Department of Anthropology

ANTH0110: An Introduction to Social Theory

2020/21 Module Information Sheet

Lecturer and Course Coordinator: Diana Vonnak ([email protected]),

Course description

This course is intended to provide students taking masters degrees within SLASH departments who
have no prior, university level, social science expertise with an introduction to the history and current
pertinence of social thought and the research methodologies associated with different schools.

The course is in particular designed for students taking masters programs which are using a social
science perspective or approach in order to broaden and deepen a line of enquiry or practice. This
includes the MA in Ethnographic and Documentary Film and Digital Anthropology but it is designed
to appeal to a broader constituency beyond anthropology as well.

The course will introduce students to the origins, goals, and potential uses of social theory, outline a
number of recent challenges, and the frontlines of key contemporary debates. In the seminars we will
discuss a broad range of works that deal with the questions discussed during the lecture, or apply the
discussed approach.

Topics of Lectures:

• What is social theory? Origins, developments and challenges.

• Suspicion and critique: Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault — and Latour
• Holism: Durkheim’s functionalism and beyond
• The global world: from world system theory to postcolonial critique
• Social class: relation or status? Exploring class in the UK and beyond
• Field theory: distinction and value spheres from Weber to Bourdieu
• Determinist explanations: environmental determinism from Montesquieu to Diamond
• Gender, sexuality and politics
• Race and self: encounters between anthropology and cognitive science

UCL Department of Anthropology

14 Taviton Street London WC1H OBW
Structure and readings:

Each lecture will be available, pre-recorded in 10-20 min long sections. These will offer a broader
overview of the subject of each week, support preparatory work for seminars.

Seminars will be centred around discussions of readings. Core readings will be read by every student
ahead of class, and the remaining readings will be divided across smaller groups. Each student should
read minimum 2 texts every week from the readings selected for seminar discussion. Where core
readings are not separate from discussion materials for the seminar, discussions will be based on the
readings thematised by the lecture. Students will be asked to offer short summaries and prepare
questions for discussion, which we will do jointly, facilitated by the lecturer.

For each class I added a number of further readings for those who would like to explore the topic
further. These are not part of the core coursework, but could support your essays.

Learning outcomes:

• You will be familiar with a range of fundamental questions within and approaches to social theory
• You will be familiar with the outlines of the historical development of social theory, and a number of
contemporary challenges
• You will become familiar with some specific disciplinary approaches to and contributions to social
research and theory
• You will develop an understanding of a range of methodological strategies for the generation and
interrogation of data
• You will be in a position to discriminate among some of the major writers in social theory, and to
decide for yourself which approach to use when approaching particular social problems
• You will have learnt to produce, at an introductory level, critical writing about social theory.
• You will be familiar with a number of ways to apply social theory beyond traditional academic
contexts

Assessment: 50% 5 AQCIs delivered in class; 50% essay (2000 words).

Transferable Skills:

Learning Actively - Able to approach learning as an active agent, taking responsibility for the process
and outcomes

Analysing Data - Able to filter and organise information to develop an argument and work toward a
conclusion, applying numerical analysis where appropriate
Thinking Critically - Able to consider claims made against the evidence available and to develop one’s
own view systematically

Using Sources - Able to locate and use appropriate books, journals, websites and other sources to
gather relevant data

Solving Problems - Able to use systematic approaches to overcome difficulties in producing a desired
outcome

Managing change - Able to adapt to changing circumstances and maintain focus on the group’s
declared goals
1. What is social theory? Origins, developments and challenges.

This introductory lecture discusses the origins of social theory, sketching out the context of early
modern philosophy (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant) and the origin of modern social science. We will
talk about the idea of radical doubt, and rationalism and empiricism, the two key approaches that grew
out of it, the origins of sociology and anthropology. We will discuss the relevance of fieldwork for
anthropologists, how this relates to theory-making, and explain anthropology’s relativist principle.

