SOCIOL 204 (Sociological Theorizing)

Readings

Week 0: Theory and Theorizing

  • Abend, G. (2008). The meaning of ‘Theory.’ Sociological Theory, 26(2), 173-199. [pdf]
  • 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. [pdf]
  • Healy, K. (2017). Fuck nuance. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 118-127. [pdf]
  • Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2009). What is Theory? Pp. 1-19 in Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Cambridge University Press. [pdf]

Further Reading

  • Martin, J. L. (2015) On Theory in Sociology. Pp. 1-44 in Thinking Through Theory. W. W. Norton [pdf]
  • Selg, P. (2013). The politics of theory and the constitution of meaning. Sociological Theory, 31(1), 1-23. [pdf]

Week 1: Foundational Readings (The Greatest Hits)

  • 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.
  • Emirbayer, M., & Goodwin, J. (1994). Network analysis, culture, and the problem of agency. American Journal of Sociology, 99(6), 1411-1454.
  • Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-1023. [pdf]
  • Martin, J. L. (2003). What is field theory? American Journal of Sociology, 109_(1), 1-49. [pdf]
  • Sewell Jr, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1-29. [pdf]
  • Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in action: Symbols and Strategies. American Sociological Review, 51,:273–286. [pdf]

Week 2: The (Culture in) Action Tradition

  • Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2009). The Classical Attempt at Synthesis. Pp. 20-42 in Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Cambridge University Press. [pdf]
  • Vaisey, S. (2009). Motivation and justification: Toward a dual-process theory of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114(6):1675–1715. [pdf]
  • Zilberstein, S., Lamont, M., & Sanchez, M. (2023). Recreating a Plausible Future: Combining Cultural Repertoires in Unsettled Times. Sociological Science, 10, 348-373. [pdf]
  • Ayala-Hurtado, E. (2022). Narrative continuity/rupture: Projected professional futures amid pervasive employment precarity. Work and Occupations, 49(1), 45-78. [pdf]
  • Winchester, D. (2016). A hunger for God: embodied metaphor as cultural cognition in action. Social Forces, 95(2), 585-606. [pdf]
  • Lizardo, O., & Strand, M. (2010). Skills, toolkits, contexts and institutions: Clarifying the relationship between different approaches to cognition in cultural sociology. Poetics, 38(2), 205-228. [pdf]
  • Luft, A. (2020). Theorizing moral cognition: Culture in action, situations, and relationships. Socius, , 2378023120916125. [pdf]
  • Sendroiu, I. (2022). ‘All the Old Illusions’: On Guessing at Being in Crisis. Sociological Theory, 0(0). [pdf]

Further Reading

  • Abramson, C. M. (2012). From “either‐or” to “when and how”: A context‐dependent model of culture in action. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 42(2), 155-180. [pdf]
  • Alexander, J. C. (1988). Action and its Environments Pp. 301-333 in Action and its Environments: Toward a New Synthesis. Columbia University Press, New York . [pdf]
  • Eckstein, H. (1996). Culture as a foundation concept for the social sciences. Journal of Theoretical Politics, (4), 471-497.
  • Reed, I. A., & Weinman, M. (2019). Agency, power, modernity: A manifesto for social theory. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, (1), 6-50. [pdf]
  • Strand, M., & Lizardo, O. (2017). The hysteresis effect: Theorizing mismatch in action. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 47(2), 164-194. [pdf]

Week 3: The Habit Tradition

  • Crawley, S. L., Whitlock, M. C., & Earles, J. (2021). Smithing queer empiricism: Engaging ethnomethodology for a queer social science. Sociological Theory, 39(3), 127-152. [pdf]
  • 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. [pdf]
  • Ostrow, J. (1987). Habit and inhabitance: an analysis of experience in the classroom. Human Studies, 213-224. [pdf]
  • Liao, S. Y., & Huebner, B. (2021). Oppressive things. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 103(1), 92-113. [pdf]
  • Winchester, D. (2008). Embodying the faith: Religious practice and the making of a Muslim moral habitus. Social Forces, 86(4), 1753-1780. [pdf]
  • Pagis, M. (2010). From abstract concepts to experiential knowledge: Embodying enlightenment in a meditation center. Qualitative Sociology, 33(4), 469-489. [pdf]
  • Ngo, H. (2016). Racist habits: A phenomenological analysis of racism and the habitual body. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 42(9), 847-872. [pdf]

