas, Mary. How Institutions Think. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986).
Durkheim, Emile and Marcel Mauss. Primitive Classification (University of Chicago Press, 1960). “The Problem” (3-10), “Conclusions” (81-88).
Geertz, Clifford, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” Pp. 239-277 in MS.
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. (London: Routledge Classics, 2001.) Available as an E-Book.
Merton, Robert K.. “The Normative Structure of Science.” Pp. 67-74 in AS.
This article from Prospect argues we should consider Durkheim the OG critic of free-market capitalism.
And crooked timber extracts a P on marriage to Desperate Housewives.
February 1
Week 3: Culture and Class: Marxism
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Mass Communication and Society, Pp. 349-383 in J. Curran, M. Gurevitch and J. Wollacott (eds.). (Beverly Hills: CA: Sage, 1979 [1977]).
Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” from Illuminations, Hannah Arendt (ed.). (New York, Schocken Books [1969, c1968]).
Berger, John. “The Suit and the Photograph,” Pp. 424-431 in MS.
Marx, Karl. From “The German Ideology” (146-186); “Contribution to the
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” (53-65); “The Manifesto of the
Communist Party” (473-483); “Capital, Volume 1” (319-329). In
Robert C. Tucker, editor, The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978).
Williams, Raymond, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory,” Pp. 407-23 in MS.
Willis, Paul, “Masculinity and Factory Labor,” Pp. 183-95 in AS.
Recommended, but not required
Bernstein, Basil, “Elaborated and Restricted Codes: Their social origins and some consequences,” American Anthropologist, 6 (1964), pp. 55–69.
Gramsci, Antonio, “Culture and Ideological Hegemony,” Pp. 47-54 in AS.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Storyteller.” Illuminations. Hannah Arendt (ed.). (New York, Schocken Books [1969, c1968]).
Marx, Karl. Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy.
Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire.
Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977).
Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. (New York: Schocken Books, 1975).
February 8
Week 4: Culture as Signification: Semiotics
de Saussure, Ferdinand, "The Linguistic Sign," pp. 28-46 in Innis, P (ed.), Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology. Indiana UP: 1985.
de Saussure, Ferdinand, “Signs and Language,” Pp. 55-63 in AS.
Volosinov, V. (aka Bakhtin?) "Verbal Interaction," Chapter 3 in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Seminar Press, 1973 [1929] Pages 83-98.
Barthes, Roland, “The World of Wrestling,” pp. 87-93 in AS.
Seidman, Steven, “AIDS and the Discursive Construction of Homosexuality.” Pp. 47-59 in S.
Recommended, but not required
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. (Austin, TX: U of Texas P, 1981).
Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Speech Genres.” From Speech Genres and other late essays. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986).
Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. 2000. “Beyond Identity.” Theory and Society, 29:1-47.
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1984).
Somers, Margaret. "The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach." Theory and Sociology 23: 605-649 (1994).
Tilly, Chuck. Stories, Identity and Political Change. (Lanham, MA: Rowan & Littlefield, 2002).
A semiotic analysis? Cultural etymology?
February 15
Week 5: Psychology and Individuality: Historical Cultural Sociology
Calhoun, Craig. “Culture, History and the Problem of Specificity
in Social Theory.” Pp. 244-288 in S. Seidman and D. G. Wagner
(eds), Postmodernism and Social Theory: the debate over general theory. (Cambridge MA: Blackwell, ).
Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process Volume 1: The History of Manners. Pp. 3-13, 29-33, 42-105, 117-138, 181-200. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994).
Morawska, Ewa and Willfried Spohn. “’Cultural Pluralism’ in
Historical Sociology: Recent Theoretical Directions.” Pp. 45-90
in C.
Schwartz, Barry. “Memory as a Cultural System: Abraham Lincoln in World War II.” American Sociological Review. Vol 61, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), 908-927.
Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” pp. 174-185; “The
Philosophy of Fashion,” 187-206; “Some Remarks on Prostitution in the
Present and in the Future,” 262-270 in Simmel on Culture. David Frisby and M. Featherstone (eds.). (London: Sage, 1997).
