760
Teaching Social Theory
Teaching Social Theory
Abstract Submissions Closed
Thursday, 25 February 2021: 14:15-15:45
Location:
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Invited Session
There are different ways to teach social theory. Most usually, it takes a survey approach, often based on text books with selections or summaries. Students are moved from one theorist to the next, often too many to absorb or really appreciate. In this mode students get a sense of the sorts of issues that have concerned social theorists. I take the ethnographic approach to theory, requiring students to read carefully chosen, small extracts in relation to specific questions around a common theme. In that way students learn how to put together a composite picture, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. And then to put theories into conversation with one another around the same common theme. I will show how I do this with the theme of the "division of labor". I call this living theory: on the one hand, making theory live by bringing it into relation to the contemporary world and on the other hand, through concentrated reading students live theory, dwell in theory so that it becomes a part of their world. That's the goal, but the achievement is another matter.
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