Introduction to Sociology - The Sociological Imagination - Part 1
The Sociological Imagination: Who We Are and How We Got Here - Part 1--This course provides a sampling of problems and methods used by sociologists, with concrete examples from everyday life, history, and contemporary events.
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Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
Sociology
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151) Today we take a bridge into the twentieth century, constructed by Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber's critical theory. Each author is different in important ways, but they also agree on two crucial points: we must subject our consciousness and assumptions to critical scrutiny and, along with increasing liberation and rationalization in some ways, modern society also has repressive elements. Nietzsche is the oldest of these thinkers; he dies in 1900 and stops working a decade before due to mental illness. While he was ill, his sister, a proto-Nazi and associate of Hitler, cared for him. Her control of his papers and how they were released to the public painted him as a proto-Nazi himself, but reading his whole oeuvre illuminates that Nietzsche subjected Judaism and Christianity to the same scrutiny. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche attempts to use the genealogy method to be critical of modern morality without taking a certain vantage point. We discuss most specifically his genealogy of the ideas of good and bad and of good and evil. 00:00 - Chapter 1. Nietzsche, Freud and Weber and The Problem of Modernity 10:23 - Chapter 2. Nietzsche in a Historical Context 25:35 - Chapter 3. Nietzsche's Major Works 33:21 - Chapter 4. Major Themes in "On the Genealogy of Morals" Complete course materials are available at the Yale Online website: online.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2009.
YaleCourses published via YouTube.com
New Directions in Dental Anthropology: Paradigms, Methodologies and Outcomes
Anthropology
University of Adelaide Press
Textbooks
Principles of Sociological Inquiry – Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Principles of Sociological
Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
The author of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, Amy Blackstone, started envisioning this textbook while sitting in her own undergraduate sociology research methods class. She enjoyed the material but wondered about its relevance to her everyday life and future plans (the idea that one day she would be teaching such a class hadn’t yet occurred to her). Now that she teaches the research methods course, she realizes that students today wonder the very same thing. While the importance of understanding research methods is usually clear to those students who intend to pursue an advanced degree, Amy wanted to write a text that would assist research methods teachers in demonstrating to all types of students the relevance of this course. In addition, Amy Blackstone’s experience as an active researcher who uses both qualitative and quantitative methods made her acutely aware of the need for a balanced approach in teaching methods of sociological inquiry. Together, Amy Blackstone’s experiences as a student, researcher, and teacher shape the three overriding objectives of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods: Relevance, Balance, and Accessibility. Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods emphasizes the relevance of research methods for the everyday lives of its readers, undergraduate students. Each chapter describes how research methodology is useful for students in the multiple roles they fill: As consumers of popular and public information As citizens As current and future employees. Connections to these roles are made throughout and directly within the main text of the book Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods also provides balanced coverage of qualitative and quantitative approaches by integrating a variety of examples from recent and classic sociological research. The text challenges students to debate and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. Finally, one of the most important goals Amy had for Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods was to introduce students to the core principles of social research in a way that is straightforward and engaging. As such, the text reflects public sociology’s emphasis on making sociology accessible and readable. No one can validate that claim more than a teacher or student. So, take a look for yourself today and review Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods by Amy Blackstone to see if its approach toward relevance, balance, and accessibility are right for your course and students.
Amy Blackstone
Saylor Foundation
Evolution
Becoming Human: How Evolution Made Us is an Irreverent, fast-moving introduction to basic evolutionary theories and human origins. The focus is not just on our prehistory. Becoming Human highlights how evolution affects the way we are today, and helps us to anticipate what might happen to us in the future. The work explores the history of evolutionary theory, for Charles Darwin's voyage on the HMS Beagle to new discoveries in genetics and paleoanthropology. The book especially explores the traces of evolution in our bodies today, the development of evolutionary theory, how evolution was affected by the way we reproduce, and the development of our unusual brains. Whether you're interested in the reason that our babies cry so loudly when chimpanzees don't or curious about how natural selection might have favoured cooperation as well as competition, Becoming Human is an excellent first stop on the path to learning more. The book is easy-to-read but challenging, an ideal introduction to our species' origin. The book was originally created to accompany the course 'Becoming Human,' a free online course from Open2Study (a project of Open Universities Australia). The author, anthropologist Greg Downey, has prepared a collection of his scripts, together with web links, academic references and other resources for more information. Although the book is ideal for those who are doing the online course, Becoming Human, it's also a great way to understand better how evolution produced humans.
