SOLU 2200L21 SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE Summer Term 1999
Instructor: Christina Proenza
Email: CProenza@aol.com

This course explores three veins of the sociology of culture: multiculturalism, identity politics, and the study of material culture. The first part of the course addresses the historical origins of multiculturalism and focuses on sociological explanations of ethnicity, assimilation, and poverty. The second part examines contemporary approaches to multiculturalism and the politics of identity revolving around race, class, gender, and sexuality. Finally, we review the most recent theoretical trends in the emerging discipline of the sociology of culture itself by investigating cultural interpretations of classical sociology and sociological approaches to the study of recorded culture including art, music, and science. Students will be asked to prepare short written responses to selected materials as well as class presentations.

WEEK 1: AMERICAN NATIONALITY AND CULTURE
Tuesday July 6: Introduction: Origins of American Multiculturalism
--Steinberg, Stephen, "The Ignominious Origins of Ethnic Pluralism in America," The Ethnic Myth, Beacon, 1989 [1981], (pp.3-43)Wednesday July 7: The Dawn of American Culture
--Bennett, Lerone, "Before the Mayflower," Before the Mayflower, Penguin, 1983, (pp.28-41)
--Takaki, Ronald, "The Iron Cage in the New Nation," Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America, Oxford, 1990, (pp.3-15)
--Fredrickson, George, "Settlement and Subjugation," White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History, Oxford, 1981, (pp.3-21)
Recommended: Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Routledge, 1992 [1930]

Thursday July 8: "Old" and "New" Immigrants
--Ignatiev, Noel, "White Negroes and Smoked Irish," How the Irish Became White, Routledge, 1995, (pp.34-42)
--Barrett, James and David Roediger, "Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality, and the ‘New’ Immigrant Working Class, reprinted from Journal of American Ethnic History, 16:3, 1997 (pp.144-159)
--Gordon, Milton, "Assimilation in America: Theory and Reality,"reprinted from Daedalus, Vol. 90 No.2, Spring 1961, (pp.263-283)
Recommended: Haney Lopez, Ian, White By Law, NYU Press, 1996

WEEK 2: MODERN/URBAN CULTURE
Monday July 12: Foundations of Classical and Urban Sociology
--Hannerz, Ulf, "Chicago Ethnographers," Exploring the City, Columbia, 1980, (pp.19-58)
--White, William F., "Introduction: Cornerville and Its People," "Conclusion: The Social Structure," Street Corner Society: The Social Organization of an Italian Slum, University of Chicago, 1943, (pp.xv-xx, 269-276)
Recommended: Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society, The Free Press, Glencoe: IL, 1947

Tuesday July 13: Urbanization, Segregation, Suburbanization
--Massey, Douglas and Nancy Denton, "The Construction of the Ghetto," reprinted from American Apartheid, Harvard 1993, (pp.178-202)
--Drake, St. Claire and Horace Cayton, "The Black Ghetto," Black Metropolis, University of Chicago Press, 1945 (pp.174-215)
--Vidich, Arthur and Michael Hughey, "The New American Pluralism: Racial and Ethnic Sodalities and Their Sociological Implications," International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol.6 No.2, 1992, (pp.159-180)

Wednesday July 14: The Culture of Poverty
--Lewis, Oscar, "The Culture of Poverty," Scientific American, 215:4 (pp.19-25)
--Wilson, William J., "The Declining Significance of Race," (original publication, The Declining Significance of Race, University of Chicago 1978) excerpted in Minority and Majority, (pp.160-166)
--Wilson, William J. "Ghetto Related Behavior and the Structure of Opportunity," When Work Disappears, University of Chicago, (pp.51-86)
Recommended: Moynihan, Patrick, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor

Thursday July 15: Critiques of the Culture of Poverty
--Williams, Brett, "Poverty among African Americans in the Urban United States," Human Organization, 52:2, 1992 (pp.164-174)
--Gans, Herbert, "The So-Called Underclass and the Future of Antipoverty Policy," Myths About the Powerless, Lykes et. al. eds. Temple University Press, 1996 (pp.87-101)
--Hartigan, John, "Green Ghettos and the White Underclass, Social Research 64:2 Summer 1997 (pp.339-362)
Recommended: Oliver, Melvin and Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth, Routledge, 1995

