CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

This lecture course fulfills the theory requirement in Columbia’s sociology program. It introduces students to post-War sociology by discussing its major paradigms, from Parson’s functionalism to contemporary post-colonial theory or actor-network theory. Each class discusses how a particular theory constructs social reality by making basic assumptions about the component parts of society, how they relate to each other, and what questions emerge that empirical research needs to answer. To illustrate how paradigms conceive and perceive the empirical world differently, each lecture summarizes how intimate, romantic relationships appear when empirically analyzed from a specific theoretical angle.