SOCIOL 204 (Sociological Theorizing)

Winter 2026 Reading Schedule

Theory and Theorizing

Week 1 (January 7)

What is Theory?

  • Abend, G. (2008). The meaning of ‘Theory.’ Sociological Theory, 26(2), 173-199.
  • Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2009). What is Theory? Pp. 1-19 in Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Cambridge University Press
  • Davis, M. S. (1971). That’s interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1(2), 309-344.

Why is Theory?

  • Besbris, M., & Khan, S. (2017). Less Theory. More Description. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 147-153.
  • Healy, K. (2017). Fuck nuance. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 118-127.
  • Mears, A. (2017). Puzzling in sociology: On doing and undoing theoretical puzzles. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 138-146.

Habits, Bodies, and Practices

Week 2 (January 14)

  • Dubrule, A. (2022). Gender and Habit: John Dewey and Iris Marion Young on Embodiment and Transformation. The Pluralist, 17(1), 45-51.
  • Liao, S. Y., & Huebner, B. (2021). Oppressive things. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 103(1), 92-113.
  • Luft, A. (2023). The moral career of the genocide perpetrator: Cognition, emotions, and dehumanization as a consequence, not a cause, of violence. Sociological Theory, 41(4), 324-351.
  • Sullivan, S. (2000). Reconfiguring gender with John Dewey: Habit, bodies, and cultural change. Hypatia, 15(1), 23-42.
  • Young, I. M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(1), 137-156.

Week 3 (January 21)

  • Engman, A., & Cranford, C. (2016). Habit and the Body: Lessons for Social Theories of Habit from the Experiences of People with Physical Disabilities. Sociological Theory, 34(1), 27-44.
  • Haslanger, S. (2018). What is a social practice? Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 82, 231-247.
  • Ngo, H. (2016). Racist habits: A phenomenological analysis of racism and the habitual body. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 42(9), 847-872.
  • Pagis, M. (2010). From abstract concepts to experiential knowledge: Embodying enlightenment in a meditation center. Qualitative Sociology, 33(4), 469-489.
  • Winchester, D. (2008). Embodying the faith: Religious practice and the making of a Muslim moral habitus. Social Forces, 86(4), 1753-1780.

Fields, Ecologies, Institutions, and Organization

Week 4 (January 28)

  • Abbott, A. (2005). Linked ecologies: States and universities as environments for professions. Sociological Theory, 23(3), 245-274.
  • Beckert, J. (2010). Institutional isomorphism revisited: Convergence and divergence in institutional change. Sociological Theory, 28(2), 150-166.
  • Dimaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147-160.
  • Garcelon, M. (2010). The missing key: Institutions, networks, and the project of neoclassical sociology. Sociological Theory, 28(3), 326-353.
  • Wang, Y. (2016). Homology and isomorphism: Bourdieu in conversation with New Institutionalism. The British Journal of Sociology, 67(2), 348-370.

Week 5 (February 11)

  • Armstrong, E. A., & Bernstein, M. (2008). Culture, power, and institutions: A multi‐institutional politics approach to social movements. Sociological Theory, 26(1), 74-99.
  • Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2011). Toward a general theory of strategic action fields. Sociological Theory, 29(1), 1-26.
  • Krause, M. (2018). How fields vary. The British Journal of Sociology, 69(1), 3-22.
  • Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84_(1), 26-53.
  • Meyer, J. W., & Bromley, P. (2013). The worldwide expansion of ‘organization’. Sociological Theory, 31(4), 366-389.

Interaction, Situations, and Phenomenology

Week 6 (February 18)

  • Atkinson, W. (2010). Phenomenological additions to the Bourdieusian toolbox: Two problems for Bourdieu, two solutions from Schutz. Sociological Theory, 28(1), 1-19.
  • Cetina, K. K. (2009). The synthetic situation: Interactionism for a global world. Symbolic Interaction, 32(1), 61-87.
  • Fligstein, N. (2001). Social skill and the theory of fields. Sociological Theory, 19(2):105-125.
  • Hallett, T., & Hawbaker, A. (2021). The case for an inhabited institutionalism in organizational research: interaction, coupling, and change reconsidered. Theory and Society, 50(1), 1-32.
  • Itzigsohn, J., & Brown, K. (2015). Sociology and the theory of double consciousness: WEB Du Bois’s phenomenology of racialized subjectivity. Du Bois Review, 12(2), 231-248.

Week 7 (February 25)

  • Hitlin, S., & Elder, G. H. (2007). Time, self, and the curiously abstract concept of agency. Sociological Theory, 25(2), 170-191.
  • Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2020). Racist Encounters: A Pragmatist Semiotic Analysis of Interaction. Sociological Theory, 38(4), 295-317.
  • Surak, K. (2017). Rupture and rhythm: A phenomenology of national experiences. Sociological Theory, 35(4), 312-333.
  • Tavory, I., & Fine, G. A. (2020). Disruption and the theory of the interaction Order. Theory and Society, *49_(3), 365-385.
  • Tavory, I., & Eliasoph, N. (2013). Coordinating futures: Toward a theory of anticipation. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 908-942.

Networks, Relations, and Structures

Week 8 (March 4)

  • Crossley, N. (2022). A Dependent Structure of Interdependence: Structure and Agency in Relational Perspective. Sociology, 56(1), 166-182.
  • Erikson, E. (2013). Formalist and relationalist theory in social network analysis. Sociological Theory, 31_(3), 219-242.
  • Fuhse, J. A. (2009). The meaning structure of social networks. Sociological theory, 27(1), 51-73.
  • Sewell Jr, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1-29.
  • Reed, I. A. (2017). Chains of power and their representation. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 87-117.

Week 9 (May 23)

  • Dépelteau, F. (2008). Relational Thinking: A Critique of Co‐Deterministic Theories of sructure and Agency.Sociological Theory,26(1), 51-73
  • Elder Vass, D. (2008). Integrating institutional, relational and embodied structure: an emergentist perspective. The British Journal of Sociology, 59(2), 281-299.
  • Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103_(2), 281-317.
  • Haslanger, S. (2016). What is a (social) structural explanation? Philosophical Studies, 173, 113–130.
  • Saito, H. (2011). An actor-network theory of cosmopolitanism. Sociological Theory, 29(2), 124-149.

Culture, Cognition, and Action

Week 10 (March 11)

  • Brett, G. (2022). Dueling with Dual-Process Models: Cognition, Creativity, and Context. Sociological Theory, 40(2), 179-201.
  • Freeman, K. J., Condron, D. J., & Steidl, C. R. (2020). Structures of stratification: Advancing a sociological debate over culture and resources. Critical Sociology, 46_(2), 191-206.
  • Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological Review, 51,:273–286.
  • Leschziner, V., & Green, A. I. (2013). Thinking about food and sex: Deliberate cognition in the routine practices of a field. Sociological Theory, 31(2), 116-144.
  • Vaisey, S. (2009). Motivation and justification: Toward a dual-process theory of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114(6):1675–1715.