Further Reading

  • Haslanger, S. (2018). What is a social practice? Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 82, 231-247. [pdf]
  • Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices: A development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, (2), 243-263. [pdf]
  • Sewell, W. H. (2005). The concept(s) of culture. Pp. 152-174 in Logics of History. University of Chicago Press. [pdf]
  • Crossley, N. (2013). Habit and habitus. Body & Society, 19(2-3), 136-161. [pdf]
  • Swidler, A. (2001). What anchors cultural practices. Pp. 74-92 in Schatzki, T. R., Knorr-Cetina, K., and Savigny, E. V., editors, The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. Routledge. [pdf]
  • Casey, E. S. (1984). Habitual body and memory in Merleau-Ponty. In Phenomenology and the Human Sciences (pp. 39-57). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
  • Dubrule, A. (2022). Gender and Habit: John Dewey and Iris Marion Young on Embodiment and Transformation. The Pluralist, 17(1), 45-51. [pdf]
  • Sullivan, S. (2000). Reconfiguring gender with John Dewey: Habit, bodies, and cultural change. Hypatia, 15(1), 23-42. [pdf]

Week 4: The Pragmatist Tradition

  • Brett, G. (2022). Dueling with Dual-Process Models: Cognition, Creativity, and Context. Sociological Theory, 40(2), 179-201.
  • Dalton, B. (2004). Creativity, Habit, and the Social Products of Creative Action: Revising Joas, Incorporating Bourdieu. Sociological Theory, 22(4):603-622
  • Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2020). Racist Encounters: A Pragmatist Semiotic Analysis of Interaction. Sociological Theory, 38(4), 295-317.
  • Winchester, D., & Green, K. D. (2019). Talking your self into it: How and when accounts shape motivation for action. Sociological Theory, 37(3), 257-281.
  • Pagis, M., & Summers‐Effler, E. (2021). Aesthetic Engagement. Sociological Forum (36), 1371-1394.
  • Gold, T. (2022). Contentious Tactics as Jazz Performances: A Pragmatist Approach to the Study of Repertoire Change. Sociological Theory, 40(3), 249-271.

Further Reading

  • Gross, N. (2009). A pragmatist theory of social mechanisms. *American Sociological Review,_ 74(3), 358-379.
  • Silver, D. (2011). The moodiness of action. Sociological Theory, *29_(3), 199-222.
  • Whitford, J. (2002). Pragmatism and the untenable dualism of means and ends: Why rational choice theory does not deserve paradigmatic privilege. Theory and Society, 31(3), 325-363.

Week 5: The Phenomenological Tradition

  • 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.
  • Surak, K. (2017). Rupture and Rhythm: A Phenomenology of National Experiences. Sociological Theory, 35(4), 312-333.
  • Tavory, I., & Winchester, D. (2012). Experiential careers: the routinization and de-routinization of religious life. Theory and Society, 41, 351-373.
  • Tavory, I., & Eliasoph, N. (2013). Coordinating Futures: Toward a Theory of Anticipation. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 908-942.
  • Young, I. M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(1), 137-156.
  • Yancy, G. (2008). Elevators, social spaces and racism: A philosophical analysis. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 34(8), 843-876. [pdf]

Further Reading

  • Atkinson, W. (2010). Phenomenological additions to the Bourdieusian toolbox: Two problems for Bourdieu, two solutions from Schutz. Sociological Theory, 28(1), 1-19.
  • Berger, P. and T. Luckmann (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. Doubleday. (Pp. 29-46, 51-72, 129-147)
  • Crossley, N. (2001). The phenomenological habitus and its construction. Theory and society, *30_(1), 81-120.
  • Heiskala, R. (2011). The meaning of meaning in sociology. The achievements and shortcomings of Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological sociology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 41(3), 231-246.
  • Reay, M. (2010). Knowledge distribution, embodiment, and insulation. Sociological Theory, *28_(1), 91-107.

Week 6: The Structural/Relational Tradition

  • Erikson, E. (2013). Formalist and relationalist theory in social network analysis. Sociological Theory, 31_(3), 219-242.
  • Saito, H. (2011). An actor-network theory of cosmopolitanism. Sociological Theory, 29(2), 124-149.
  • Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103_(2), 281-317.
  • Leschziner, V., & Brett, G. (2021). Symbol Systems and Social Structures. Pp. pp. 559-582 in Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory. Springer.
  • Mische, A. (2011) Relational sociology, culture, and agency. Pp. 80-97 in The Sage handbook of Social Network Analysis. Sage Publications.
  • Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2009). Structuralism and Poststructuralism. Pp. 339-370 in Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Cambridge University Press.
  • Haslanger, S. (2016). What is a (social) structural explanation? Philosophical Studies, 173, 113–130.
  • Reed, I. A. (2013). Power: Relational, discursive, and performative dimensions. Sociological Theory, 31_(3), 193-218.
  • Ritchie, K. (2020). Social structures and the ontology of social groups. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 100(2), 402-424.
  • Bourdieu, P. (1985). The social space and the genesis of groups. Social science information, 24(2), 195-220.

