SOCL

921 Contemporary Debates in Sociological Theory

Theme for Lent Term 2015: Critique, Agency and Power

Course Outline and Reading List

Course summary

Andrew Sayer
Department of Sociology
Bowland North B15
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11-12.00 hours.
a.sayer@lancaster.ac.uk

There are many theoretical debates going on in contemporary sociology and they tend
to be very entangled. The main ones well focus on are, in order of emphasis, critique,
agency, and power, though lots of other issues will inevitably crop up too.
Critique
Sociology has long been regarded by both advocates and opponents as
subversive, and the pre-fix critical continues to be popular for many kinds of
social research. Common targets of critique range from race, gender,
exploitation, surveillance, through to modernity itself and the very idea of social
science. However, just what a critical approach means is often unclear. In what
sense might social theory and research be said to be critical? Of what is it
critical?: earlier social theory?; the existing social order?; errors and
misunderstandings in lay thought?; domination, injustice and suffering? And on
what does it base its critiques? What critical standpoints are implied and how
might these be defended? Why are certain things judged to be problematic, and
others not? Is there any difference between scepticism and critique? Is the
overwhelming focus of much social theory on the bad rather than the good a
problem?

Critique implies valuation and valuation implies values, yet many regard these as
beyond the scope of reason and evidence and as a threat to social science and its
pursuit of objectivity. This raises the question of whether the idea of critical
social science is compatible with objectivity and indeed whether this concept is
tenable. Does critique escape relativism and subjectivism - and indeed
dogmatism? Does the idea of critical social research challenge or presuppose
Enlightenment ideals?

The emphasis will be on types of contemporary social science which regard
themselves as critical, rather than on critical theory as defined by the Frankfurt
school, or as the term is used in literary studies. One of the key themes of the
lectures will be on the nature of values, especially ethical values, and their role in
everyday life and social science. This is related to an interest in lay normativity -
how and why people evaluate things as good, bad, right, wrong, etc.;

Agency
Sociology has always challenged the commonsense view that we are sovereign
subjects, autonomous and able to steer ourselves through life, and personally
responsible for all our actions, so that basically, society is the outcome of such
actions. In opposition to this, sociology has in various ways emphasized how
people are shaped by their situation, by social relations and structures,
discourses, ideologies, forms of power, often to the point of appearing to deny
them any, reflexivity, agency or responsibility or choice. Yet in everyday life,
sociologists, like others, hold others responsible for doing certain things. In
social theory, there are recurrent debates about these issues, under the banner
of structure and agency or reflexivity, or the subject. Different theorists that
we look at have different views on this. By comparing them, I hope you can come
to a view on these matters.

Power
This is a third, though more minor theme. What is power? Is it something that
some people or institutions have and others dont? Is it something people are
aware of? Is it pervasive or highly localized? How do discourses figure in power?
Is it the same as domination? Or can it be constructive as well as repressive?
How does it operate at micro and macro levels, economically, culturally,
politically?


The prime aim of the course is to examine some recent influential social theory
and research in order to assess in what sense and respects it might be said to be
critical, and whether it is persuasive or defensible in this regard. In other words,
we shall reflect on the above questions by studying examples of substantive
research, such as feminist critiques of gender orders, Baumans critique of
modernity, Bourdieus critique of symbolic domination, Foucault on
power/knowledge.

A secondary aim is to gain practice in close, critical reading of examples of such
texts and examining what they presuppose, and in considering the criteria by
which they might be assessed.


Lectures and seminars will be on Wednesdays starting 14th January in
Bowland North SR 4 3.00-5.30pm

Most sessions will start with an interruptible lecture, then a quick break, then a
seminar beginning with a presentation by students taking the course for
assessment followed by small group discussions and general discussion. For
most sessions, in order to provide a common basis for discussion, Ill ask
everyone to read one or two main readings plus any others from the further
readings that they have time for. But in one or two sessions, I will ask people
choose a reading from a short list and be prepared to describe, explain and
reflect on it to others; in such sessions I obviously dont want everyone to read
the same thing.

Assessment: One 5,000 word essay. To be submitted by 4pm, 27th April 2015 to
Cathlin Prill, the MA Coordinator. Guideline essay titles see below; i.e. you may
either choose one of these or negotiate a title with me, according to your
interests in relation to the course. Ill arrange one-to-one meetings for this after
about week 6.