We will touch on the most important recent challenges to social theory, all of which stems from
reflection and critique about who does social theory, how its authority is sourced, and to what ends it is
deployed. We will talk about engaged research and activism, feminist and postcolonial critique. These
will remain introductory remarks, and we will return to some of these themes throughout the term.

Most of this week’s seminar will be spent by introductions and discussing the course, but readings are
available as AQCIs.

Core readings:

Harrington, A. 2005. Introduction: What is social theory? P. 1-12. and Challenges to Western
modernity: Reason and the claims of science. P. 31-25. In: Modern Social Theory: An introduction.
Oxford: Oxford University Press

Levi Martin, J. 2015. On Theory in Sociology. P. 1-44. in: Thinking Through Theory. London: Norton.

Owens, D. 2007. Descartes’ Use of Doubt. P. 164-178. In: A Companion to Descartes, ed. Janet
Broughton and John Carriero. Blackwell.

Giddens, A. 1971. Durkheim’s conception of the sociological method. P. 82-94. In: Capitalism and
modern social theory an analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press

Giddens, A. 1971. Fundamental concepts of Sociology (Weber). P. 145-167. In.Capitalism and modern
social theory an analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

Engelke, M. 2017. Introduction: The Familiar and the Strange. P. 1-26. In: Think like an
Anthropologist. London: Pelican Books.

Further readings:
Aron, R. 1968. Main currents in sociological thought / 1, Montesquieu, Comte, Marx, Tocqueville, the
sociologist and the revolution of 1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Aron, R., Howard, Richard, & Weaver, Helen. 1970. Main currents in sociological thought / 2,
Durkheim, Pareto, Weber. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Sorell, T. 2000. Descartes : A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ayer, A. 2000. Hume : A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
Scruton, R. 2001. Kant : A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

2. Suspicion and critique: Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault — and Latour

The philosopher Paul Ricoeur famously labeled Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud the “masters of
suspicion.” These thinkers fit in a larger legacy of theorising that seeks look behind the apparent
working, the phenomenology of society, the human psyche, textual meaning etc. in order to expose its
hidden workings. This detective work is based on suspicion, and in this lecture we will look into
various forms this has taken when applied to different fields. We will talk about Marx later on when
discussing world systems and class, but during this class we will look at the legacy of suspicion and
critique, exploring connections between Nietzsche and Freud, then analysing Foucault’s classic
critique of the Enlightenment, and a recent challenge to critical theory by Bruno Latour.

Core reading:
Leiter, B. 2004 The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. P. 74-
105. In: The Future for Philosophy. ed. Leiter. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tambling, J. 2012. Introduction: Freud’s Copernican revolution. P. 1-7. In: Literature and
Psychoanalysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Freud, S. 1995. Repression P. 568-71. and The Unconscious. P. 572-83. In. The Freud Reader. ed. P.
Gray. London: Norton
Nietzsche, F. W. “On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense”

Seminar readings for group discussion:

Foucault, M. 1984. “What is Enlightenment?” P. 32-50. in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow,
trans. Catherine Porter New York: Pantheon Books
Butler, J. 2002. What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault’s Virtue. P. 212-26. In: The political:
Blackwell readings in continental philosophy. ed. D. Ingram. Blackwell
Latour, B. 2004. Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern.
Critical inquiry, 30(2), P. 225-248.

Further readings:
Freud, S., and Robertson, R. 2013. A Case of Hysteria (Dora) Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
Moi, T. 1985. Representation of Patriarchy: Sexuality and Epistemology. In: In Dora's case : Freud-
hysteria-feminism.  Bernheimer, C., & Kahane, Claire eds. London: Virago.
Ricoeur, P. 1970. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Abuses of History” [many editions, recently 2005 New York: Cosimo
Classics]
Felski, R. 2015. Limits of Critique. Chicago: Chicago University Press

3. Holism: Durkheim’s functionalism and beyond

This lecture focuses on anthropologists who explained the society as a whole: as a social system, as a
unit in equilibrium with distinct parts. We depart from Durkheim, whose theoretical apparatus was
among the most influential in 20th century anthropology and sociology: we discuss his key concepts
briefly, then focus on his work on the social origins of conceptual categories. We then read Mary
Douglas, whose work expanded Durkheim’s. In the seminar we discuss how their approach is used in
two more recent ethnographies.