Recommended but not required
Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1995).
Biersack, Aletta. The New Cultural History: Essays. Hunt, Lynn ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989). Also available as an E-Book.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art. Trans. Susan Emanuel. Stanford UP. Pp. 3-173, 285-312, 322-348.
Brubaker, Rogers. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1992).
Calhoun, Craig. The Question of Class Struggle: Social Foundations of Popular Radicalism During the Industrial Revolution. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1982).
Darnton, Robert, “Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Severin,” Pp. 97-120 in MS.
Davis, Natalie Zemon, “Printing and the People,” Pp. 65-96 in MS.
Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983).
de Nora, Tia. "Historical Perspectives in Music Sociology." Poetics, Vol. 32, Iss. 3-4 (June-August 2004), pp. 211-221.
Eliasoph, Nina. Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1998).
Emirbayer, Mustafa and Jeff Goodwin. “Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency,” American Journal of Sociology, 99: 1411-1454.
Gambetta, Diego. The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993).
Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980).
Goldstone, Jack. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. (Berkeley, CA: U of California Press, 1991).
Gould, Roger V.. Insurgent Identities: Class, Community and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune. (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995).
Griswold, Wendy. Renaissance Revivals: city comedy and revenge tragedy in the London theatre, 1576-1980. Chapter 1-3. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution. (Berkeley, CA: U of California Press. 1984).
Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983).
Levine, Lawrence, “William Shakespeare and the American People: A Study in Cultural Transformation,” Pp. 157-197 in MS.
Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1986).
Mitchell, Timothy. Colonizing Egypt. (Berkeley, CA: U of California Press, 1991).
Mukerji, Chandra. Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versaille. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1997).
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. (New York: Routledge, 1997).
Rosenzweig, Roy, “The Rise of the Saloon,” Pp. 121-156 in MS.
Schwartz, Barry. Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2000).
Schwartz, Barry. George Washington: The Making of An American Symbol. (New York: Free Press, 1987).
Scott, James C.. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1985)
Sewell, William H. Jr. “Ideologies and Social Revolutions: Reflections on the French Case,” Journal of Modern History, 57 (1985), 57-85.
Sewell, William H. Jr. “Social Change and the Rise of Working Class Politics in 19th Century Marseille,” Past and present, 65 (1974), 57-85.
Sewell, William H. Jr. “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille,” Theory and Society, 25 (1996), 841-881.
Simmel, Georg. Simmel on Culture. David Frisby and M. Featherstone (eds.). (London: Sage, 1997).
Thompson, E.P.. Customs in Common. (London: Merlin Press, 1991)
Thompson, E.P.. The Making of the English Working Class. (London: Merlin Press, [1967] (1991).
Tilly, Charles. From Mobilization to Revolution. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1978).
Tilly, Charles. The Contentious French. (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 1986).
Willis, Paul E.. Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. (Farnborough, Eng.: Saxon House, 1977).
Wuthnow, Robert. Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Englightenment and European Socialism. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989).
Wuthnow, Robert. Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis. U of California Press. 1987.
Wuthnow, Robert. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest for Community. (New York: Free Press, 1994).
February 22
Week 6: Cultural Fields
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Pp.29-73.
DiMaggio, Paul. “Classification in Art.” American Sociological Review, 52 (August 1987): 440-455.
Ferguson, Priscilla P. “A Cultural Field in the Making: Gastronomy in 19th-Century France.” American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 104, No. 3 (Nov., 1998), pp. 597-641.
White, Harrison and Cynthia White. Canvasses and Careers. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965), Chs. 3-4 (pp. 76-152).
Recommended but not required
de Nora, Tia. Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803. University of California Press, 1996.
Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Lopes, Paul. The Rise of a Jazz Art World. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Roy, William G. "'Race Records'
and 'Hillbilly Music': Institutional Origins of Racial Categories
in the American Commercial Recording Industry." Poetics, Vol. 32, Iss. 3-4 (June-August 2004), pp. 265-279.