Outline in brief
1. Introduction: What is critique and what does it presuppose?
2. Values: Exorcising the Ghost of Weber
3. Bauman
4. Bourdieu
5. Foucault and Power
6. Reflexivity in Everyday Life : Margaret Archer
7. Feminist approaches
8. Well-being and Social Science
9. Neoliberalism: a contested concept
10. Conclusions


Some suggested questions
These are questions it would be good to keep asking throughout the course. They
are difficult to answer but try to keep them in mind when reading each new
author:
In what sense, is any, is their work critical? Evaluate their arguments and
justifications.
How does the author understand the idea of critique?
How do they view values? - as susceptible to rational argument and
evidence or as beyond them?
How do they justify their own particular critique both in general and as
regards specific critical points?
What, if any, alternatives to the tendencies being critiqued are proposed
or implied?
Does the critical content of the work weaken or strengthen its
explanatory adequacy or scientific status?
What view, if any, is implied as to the rationality and agency of lay people?
How are subjects and agency understood? And how does this fit with
how the authors view themselves? Can the authors live their theory, or is
there a contradiction between their theory and their practice?
How do they conceptualise power?
What is the authors implicit or explicit view of science, truth or reason?
How does the authors own practice fit with this?
What kinds of political position does the author assume the reader
already accepts?
How do/would they regard the concept of human nature?
Are they utopian or dystopian? Whats the tone of their writing like?
Ominous? Grandiose? Dispassionate? Passionate?


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MOODLE discussion board
Please use the discussion board to raise any issues you want about the readings
and topics as we proceed through the course. For instance, if theres something
that puzzles you in preparing for a seminar you can use it to ask others what they
think. For the final session of the course, instead of discussing a particular author
or approach I will ask you to post general comments and questions on the issues
raised by the course, and we will discuss these in the seminar.


Week by week guide

Many of those taking this course will have become familiar in their previous
work with some social theory. You are invited to draw upon additional
readings to those on the reading list - though not as a substitute for the key
ones.



1. Introduction(s) and arrangements. 14th January

Opening lecture: What is critical about critical social science?: The divorce of
positive and normative thought in social science.
Please come prepared to discuss what you currently understand by the prefix
critical. Think of exemplars of critical social science. In what sense is the critical
social science that you are familiar with critical?



2. Exorcising the Ghost of Weber: Values in social science

Whenever the person of science introduces his personal value judgment, a
full understanding of the facts ceases (Weber, Science as a Vocation, 1946,
p.146)

Many people, including many contemporary social scientists, would regard
critical social science, as an oxymoron, arguing that insofar as it makes critiques
of social phenomena, it must be based on values, and these are commonly seen
as antithetical to science and reason. It therefore seems sensible to examine this
basic challenge to critical social science at the outset.

Weber offers perhaps the most sophisticated and influential version of this view,
though many would also regard him as an important critical social scientist (for
example, his work develops a major critique of rationalisation in modernity.)
Many who would reject his views of values in social science actually share his
ideas of what values are. Weber is of course hardly contemporary, but at least as
regards values, his ghost still haunts contemporary sociology.

It is not only conservatives or positivists who see values and objectivity as
opposed, but many radicals too: while the former aim to quarantine values in the
interests of objectivity, the latter are willing to drop the quest for objectivity in
order to retain a place for values.

The main reading tries to counter the dominant but unnoticed influence of
Webers view of values and normativity in contemporary sociology by offering
an alternative view. Try to work out what your own view of these matters is,
though they are issues that recur throughout the course.

Seminar main reading:

Sayer, A. (2011) Why Things Matter to People, chapter 2. On MOODLE.

Further Reading
1) Section I of Weber, M. Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy, in his
Methodology of the Social Sciences, pp. 49-112. Also in Readings in
Introductory Sociology ed. by Dennis Wrong and Harry Gracey, pp. 187-192
and Rogers Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality, pp. 1-44, and in Edward A.
Shils and Henry A. Finch (eds.) The Methodology of the Social Sciences.
2) 2nd half of Weber, M. Science as a Vocation, in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills
(Translated and edited), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 129-156,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. (from paragraph beginning Under
these internal presuppositions . . .

Three critical responses to Weber:
Anderson, E. (2004) Uses of value judgements in science: a general argument,
with lessons for a case study of feminist research on divorce Hypatia, 19 (1),
pp.1-24
MacIntyre, A. (1981) After Virtue, chs 2 and 3
Bennett, J (2001) The Enchantment of Modern Life direct critique of Webers
ideas of the disenchantment of the modern world.



3. Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman is an extraordinarily prolific and influential critical sociologist.
Born in 1925 in Poland, he joined the Soviet controlled Polish army to fight the
Nazis, and became a communist but later a dissident in the 1960s. In 1968, as a
result of a combination of anti-semitism and persecution for his dissidence, he
lost his chair at the University of Warsaw; from there he went to Israel, before
moving to England in 1971.