Core readings:

Durkheim, É. And Mauss, M. 2009. Primitive Classification. P.1-51. London: Cohen and West
(Introduction is optional)
Mary Douglas 2002 Preface P .x-xx; Introduction P. 1-8.; Ritual Uncleanness P. 8-35. In: Purity and
Danger, London: Routledge

Readings for seminar discussion:

Okely, J. 1983. Symbolic Boundaries. P. 77-104. In: The Traveller-Gypsies. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 
Fuller, C. 1979 Gods, Priests and Purity: On the Relation Between Hinduism and the Caste
System.Man, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 3 P. 459-476.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1962. Totemism. London: Merlin Press. 1-55.

Further readings:

Durkhiem, E. 1973.  Individualism and the Intellectuals. Emile Durkheim on morality and society:
Selected writings. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim, Émile. “Forms of Social Solidarity.” Pp. 123–140 in Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings,
edited by Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (1-32)

4. The global world: from world system theory to postcolonial critique

Social order works through power and domination according to many theorists, and this is taken to
large-scale explanations when the global geopolitical order and political economy is analysed.
Similarly to parts of societies for functionalist and holistic approaches, parts of the global world are
positioned in an uneven way. For some theorists like Weber, domination is legitimate, for others like
Marx, it is always based on exploitation. An influential body of literature known as world system
theory focuses on accumulation and domination as it unfolds over time. We will discuss these various
approaches and related contemporary discussions of global capitalism.

Core readings:

Wolf, E. 1982. Introduction P. 1-23. In: Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Wolf, E. “Facing Power—Old Insights, New Questions,” 222-233.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Peter Grimes. 1995. "World-Systems Analysis." Annual Review of
Sociology. Vol. 21 p. 387-417.
Wallerstein, I. 1998. The Rise and Future Demise of World-Systems Analysis. Review (Fernand
Braudel Center) Vol. 21, No. 1. p. 103-112.
Kalb, Don (2013): Financialization and the capitalist moment: Marx versus Weber in the anthropology
of global systems. American Ethnologist 40(2): 258-266.

Seminar discussion reading:

Gledhill 2000. “Post-colonial states: legacies of history and pressures of modernity,” P. 92-126.
Power and its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics. London: Pluto.
Gledhill 2000, “From macro-structure to micro-process: anthropological analysis of political practice,”
P. 127-152. Power and its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics. London: Pluto.
Asad, T. 2002. “From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western
Hegemony,” P. 133-142. In: Vincent, Joan, ed. The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in
Ethnography, Theory, and Critique. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Further reading:

Sidney Mintz. 1985. Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Penguin.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of
the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
A Appadurai. 1991. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation

5. Social class: relation or status? Exploring class in the UK and beyond

Today we zoom back from the scale of the world system to inequality and stratification on a much
smaller scale. We will look at one of the most ubiquitous concepts in (especially) British social
science: class.

Marx explained class in terms of people’s relation to means of production. In contrast to his approach,
Weber thought social stratification was a result of the interplay between class, status and prestige. We
will look at both these approaches, and explore their use and limitations. In the seminar we will discuss
a recent large-scale survey undertaken in Britain, the Great British Class Survey, and and look at some
recent work on the global middle class.

Core readings:

Marx, K. and F. Engels. ’The Manifesto of the Communist Party’

Engels, Friedrich. 1845. “Working-Class Manchester.” Pp. 579–585 in The Marx-Engels Reader:
Second Edition, edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: Norton
Weber, Max 1922. “Class, Status, Party.” Pp. 180–195 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,
edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wright, Erik Olin. 2009. “Understanding Class.” New Left Review 60:101–116.

Readings for seminar discussion:

Class in Britain:

Hoggart, R. 1957. Ch3, Them and Us. In: The Uses of Literacy: Aspect of Working-Class
Life. Harmondsworth, Middx : Penguin Books in association with Chatto & Windus
Steedman, C. 1986. Landscape for a Good woman. pp. 1-47. London: Virago 
Savage, M. and Devine, F. and Cunningham, N. and Taylor, M. and Li, Y. and Hjellbrekke, J. and Le
Roux, B. and Friedman, S. and Miles, A. 2013. 'A new model of social class : Findings from the BBC's
Great British Class Survey Experiment.', Sociology., 47 (2). 219-250 .

Global middle class:

Weiss, H. 2019. We have never been middle class: How social mobility misled us. London: Verso.
Especially 1-88.

Zhang, Li. 2012. Private Homes, Distinct Lifestyles: Performing a New Middle Class in China. P. 213-
36. In: The Global Middle Classes: Theorising through Ethnography. ed. Rachel Heiman, Carla
Freeman, and Mark Liechty. New Mexico: School for Advanced Research Press.

Further reading:
Marx, K. 1859. ‘Preface to Critique the of Political Economy’
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm )
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Modern Library. Pp. 7–15.
Durkheim, Émile. “The Division of Labour and Social Differentiation.” Pp. 141–154 in Emile
Durkheim: Selected Writings, edited by Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, E. 1991. Class Consciousness. In: The making of the English working class.
Harmondsworth: Penguin. 

6. Field theory

Today we look at a branch of social theory that explains things in terms of how they are situated: these
posit that the social world is divided into areas/spheres with their own logic, and which therefore could
be considered autonomous to some extent. These theories are sometimes called differentiation theories,
but their most well-known version is Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. As we will see, this approach is
widespread in cultural sociology, especially when it comes to studying expert groups, art etc. We will
discuss Bourdieu’s underlying theory, then look at a number of case studies focusing on the cultural
sphere.

Core readings:

Bourdieu, P. 2010 Conclusion: Classes and Classifications. P. 468-86. In: Distinction: A Social
Critique of Judgement and Taste. Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. 1993. Principles for a Sociology of Cultural Works. P. 176-92. In The Field of Cultural
Production Polity
Krause, M. 2017. The patterns in-between: “Field” as a Conceptual Variable. P. 227-250. In: Social
Theory Now. M. Krause ed. University of Chicago Press.

Readings for seminar discussion:

Lloyd, R. 2006. The Neighbourhood in Cultural Production. P. 153-76. In: Neo-Bohemia: Art and
Commerce in the Post-Industrial City. Routledge
Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern, "Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore"
American Sociological Review 61(1996): 900–907
Becker, H. 1982. Art Worlds and Collective Activity. P. 1-39. In: Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of
California Press

Further reading:

Couldry, N. 2012. Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity.
Lovell, J. 2006. The politics of cultural capital: China's quest for a Nobel Prize in literature. University
of Hawaii Press.

7. Determinist explanations: environmental determinism

Today will discuss cases where modern writers have taken up Montesquieu's idea that the nature of a
society or a culture is profoundly shaped by the ecological conditions it finds itself in. We start from
Wittfogel’s concept of hydraulic civilisations from 1957, and Leach’s criticism. We will discuss a
related thread of research that focuses on infrastructure. We will then look at two contemporary
ethnographies that deal with similar questions.

Core readings:

Leach, E. 1964. The Political Systems of Highland Burma. P. 1-29.

Alexander D.E. 1999. Environmental determinism. In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth
Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_112
Crate, S. A. (2011). Climate and culture: anthropology in the era of contemporary climate change.
Annual review of Anthropology, 40, 175-194.