March 1
Week 7: Production of Culture
Becker, Howard. “Art Worlds and Collective Activity,” pp. 1-39, “Mobilizing Resources,” pp. 68-92. In Art Worlds. (Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1982).
Bielby, William T. and Denise D. Bielby, “All Hits are Flukes:
Institutionalized Decision Making and the Rhetoric of Prime-Time
Program Development,” American Journal of Sociology, 99 (1994), pp. 1287–1313.
Hebdidge, Dick, “Object as Image: The Italian Scooter Cycle,” Pp. 77-115 in Hiding in the Light:On Images and Things. (New York: Routledge, 2002).
Hirsch, Paul M.. “Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems,” American Journal of Sociology. 77 (1972): 639-659.
Peterson, Richard A. and N. Anand. “The Production of Culture Perspective.” Annual Review of Sociology, 30 (1): 311-334.
Recommended but not required
Corse, Sarah. 1997. Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1-17; 129-170.
Danto, Arthur. Narration and Knowledge. (New York: Columbia UP, 1985)
Davis, Natalie Zemon. Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987).
Dowd, Timothy J. "Production Perspectives in the Sociology of Music," Poetics, Vol. 32, Iss. 3-4 (June-August 2004), pp. 235-246.
Lopes, Paul D., “Innovation and Diversity in the Popular Music Industry,” American Sociological Review. 57 (February 1992): 56-71.
Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology, 83 (1977): 340-363.
Peterson, Richard A. and David Berger, “Cycles in Symbol Production: The case of popular music,” American Sociological Review. 40 (1975), pp. 158–73.
Peterson, Richard A.. “Culture Studies Through the Production Perspective: Progress and Prospects.” Pp. 163-190 in C.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. (Beacon Press, 1995).
March 15
Week 8: Consumption/Reception
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984). Chapter 1 (pp. 11-96), Chapter 5 (pp. 257-317).
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1984).
DeNora, Tia. “Music as a Device of Social Ordering.” Music and Everyday Life. Cambridge UP. 2000.
Griswold, Wendy, “The Fabrication of Meaning: Literary interpretation in the United States, Great Britain and the West Indies,” American Journal of Sociology, 92 (1987), pp. 1077–1117.
Recommended but not required
Becker, Howard, “Becoming a Marijuana User,” American Journal of Sociology, 59 (1953), pp. 235–242.
Bryson, Bethany, “‘Anything But Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes,” American Sociological Review, 61 (1996), pp. 884–899.
Espeland, Wendy N. and Mitchell Stevens. “Commensuration as a Social Process.” Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998): 313-43.
Mark, Noah, “Birds of a Feather Sing Together,” Social Forces, 77 (1998), pp. 453– 85.
Radway, Janice A. Reading the Romance. U of N. Carolina Press. 1984.
Radway, Janice. “Interpretive Communities and Variable
Literacies: The Functions of Romance Reading.” Pages 465-486 in MS.
Star, Susan Leigh and James Griesemer, "Institutional Ecology,
'Translations,' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in
Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-1939," Social Studies of Science, 19: 387-420 (1989). Reprinted in Mario Biagioli, ed. The Science Studies Reader. Pp.. 505-524. London: Routledge.
Watson, James L., “Transnationalism, Localization, and Fast Foods in East Asia,” in Golden Arches East: McDonald’s In East Asia. Edited by James Watson. (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 1–38.
March 22
Week 9: Production, Artists’ View
Becker, Howard. Art Worlds. (Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1982). Chapter 8 (pp. 226-271), Chapter 10 (pp. 300-350) and Chapter 11 (351-371).
Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author.” Pp. 446-464 in MS.
Lang, Gladys and Kurt Lang. “Recognition and Renown: The Survival of Artistic Reputation,” American Journal of Sociology, 94 (1988), 79-109.
Recommended but not required
Adler, Judith. Artists in Offices: An Ethnography of an Academic Art Scene. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1979).
Alpers, Svetlana. Rembrandt’s Enterprise: The Studio and the Market. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1987).