Greg Downey
Enculture Press, Australia
Sociology and The Sociological Perspective
Perspective
Saylor.org
Intimate Relationships and Families . Sociology 103 v.2
Intimate Relationships, Sociology
Sociological theories are the core and underlying strength of the discipline. They guide researchers in their studies; they also guide practitioners in their intervention strategies. And they will provide you with a basic understanding of how to see the larger social picture in your own personal life. A theory is a set of interrelated concepts used to describe, explain, and predict how society and its parts are related to each other. Let’s use binoculars as a metaphor to illustrate the usefulness of a theory. Binoculars serve to magnify, enlarge, clarify, and expand our view of the thing we are looking at. Unlike binoculars, you can’t see or touch a theory, but it is a framework to help you “see” the world sociologically. Some things you want to look at need 20x80 strength binoculars while you might see other things better with 8x40 or 10x30 lenses. It’s the same with society. Some things need the lens of Conflict Theory, while others need a Structural Functional or Symbolic Interactionist lens.
Ron Hammond and Paul Cheney
www.canyons.edu
Textbook
Sociology 200: Introduction to Women’s Studies
Sociology’s roots are in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, from where founding fathers Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel hail. Sociology waxed and waned in popularity outside of the U.S. over its short history. Today, sociology has become a United States-centered scientific discipline with most sociologists living in the U.S.. There is significant sociological work being done in various countries of the world, but most of the 14,000 members of the American Sociological Association (the world’s largest professional sociology organization) live in the U.S Sociology is a relatively new discipline in comparison to chemistry, math, biology, philosophy and other disciplines that trace back thousands of years
Katie Coleman
College of the Canyons
Sociology is a relatively new discipline in comparison to chemistry, math, biology, philosophy andother disciplines that trace back thousands of years. Sociology began as an intellectual/philosophical effortby a French man named Auguste Comte who coined the term “Sociology.” Sociology is the science of society and of human behavior when influenced by society. Why did thinkers of the day find a need for the new science of sociology? Societies had changedin unprecedented ways and had formed a new collective of social complexities that the world hadnever witnessed before. Western Europe was transformed by the Industrial Revolution, atechnological development of knowledge and manufacturing that began in the late 1600s and continued untilthe early 1900s.
Sociological Inquiry
This textbook has been on my mind since 1994, when I sat in my own undergraduate sociology research methods class, enjoying the material but also wondering about its relevance to my everyday life and future plans (the idea that one day I would be teaching such a class hadn’t yet occurred to me). While the importance of understanding research methods is usually clear to students who intend to pursue an advanced degree, I’ve long thought that we research methods teachers could do a better job of demonstrating to all of our students the relevance of what it is that we’re teaching. Today, as an active researcher who uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, I appreciate the need not only for students to understand the relevance of research methods for themselves but also for them to understand the relevance of both qualitative and quantitative techniques for sociological inquiry.
Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World
Most Americans probably agree that we enjoy a great amount of freedom. And yet perhaps we have less freedom than we think, because many of our choices are influenced by our society in ways we do not even realize. Perhaps we are not as distinctively individualistic as we believe we are. For example, consider the right to vote. The secret ballot is one of the most cherished principles of American democracy. We vote in secret so that our choice of a candidate is made freely and without fear of punishment. That is all true, but it is also possible to guess the candidate for whom any one individual will vote if enough is known about the individual. This is because our choice of a candidate is affected by many aspects of our social backgrounds and, in this sense, is not made as freely as we might think.
Velmarie Albertini, Marcia Andrejevich
https://open.lib.umn.edu
Western Civilization: A Concise History - Volume 3
Western Civilization
What is “Western Civilization”? Furthermore, who or what is part of it? Like all ideas, the concept of Western Civilization itself has a history, one that coalesced in college textbooks and curriculums for the first time in the United States in the 1920s. In many ways, the very idea of Western Civilization is a “loaded” one, opposing one form or branch of civilization from others as if they were distinct, even unrelated. Thus, before examining the events of Western Civilization’s history, it is important to unpack the history of the concept itself.
Dr. Christopher Brooks
Portland Community College
Western Civilization: A Concise History - Volume 2
Civilization
Western Civilization: A Concise History​ is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8,000 BCE to 2017 CE. It is available in three volumes covering the following time periods and topics: Volume 2: from the early Middle Ages to the French Revolution in 1789 CE. Volume 2covers topics including the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the European conquest of the Americas, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.
Christopher Brooks
Western Civilization: A Concise History - Volume 1
Western Civilization: A Concise History​ is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8,000 BCE to 2017 CE. It is available in three volumes covering the following time periods and topics: Volume 1: from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Volume 1 covers topics including Mesopotamia,Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages.