Social Sciences and Method : sociology

ECTS : 3

Description du contenu de l'enseignement :

The course Social sciences and methods - Sociology pursues a twofold purpose, theoretical and methodological. Indeed, it aims at providing students with an initiation to sociological thinking, with a historical and epistemological perspective, through the presentation of major authors who contributed to the foundation of sociology and through the reading of selected writings. In parallel with this theoretical formation, a methodological training is provided for student to acquire a methodology of academic work (reading and understanding reference texts, problematization, writing reading report and commentary, academic writing of comprehensive dissertation/essay). This course also constitutes a preparation to the 2d semester course Social sciences and methods – Political sciences.
The course is structured into 4 parts:

1. General introduction: definition of sociology, reminders of the two revolutions of the 18th -19th centuries, presentation of sociologists in history
2. Alexis de Tocqueville and the process of equalisation of conditions
3. Karl Marx and class struggle
4. Max Weber and the rationalization process

Compétence à acquérir :

Different fundamental notions are thus approached in the course: the social bond, democracy, individualism, solidarity, capitalism, modernity, the process of rationalization…
Students are also expected to be durably able to fulfil academic expectations, in this discipline and others.

Mode de contrôle des connaissances :

In addition to the work done during the semester in each group (a dissertation for 70% of the grade and other works that can be oral presentation, quiz, reading report… for 30% of the grade), the students are evaluated at the end of the semester by a 2-hours dissertation inviting them to produce a reasoned reflection around the concepts studied in class.

Bibliographie, lectures recommandées :

• Marx Karl & Engels Friedrich, The German Ideology [1846], Martino Fine Books, 2011.
• Marx Karl & Engels Friedrich, Manifesto of the Communist Party [1847], CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.
• Marx Kart, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte [1852], Mondial, 2005.
• Marx Karl, Capital. A Critique of Political Economy [1867], CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
• Note that all works of Marx are available on https://www.marxists.org/
• Tocqueville, Alexis de [1835-1840], Democracy in America, University of Chicago Press, 2002.
• Tocqueville, Alexis de [1856], The Old Regime and the French Revolution, Anchor, 1955.
• Weber Max, Economy and Society [1921], University of California Press, 2013.
• Weber Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Oxford University Press, 2011.