Soc 101: History of Sociological Theory [Living Theory]
I have been teaching “The History of Sociological Theory” since I arrived in Berkeley in 1976. Neil Smelser, then chair of the sociology department, took quite a gamble in asking me to fill a hole in the course offerings that year. I was no theorist by any stretch of the imagination, having received Bs and Cs for my theory papers in graduate school. It became a case of a course teaching the teacher rather than the teacher teaching the course. But I soon became an unapologetic enthusiast for social theory, aided by two Berkeley golden gifts: first, the willingness of undergraduates -- undaunted by numbers that can rise to over 200 per course or by their dazzling diversity -- to enter into disciplined dialogue with me and with one another; and, second, the devotion of generations of brilliant and dedicated graduate student teachers. The combination was and is electric.
In the beginning the course was but a single quarter long but in 1980, in response to popular demand, we converted it to a two-quarter course and when, in 1984 we moved over to the semester system, it became a year-long course. Since then it has become the mainstay and distinctive mark of the Berkeley undergraduate degree, and we now even offer a non-required third semester of social theory for addicts.
What is social theory? I have likened it to a map of the social world. Maps simplify the world -- they tell us how to get to where we are going, they serve different purposes. So the same with social theories. They too are simplifications, telling us where we might go, pointing to dangerous or forbidden territory, raising very differermnt questions about the social world. I have also likened social theory to a lens without which we cannot see society. We all share social maps, we all wear lenses. That's what makes us members of society. We are, therefore, like it or not, all social theorists. Sociological theory, however, is a special type of social theory. It sees the world as a problem, a world that is less than perfect, a world that could be different. Sociological theory questions what we take for granted. It challenges common sense, showing the partiality of its truth, how in our daily lives we misrecognize what we are up to. Under the spell of sociological theory common sense, from being something natural and inevitable, becomes something socially constructed (and durably so), but also artificial and arbitrary. In this sense sociological theory is always critical theory. For that reason sociological theory is unsettling and subversive, but it also potentially liberates us from the eternal present.... (more)