Jerry Williams
Associate Professor of
Office: Liberal
Arts North 353
Phone: (936)
468-2306
Office Hours
Monday 12:00 – 2:30
Tuesday 3:30 – 5:30
Wednesday 4:00 – 5:30
Thursday
11:30 – 12:30,
3:30 – 5:30
Friday
By Appointment
E-mail:
Jerry@WilliamsPage.net
A Separate Reality. Carlos Castaneda
The Myth of Sisyphus. Albert Camus
Winesberg Ohio. Sherwood Anderson
A reading or readings of your choice together with two office conferences
Other Readings as Assigned
This course is an introduction to the
sociology of everyday life. Our major
goal will be to study what Alfred Schutz has called the “everyday life
world.” Schutz states, “the sciences that
would interpret and explain human action must begin with a description of the
foundational structures of what is prescientific, the reality which seems
self-evident to men remaining within the natural attitude. This reality is the everyday
life-world.” As we will see all human
actions are sociologically significant.
Even the most common events can provide insight into the way we
understand reality. Theoretically this
course explores the social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and its intersections
with existential philosophy, and social constructionism.
This course will entail a good deal of
reading. You are encouraged to start early and not to get behind. I hope you
will find the readings both valuable and interesting. The exams, reaction
papers, and class discussions will require your careful attention to all
assigned reading materials.
Conferences
In addition to the readings listed above you will also be asked to select a
reading or readings on your own and to arrange two conferences in my office so
that we can discuss them.
Exams
This course two exams one of which is the final.
Reaction Papers
There are six short reaction papers required (2 pages each). Reaction papers are not to be book reports of summaries of material covered in class or in the readings. These papers should represent your creative reaction to course material.
Reaction papers = 20 points each
Course project
You are to conduct a course project of your own selection.
This project might be a term paper, a field research project, a work of
fiction, a .........? All projects must relate in some way to course
material. At the end of the semester you will be asked to give a short
presentation about your project.
Grades will be calculated in the following
way:
Short reaction papers = (6 x20)
120 points
Exam #1 =
50
points
Exam #2 = 50 points
Course
Project
50 points
Conferences
=
* Attendance and participation is
required in this course. My evaluation
of your attendance and participation can potentially raise our lower your grade
in the course by an entire grade.
A At Least 268 points (90%)
B At least 238 points (80%)
C At Least 208 points (70%)
D At Least 178 points (60%)
F Below 178
points
Any social organization requires some
rules. In no particular order here they are.
Attendance
Attendance and
participation is required in this
course. My evaluation of your attendance
and participation can potentially raise our lower your grade in the course by
an entire grade.
Grades
Many misconceptions exist about grades in
the university. Perhaps the most common is that grades are given based upon
student effort. Rather, grades are meant as evaluations of student performance
not as rewards for effort. Some students can earn good grades with little or no
effort. Other students work very hard and receive poor grades. This situation,
while regrettable, is very similar to the "real world" conditions
students will face after leaving the university. Both grades and monetary
rewards are given to those who perform well. A second common misconception
about grades is that a "C" is a "bad" grade. To the contrary
a 'C' is given to work that meets the criteria of "satisfactory"
college work.
Late Work and Makeup tests
All work: tests, assignments, and essays
are due when noted on this syllabus. Late work will not be accepted. Makeup
tests will only be given in extraordinary circumstances and must be prearranged.
Plagiarism and Cheating
Plagiarism and cheating are serious
offenses and may be punished by failure on the exam, paper, or project, failure
in the course: and / or expulsion from the university. If you have any question
about what constitutes plagiarism and cheating please ask your instructor or
consult the university catalog.
Academic Accommodations for Disabled Students
Any student with a disability who needs an
accommodation or other assistance in this course should make an appointment to
speak with me as soon as possible.
General Conduct
Respect is of utmost importance in the
university environment. This is especially true of the classroom.
Section 1:
1 - Introduction and
orientation, provinces of reality and the tensions of consciousness, horizons
of meaning (inner and outer interpretational horizons),
science, ideas, emotions, the
pragmatic motive of everyday life.
2 – Duration, intentionality, intersubjectivity, purposes at hand, the problem of relevance, biographical articulation, the process of social action
Section 2:
1- Methodological
tools: dialectics, manifest and latent functions, “what if….?”, looking for social power, ideology,
breaching, common sense vs. scientific interpretation
2- Mindedness, the full attention of the ego, habit, action as recipe, motive, working, performing, the fundamental anxiety
Exam #1 (3/3)
Section 3:
1- Rationality
verses rationalism, bounded rationality, taken for grantedness and rationality,
experience of the other, thou orientations, incommensurability, we relations
(and inner duration), time, apprehension of the thou (concrete and specific), the
experience of time.
Section 4:
1- The paradox
(Dialectic) of social existence, On Man (Gehlen), world openness,
moments of the social dialectic: externalization, the social map, qualitative
and quantitative correlates, objectivation: reification, anonymity, internalization,
socialization, reference groups, the social location of ideas, cosmization,
ligitimation, the role of social institutions.
Section 5:
1 - Existential
sociology and the crisis of meaning, absurdity, inherent meaning, Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea, Universal Acid, The Myth of Sisyphus
2 - Choice Meaning
and Nothingness
3 - Absurdity and
the human condition, “random life chances” (Paul Bandura), freedom and the
absurd
4- Social change