Readings for the seminar discussion:

Wittfogel, K. 1957. Oriental Despotism Chapter 2 

Edmund Leach. 1959. Hydraulic Society in Ceylon. Past and Present 1959. 15 (1): 2-26
Bray, Francesca, 1994 Ch 3, pp. 62-112, Water Control, in Rice Economies - Technology and
Development in Asian Societies. University of California Press.
Ball, Phillip. 2016.  Channels of Power: how China's waterways shaped its political landscape. In: The
Water Kingdom A Secret History of China. London: Bodley Head 

8. Gender, sexuality and politics

Gender has been one of the frontlines of reflection in the past decades. We will discuss some key
debates about the relationship of sex and gender, articulation of gender in various social contexts, as
well as gendered perspectives on power or class. This will lead us to revisit anthropology’s relativism
and social construction, before we move on to discuss the body and possible conversations between
anthropology and sociology with cognitive science in the closing lecture.
Core readings:

Strathern, M. 1987. ‘An awkward relationship: the case of feminism and anthropology’. Signs 12(2): 
276-292.  
Sherry Ortner. 2006. [1974]. “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” In Feminist Anthropology:
A Reader, P. 72- 86.
Abu-Lughod, L. ‘Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural 
relativism and its others’. American Anthropologist 104(3): 783-790.  
Radcliff Richards, J. (2000). Biology as Destiny. In: Human nature after Darwin : A philosophical
introduction. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. 1978. We Other Victorians. In: The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction.
New York: Pantheon Books

Readings for the seminar discussion:

Greenhalgh, S. 1994. ‘Controlling births and bodies in village China’. American Ethnologist 21(1):  3-
30. 
Constable, N. 1997. ‘Sexuality and discipline among Filipina Domestic Workers.’ American
Ethnologist  24(3): 539-558.  
Boddy, J. 2011. Bodies under colonialism. In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and
Embodiment,  ed. F. E. Mascia-Lees, Blackwell: Chichester. p. 119-138. 

Further readings:

Mahmood, S. 2004. Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton 
University Press.  
Moore, H. 1988. Feminism and Anthropology, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  
David Valentine. 2007. Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category. Durham: Duke
University Press.

9. Race and self: encounters between anthropology and cognitive science

In the past forty years - since Noam Chomsky's work in linguistics helped re-shape a broader research
agenda - the field of cognitive science has flourished as a cross-disciplinary field. This week we will
look at some of the main methodological challenges of work in this domain as well as some of the key
implications of its findings. For a real cross-disciplinary approach in social science, the body is a
crucial, often ignored element. In the seminar we will expand on these discussions of personhood and
race through this lens.

Core readings:
Damasio, A. 2005. The Body Minded Brain; A passion for reasoning P. 223-252. In: Descartes' Error -
Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Penguin
Spiro, Melford 1093 Is the Western Conception of the Self peculiar within world cultures? Ethos 21
(2): 107-153.
Carrithers, Michael 1986 An alternative social history of the self in Carrithers et al. ed The Category of
the Person Anthropology, Philosophy, History.

Readings for seminar discussion:

Personhood:

Rosaldo, Renato Grief and a Headhunter's Rage, in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social
Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press; London: Taylor & Francis, 1993 [1989])
Bloch, Maurice 2011 The Blob (LSE eprints)
Mauss, Marcel A category of the human mind: the notion of person the notion of self  (translated by
W.D. Halls), Ch 1 pp. 1-25 In Carrithers ed. above
Boyer, P. 2018. Can Human Minds Understand Societies? Coordination, Folk Sociology and Natural
Politics, in Minds Make Societies.

Race:

Dominguez, Virginia 1977  Social Classification in Creole Louisiana. American Ethnologist 4:4. P.
589-602
Hirschfeld, L. (1997). The conceptual politics of race: Lessons from our children, Ethos, 25 (1), 63-92
M Baran, P Sousa 2001.  On the Possibility of Different Sorts of Racial Categories. Journal of
Cognition and Culture
FJ Gil-White  Sorting is not Categorization: A Critique of the Claim that Brazilians Have Fuzzy Racial
Categories, IN Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2001

Further readings:

Strathern, Marilyn 1988 Work, Exploitation at Issue. in: The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley: California
UP. 
Astuti, R. and Bloch, M. 2012. Anthropologists as cognitive scientists. Topics in cognitive science, 4
(3). pp. 453-461.
Luhrmann, T.M. 2000. Of Two Minds: an anthropologist looks at America psychiatry. New York:
Vintage Books