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Module PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (SPECIAL TOPICS: SPACE AND SOCIAL THEORY)

Module code: FSS2
Credits: 5
Semester: 1
Department: SOCIOLOGY
International: No
Overview Overview
 

FSS2: Philosophy of Social Sciences (Special Topics: Space and Social Theory)

Meets: Mondays, 4-6pm, Kildare Room, Rhetoric Building

Commences Monday, Sept. 26 at 4pm

Postgraduate students from geography, anthropology, sociology, history, architecture, landscape architecture, literary studies, cultural studies, Irish studies, women’s studies, and philosophy are encouraged to enroll.

Course Overview: This postgraduate seminar examines four to six key theorists who have influenced debates in the social sciences and humanities about understandings of such key concepts as space, place, bodies, and temporality. We will largely focus on post-positivist theories that question the assumption that ‘truth’ can be objectively measured or observed by a supposedly detached scientist. A starting assumption of these theorists is that all researchers are situated within particular social, historical and political contexts; we each bring us personal histories and beliefs that motivate, to a certain degree, our research agendas.

The theorists selected will depend upon the particular research projects of the students enrolled. Key theorists may represent such philosophical and epistemological approaches as: cultural materialism, phenomenology, feminism, phenomenology, post-structuralism, postmodernism, post-colonialism, and/or psychoanalytic theory. Thus far students have suggested the following possible theorists: Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Jacques Bordieu, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Henri Lefebvre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Marion Young; related concepts include space, power and justice; violence and bodies.

Assessment and course expectations: This postgraduate seminar is based upon continuous assessment. There are two major components to assess student performance in the seminar: 50% participation (includes weekly reaction papers and peer review activities); and 50% final paper (includes abstract, draft literature review, paper and presentation). Because students are at different stages in their degrees, my expectations for the marks will vary depending on where students are in their research plan.

Due to student interest, we begin the course with a discussion of the concept of the public sphere, focusing on the works of Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser and Chantal Mouffe. Students are asked to submit suggestions for key theorists and a short abstract of their research; in week three, the readings for the rest of the term will be developed.

Week 2: September 26: Gary Bridge. 2011. ‘Pierre Bourdieu’. Key Thinkers on Space and Place. Phil Hubbard and Rob Kitchin Eds. Los Angeles: Sage, 2nd ed., pp. 76-81.

Richard Jenkins. 2002. Pierre Bourdieu. New York: Routledge, 2nd Ed., Series on Key Sociologists Series), pp. 1-127 (please read the entire book if you can).

Week 3: October 3: Selections from Bourdieu’s (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice

Week 4: October 10: Reading Week (work on draft literature review)

Week 5: October 17: Theorist Two: TBA (readings TBA)

Week 6: October 24: Readings tba

Week 7: Fall study break

Week 8: November 7: Theorist Three: TBA; Draft literature reviews due

Week 9: November 14: Readings tba; Peer reviews of literature reviews due this week

Week 10: November 21: Theorist Four: TBA

Week 11: November 28: Readings tba

Week 12: December 5: Writing week; Final papers due

Week 13: December 12: Student presentations


Postgraduate students from geography, anthropology, sociology, history, architecture, landscape architecture, literary studies, cultural studies, Irish studies, women’s studies, and philosophy are encouraged to enroll.

Open Learning Outcomes
 
Open Teaching & Learning methods
 
Open Assessment
 
Open Timetable
 
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