Clark, Priscilla and Terry Nichols Clark. “Patrons, Publishers,
and Prizes: The Writer’s Estate in France.” Pp. 197-225 in Joseph
Ben-David and Terry Nichols Clark (eds.), Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1977).
Clark, Priscilla Parkhurst. Literary France: The Making of a Culture. (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1987).
Faulkner, Robert. Music on Demand: Composers and Careers in Hollywood Film. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1983).
Netzer, Dick. The Subsidized Muse: Public Support for the Arts in the United States. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1978).
White, Harrison and Cynthia White. Canvasses and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World. ([Wiley, 1965] Chicago UP, 1993).
White, Harrison. Careers and Creativity: Social Forces in the Arts. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
Zolberg, Vera and J.M. Cherbo, eds. Outsider Art: Contesting Boundaries in Contemporary Culture. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1997).
March 29
Week 10: Stratification in the U.S.
Brooks, David. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). Introduction and Chapter 1 (pp. 9-53).
Gans, Herbert J.. Chapter 2 (pp. 91-160). Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste. (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
Peterson, Richard A. and Roger M. Kern. “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore.” American Sociological Review, 61 (October 1996): 900-907.
Recommended but not required
Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow, Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988).
Peterson, Richard A. and Albert Simkus. “How Musical Taste Groups Mark Occupational Status Groups.” Pp. 152-168 Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Equality. Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds.). (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Peterson, Richard A. and Paul DiMaggio, “From Region to Class, the
Changing Locus of Country Music: A Test of the Massification
Hypothesis.” Social Forces, 53 (March 1975): 497-505.
April 5
Week 11: “Best of” Case Studies (that we haven't read)
N.B. Each of us will take
responsibility for reading one of these case studies and preparing a
précis for the class. I am open to your suggestions for texts not
included on this list.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Second Edition. (New York: Verso, 1991).
Baker, Keith M. Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century. (New York: Cambridge UP, 1990).
Bourdieu, Pierre. On Television. (New York: The New Press, 1998).
Castells, Manuel. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-Regional Process. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1989). Introduction and Chapter 1.
Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000).
Coser, Lewis A., Charles Kadushin, and Walter W. Powell. Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing. (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
Crane, Diana. The Transformation of the Avant-Garde. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1987).
De Sola Pool, Ithiel. Technologies of Freedom. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1983).
DeNora, Tia. Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803. (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1997). Available as an E-Book.
Fischer, Claude. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1992). Chapter 7.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. (New York: Panetheon Books, 1980).
Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception. (New York: Routledge, 1989). Available as an E-Book.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990).
Gamson, Joshua. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999).
Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media. (Pantheon, 1988).
Latour, Bruno. The Pasteurization of France. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Schudson, Michael. Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past. (Basic, 1992).
Thompson, John. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1995).
Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. (Cambridge: Polity, 1995).
April 12
Week 12: New Works of Note
Fine, Gary Allen. Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity. (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2004).
Grindstaff, Laura. The Money Shot: Trash, Class and the Making of TV Talk Shows. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Chapters 1 (17-42), 4 (115-147) & 8 (243-273).
Griswold, Wendy. Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers and the Novel in Nigeria. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000). Chapters 1 (3-25) & 4 (269-273).
Lieberson, Stanley. A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change. (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000).
Swidler, Ann. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Introduction (1-8), Chapter 7 (135-159) and Conclusion (181-213).
April 19
Week 13: Programmatic and Prescriptive Statements
Kaufman, Jason. “Endogeneous Explanation in the Sociology of Culture.” Annual Review of Sociology. 30 (2004): 335-57.
Martin, John Levi, “What is Field Theory?,” American Journal of Sociology, 109 (2003), pp. 1–49.
Mohr, John, “Measuring Meaning Structures,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998), pp. 345–70.
Sewell, William H., “The Concept(s) of Culture,” pp. 35-61 in Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture. Victoria Bonnell and Lynn E. Hunt (Eds.). (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
Swidler, Ann, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review, 51 (1986), pp. 273–286.
April 26
Week 14: T.S. Eliot Day
Re-read first week’s articles and prepare critical reflection on how those authors constructed the field of inquiry.
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