Readings in Social Sciences

ECTS : 2

Volume horaire : 18

Description du contenu de l'enseignement :

The course is designed as a reading seminar in social sciences. Students are expected to read the mandatory readings in advance for each session (approx. 50 pages in English every week) and to be able to present and discuss them during the sessions with other participants. Additional readings are recommended to get a deeper understanding of the topic of the session. Academic discussion on the assigned readings and completion of the related pre-assignment are important parts of class participation.
The theme of the course is class, gender and race and their intersections. Texts discussed come from all disciplines of social sciences: Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, History, Law, because crossing boundaries of disciplines is a major way to produce new knowledge in social sciences.
 
 

Compétence à acquérir :

Given the globalization of the academic world, English has become the universal language of social science. But translations are always transpositions. The aim of this course is to introduce to fields in social sciences that are not usually taught in France : "Race, class, gender". The course will provide the students with a better understanding of social sciences in different national contexts (North America, UK, France, India) from the end of the 19th century until today.

Mode de contrôle des connaissances :

1. Presence & Participation: 33% of the final note. 
2. In addition to reading the article package assigned to the course, the students are expected to write analyses of the mandatory papers for each session. The idea of the pre-assignment is to encourage students to read through the assigned reading before the course and it also functions as a springboard for discussion during the course: 33% of the final note.
3. Curating the seminar. Every week, two students curate the seminar. They present the paper and they initiate the discussion: 33% of the final note.

Bibliographie, lectures recommandées :

Classics on Race, Class, Gender

E. P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism”, Past & Present, 38, 1967: 56-97 (41p.)

Ann Oakley, Sex, Gender & Society, 1972 (extracts, 25 p.)

Ann Oakley, The Sociology of Housework, 1974 (extracts, 32 p.)

WEB DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, 1899 [1996] (extracts)

WEB DuBois, “Strivings of the Negro People”, The Atlantic, 1897

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955 (extracts, 19p.)

Film, Raoul Peck, I am not your Negro, 2016 (1H34)

Joan Scott, « Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis », in Gender and the Politics of History, 1988.

Ranajit Guha, “On Some Aspects of The Historiography of Colonial India”, Subaltern Sudies, 1982 (5p.)

Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency”, Subaltern Sudies, 1982 (21p.)

Race, Class, Gender as Useful Categories of Social Sciences Today

Kimberley Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989.

Kimberley Crenshaw, “The urgency of intersectionality”, TED conference, oct 2016.

Matthew Desmond, Evicted, Poverty and Profit in the American City, Crown Publishers, 2016 [Prologue, chap 6 + “about this project”]

Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”, Harvard Law Review, 106, 1993, (86p.)

Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, An American Family, Norton and co, 2008 [extracts].

Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Lands, 2016 (extracts)