@article{Steinmetz_2010, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={SOC 505: Theory and Practice of Sociology}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/soc-505-theory-and-practice-of-sociology}, abstractNote={Sociology 505 is the first semester of a year-long course surveying social theory as a quasi-independent form of activity. During this first semester, we trace the lineaments and genealogies of major theoretical approaches in sociology, social theory, and related fields, focusing above all on three broad areas: (1) the emergence and definition of the idea of a specific social realm ("the social"), (2) the thematization of the difference and relations between the social and the political and psychic realms, and (3) theories of social change from the 17th (Hobbes) to the 21st century, with a special emphasis on 20th century theories of modernity as crisis, empire, and totalitarianism. We will focus on the sources of the most central concepts in modern social theory, examining Thomas Hobbes, Ferdinand de Saussure, who proposed the first properly structuralist theory of the social; Emile Durkheim, who combined French positivist and structuralist traditions with Marx and Hegel; and several recent and contemporary theorists who draw on these founding German traditions, including Lacan, Althusser, and Bourdieu. We will pay special attention to the Germans and German-language exile theorists Hegel, Marx, Freud, Max Weber, Martin Heidegger, and Hannah Arendt. The course remains deliberately open-ended; it seeks to convey a sense of what "doing theory" is all about rather than envisioning a final theoretical or practical resolution of all of the questions raised. }, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Steinmetz, George}, year={2010}, month={Apr.} }