WEEK 3: CULTURE & IDENTITY: RACE, ETHNICITY, GENDER, SEXUALITY
Monday July 19: Race and Ethnicity
--Yetman, Norman, "Introduction: Definitions and Perspectives," Majority and Minority, Allen & Bacon, 1999, (pp.2-22)
--Hollinger, David, "Postethnic America," reprinted from Contention 2:1 Fall 1992, (pp. 122-128)
--Morganthou, Tom, "What Color Is Black?" Newsweek, Feb. 13, 1995, (pp.63-70)
--Proenza, Christina, "What Color Is Cuban?" Global Development Studies, Vol 1, Nos 3-4, Winter/Spring 1999, (pp.79-89)
Recommended: Waters, Mary, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identity in America, University of California Press, 1990

Tuesday July 20: Theories of Gender
--Chodorow, Nancy, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, University of California Press, 1978, (pp.1-54)
--Hill Collins, Patricia, "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images," and "Toward an Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology," Black Feminist Thought, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990, (pp.67-90, 201-220)
--Ortner, Sherry, "So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?,"Making Gender, Beacon, 1997, (pp.173-180)
(film: The People’s Century: Half the People)
Recommended: Hare-Mustin, Rachel and Jeanne Marecek, "On Making a Difference," Making a Difference: Psychology and the Construction of Gender, Yale, 1990, (pp.1-21)

Wednesday July 21: Unmarked Culture
--McIntosh, Peggy, "White and Male Privilege," (2 pages)
--Brekhus, Wayne, "A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting Our Focus" Sociological Theory, 16:1, March 1998, (pp.45-62)
--Dyer, Richard,"The Matter of Whiteness," White, Routledge, 1997, (pp.1-39)
Recommended: Lazarre, Jane, Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness, Duke, 1996
Frankenberg, Ruth, "Introduction," and "Thinking Through Race," White Women, Race Matters, University of Minnesota, 1994, (pp.1-22, 137-190)

Thursday July 22: Queer Theory
--Tierney, William, selections, Academic Outlaws: Queer Theory and Cultural Studies in the Academy, Sage, 1997, (pp.TBA)
(Film: Paris Is Burning)
Recommended: Pharr, Suzanne, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, Chardon Press, 1988

WEEK 4: CRITICAL THEORY
Monday July 26: The Politics of Culture
--Clifford, James, "Identity in Mashpee," The Predicament of Culture, Harvard, 1988, (pp.277- 346)
--West, Cornell. "The New Cultural Politics of Difference," Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America, Routledge, 1993, (pp.1-32)
--West, Cornell. "Black Culture and Postmodernism," Remaking History, Kruger & Mariani, eds., Seattle: Bay Pres, 1989, (pp.87-96)
(Film: Ethnic Notions)

Tuesday July 27: The Sociology of Culture
--Alexander, Jeffrey and Steven Seidman, "Analytic Debates: Understanding the Relative Autonomy of Culture," Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates, Cambridge, 1995, (pp.1-27)
--Crane, Diana, ed. "Introduction: The Challenge of the Sociology of Culture to Sociology as a Discipline," The Sociology of Culture, Blackwell, 1994, (pp.1-19)

Wednesday July 28: Art
--Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, Viking, 1995, (pp.TBA)
--Bourdieu, Pierre, "Artistic Taste and Cultural Capital," (original publication, "Outline of a Theory of Art Perception," International Social Science Journal 2:4, 1968) excerpted in Culture and Society, (pp. 205-215)
--Halle, David, "The Audience for Abstract Art: Class, Culture, and Power," Cultivating Differences, University of Chicago, 1992, (pp.131-151)

Thursday July 29: Music
--Peterson, Richard, "Fabricating Authenticity: The Case of Country Music," paper, August 8, 1991, (pp.1-22)
--Rose, Tricia, selections, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Wesleyan University, 1994, (pp.TBA)
--McClary, Susan, "Living to Tell: Madonna’s Resurrection of the Fleshly," in Culture/Power/History, Dirks et. al. eds., Princeton, 1994, (pp.459-482)

WEEK 5: THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Monday August 2: Science
--Latour, Bruno, "Opening Pandora’s Black Box," Science in Action, Harvard, 1987, (pp.1-17)
--Mukerji, Chandra, "Toward a Sociology of Material Culture: Science Studies, Cultural Studies, and the Meaning of Things," in The Sociology of Culture, Diana Crane ed., Blackwell, 1994, (pp.143-162)
Recommended: Harding, Sandra, ed., The Racial Economy of Science, Indiana University Press, 1993

Tuesday August 3: Values
--Fukoyama, Francis, "The Great Disruption," Atlantic Monthly, May, 1999, (pp.55-78)
--Jacoby, Russell, "The Myth of Multiculturalism," (121-126)Wednesday August 4: PresentationsThursday August 5: Conclusion