Week 7: The Institutionalist Tradition

  • Friedland, R. and Alford, R. (1991). Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. Pp. 232-263 in DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W., editors, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press.
  • Meyer, J. W., & Jepperson, R. L. (2000). The ‘actors’ of modern society: The cultural construction of social agency. Sociological Theory, *18_(1), 100-120.
  • Jepperson, R. L. (1991). Institutions, institutional effects, and institutionalism. Pp. 143-163 in DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W., editors, The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. The University of Chicago Press.

Further Reading

  • Frank, D. J., & Meyer, J. W. (2002). The profusion of individual roles and identities in the postwar period. Sociological Theory, *20_(1), 86-105.
  • Meyer, J. W., Boli, J., Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (1997). World society and the nation-state. American Journal of Sociology, *103_(1), 144-181.
  • Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, *83_(2), 340-363.
  • Wimmer, A. (2021). Domains of diffusion: How culture and institutions travel around the world and with what consequences. American Journal of Sociology, *126_(6), 1389-1438.
  • Martin, P. Y. (2004). Gender as social institution. Social forces, 82(4), 1249-1273.

Week 8: Fields and Ecologies

  • Abbott, A. (2005). Linked ecologies: States and universities as environments for professions. Sociological Theory, *23_(3), 245-274. [pdf]
  • Buchholz, L. (2016). What is a global field? Theorizing fields beyond the nation-state. The Sociological Review, 64(2_suppl), 31-60. [pdf]
  • Kluttz, D. N., & Fligstein, N. (2016). Varieties of sociological field theory. In Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory (pp. 185-204). Springer. [pdf]
  • Liu, S., & Emirbayer, M. (2016). Field and Ecology. Sociological Theory, 34(1), 62-79. [pdf]
  • Go, J. (2008). Global fields and imperial forms: Field theory and the British and American empires. Sociological Theory, 26(3), 201-229.
  • Krause, M. (2018). How fields vary. The British Journal of Sociology, *69_(1), 3-22. [pdf]

Further Reading

  • Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2011). Toward a general theory of strategic action fields. Sociological Theory, *29_(1), 1-26. [pdf]
  • Steinmetz, G. (2016). Social fields, subfields and social spaces at the scale of empires: Explaining the colonial state and colonial sociology. The Sociological Review, 64(2_suppl), 98-123. [pdf]
  • Wang, Y. (2016). Homology and isomorphism: Bourdieu in conversation with New Institutionalism. The British Journal of Sociology, 67(2), 348-370. [pdf]

Week 9: The Interaction Tradition

  • Fligstein, N. (2001). Social skill and the theory of fields. Sociological Theory, 19(2):105-125. [pdf]
  • Fuhse, J. A. (2009). The meaning structure of social networks. Sociological theory, 27(1), 51-73. [pdf]
  • 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. [pdf]
  • Cetina, K. K. (2009). The synthetic situation: Interactionism for a global world. Symbolic Interaction, 32(1), 61-87. [pdf]
  • Tavory, I., & Fine, G. A. (2020). Disruption and the Theory of the Interaction Order. Theory and Society, *49_(3), 365-385. [pdf]
  • Eliasoph, N., & Lichterman, P. (2003). Culture in interaction. American Journal of Sociology, 108(4), 735-794. [pdf]
  • Tavory, I. (2018). Between situations: Anticipation, rhythms, and the theory of interaction. Sociological Theory, *36_(2), 117-133. [pdf]

Week 10: The Structuration Tradition

  • Barley, S. R., & Tolbert, P. S. (1997). Institutionalization and structuration: Studying the links between action and institution. Organization Studies, 18(1), 93-117. [pdf]
  • Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84_(1), 26-53. [pdf]
  • 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. [pdf]
  • Haslanger, S. (2015). Distinguished lecture: Social structure, narrative and explanation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 45(1), 1-15.
  • Zheng, R. (2018). Bias, structure, and injustice: A reply to Haslanger. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 4(1).
  • Haslanger, S. (2019). Cognition as a social skill. Australasian Philosophical Review, (1), 5-25. [pdf]
  • Hays, S. (1994). Structure and agency and the sticky problem of culture. Sociological theory, 57-72. [pdf]
  • Risman, B. J. (2004). Gender As a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism. Gender & Society, 18(4), 429-450. [pdf]