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Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)The general will—dangerous if taken too far—operates in many elements of our social and civic life. Immunizations that are compulsory for living in dorms serve the common good—the general will—regardless of individual will. The general will operates in society when individuals develop not only amour de soi, selfish love, but also amour propre, love of self in relation to others. Rous...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)In the transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity, brought on by increasing division of labor, industrialization, and urbanization, Durkheim argues that there will be social pathologies, which he calls anomie. These abnormal and unhealthy consequences of the change in type of social solidarity have various causes. Durkheim is best known for arguing that a lack of moral regul...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)In this lecture Professor Wrightson discusses the Restoration settlement of 1660 and the reigns of Charles II and James II. He highlights the manner in which tensions between the crown and the political nation slowly escalated during Charles's reign (as a result of his attempts to grant religious toleration, unpopular wars against the Dutch and dip...more
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some viewers may find disturbingProfessor Wai Chee Dimock discusses Jason's section of The Sound and the Fury with reference to Raymond Williams's notion of the "knowable community." Jasons's narrative is characterized by the loss of that knowable community, by his pointed rage against his family and servants, as well as his ...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)In order to move from a theory of alienation to a theory of exploitation, Marx develops a concept of class and of the capitalist mode of production. He developed these in The Communist Manifesto, the Grundrisse and Das Kapital. Marx argues that what sets the capitalist mode of production apart from the commodity mode of production is not only the accumulation of money; the capitalist mode of...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)Durkheim's Suicide is a foundational text for the discipline of sociology, and, over a hundred years later, it remains influential in the study of suicide. Durkheim's study demonstrates that what is thought to be a highly individual act is actually socially patterned and has social, not only psychological, causes. Durkheim's study uses the logic of multivariate statistical analysis, which is...more
By 1950, in most of the underdeveloped world, mortality had fallen to about half its pre-modern rate. The birth rate, however, had remained high and, by 1950, was about twice the death rate. For the rest of the century, both rates fell dramatically and in parallel, maintaining the gap. The enormous excess of births over deaths in this period is known as 'the population explosion.' By 1990, the world population was growing at almost 90 mill...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson reviews the conflicts which developed within the Church of England in the early seventeenth century and played a role in the growing tensions which led to the English civil wars. Wrightson begins by describing the 'Jacobethan consensus' which largely prevailed throughout the reign of James I, characterized by broad-based conform...more
"This the seventeenth lecture in the ""Lectures on Human Capital"" series by Gary Becker. This series of lectures recorded during the Spring of 2010 are from ECON 343 - Human Capital, a class taught every year by Gary Becker at the University of Chicago. In this class, Becker expounds upon the theory of Human Capital that he helped create and for which he won the Nobel Prize. Please see attached lecture notes, video annotations, and readin...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)Adam Smith's ideas about self-interest should be understood as a precursor in some ways to John Stuart Mill's thinking on utilitarianism. Professor Szelenyi discusses, but does not resolve, the complexities of Adam Smith's moral and ethical positions staked out in The Theory of Moral Sentiments—including a focus on sympathy—and the most widespread economic interpretation of Smith and The ...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)We consider closely Marx's Grundrisse, written between The German Ideology and Das Kapital. In the Grundrisse, Marx revisits and revises his theory of historical change. Previously, he argued that history is characterized by a uni-linear increase in the division of labor. He also argued that class struggle caused revolutionary transitions from one mode of production to the next—slavery to...more
With Martin Luther King's assassination, the collapse of SNCC, and the self-destruction of the Black Panthers, one would think that all promise had faded in regards to the possibility of black political and social advancement. But in this lecture, Professor Holloway examines moments of hope for black political organization, including Carl Stokes's 1967 mayoral victory in Cleveland, the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969, a...more