His essay Requiem for communism, published in Collateral Damage, comes from
first hand experience, and situated within the perspective, developed over the
last 25 years, of a shift from solid to liquid modernity. You can get further
impressions of this framework from virtually any of his recent books, where it is
mobilised in relation to a number of targets, including rationality, ethics,
consumption, identity, families and interpersonal relationships, and insecurity.
Other authors (e.g. Richard Sennett The Corrosion of Character; Scott Lash and
John Urry The End of Organized Capitalism) have written on similar
developments in modernity or as a shift from modernity to postmodernity. In
Modernity and the Holocaust, published in 1989 and probably the most weighty
and discussed of his works, he developed the argument (not an original one) that
the Holocaust was not a consequence of a loss of rationality but precisely a result
of its excessive growth in governing action.

Opinion on the quality of his work is divided. It is undoubtedly critical sociology

in a strong sense that is, it is critical of its object society. Is it a good model for
sociologists and others to follow?

Seminar main reading:
Bauman, Z. (2011) Requiem for communism, ch. 2 (plus preceding 2 pages) of
his new book Collateral Damage. On MOODLE

Further reading
Bauman, Z. (2012 edition) Liquid Modernity see new preface and any other
chapter of the book electronic resource in library at KDQK
Bauman, Z. (1989) Modernity and the Holocaust
Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics, ch.1 Here B elaborates his view of
morality and ethics as a-rational.
Kilminster, R. (2013) Critique and over-critique in sociology, Human Figurations,
2 (2) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0002.205/--critique-andovercritique-in-sociology?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Du Gay, P. In Praise of Bureaucracy look up critique of Bauman
Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 15 (1) several articles evaluating Bauman
Fine, R. and Hirsch, D. (2000) The decision to commit a crime against humanity,
in Archer, M.S and Quitter, J.Q. (eds) Rational Choice Theory: Resisting
Colonization, London: Routledge, pp.183-199 interesting critique of Bauman on
rationalisation, modernity and the Holocaust
Vetlesen, J.A. Evil and Human Agency



4. Bourdieu

[Critique has] retreated into the small world of academe, where it
enchants itself with itself without ever being in a position to really
threaten anyone about anything. (Bourdieu, P. 2003, Firing Back, p. 2)

. . . the theory of the habitus allows us to explain the apparent truth of the
theory that it shows to be false (Bourdieu, 2005, Social Structures of the
Economy, p.215).
Pierre Bourdieus massive output of books and articles seems undeniably critical
in tone and content, and he identifies some hitherto overlooked sources and
forms of domination, particularly concerning cultural capital He argues that
sociology can and should be simultaneously critical and scientific - standing up
to words and making trouble. He has much to say on what a scientific approach
involves, particularly regarding reflexivity, and the relation of subject and object,
and is critical of most other approaches to the subject, in particular for failing to
counter the distortions produced by the unaware projection of the academic
relationship to the social world onto lay actors, and hence failing to understand
their primarily practical orientation to the world. Although he uses inescapably
evaluative terms, such as symbolic domination, with the exception of some of
his last, more political works, he does not elaborate what is problematic about
the processes in question, or the standpoint from which his critiques are

developed, but leaves this implicit. However, in his later life he became more
politically involved: his Political Interventions contains numerous short
speeches and articles.

There are many critiques of his work, most of them charging him with
determinism and for inadvertently underestimating agency and the
possibilities for change. (E.g. Jenkins, Rancire, Boltanski, Shusterman).


Seminar reading:
Bourdieu, P (1993) Sociology in Question especially the interviews in the early
chapters 1-5 and chs 18 + 19 - interviews and short essays relevant to Bourdieus
views on the critical role of sociology. Pages 8-35 are available on MOODLE

If you are completely new to Bourdieu, I will post my lecture notes on him on
MOODLE in advance of the seminar, so you can read them.

Or select sections from (for example) the following which you find interesting as
examples of critical social science to discuss:
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power, Ch. 11
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, ch.1
Bourdieu, P. 2008 Political Interventions e.g. interview: Giving voice to the
voiceless
Bourdieu, P et al (1999) The Weight of the World
Bourdieu, P. (2001) Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market, NY: The New
Press especially For a scholarship with commitment.
Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian Meditations, mainly a critique of social science and
the scholastic fallacy
Bourdieu, P. (1996) The State Nobility
Bourdieu, P. (1988) Homo Academicus
Bourdieu, P. (1998) The Rules of Art
Bourdieu, P. (2004) Science of Science and Reflexivity, Cambridge: Polity
Bourdieus critique of the sociology of science.
Bourdieu, P Sociology is a martial art film on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csbu08SqAuc


Further reading
Sayer, A. (2005) The Moral Significance of Class, chs 2 and 5 include sympathetic
critiques of Bourdieus concepts of habitus and capitals, respectively.
Reay, D., David, M.E. and Ball, S. (2005) Degrees of Choice: Social Class, Race and
Gender in Higher Education, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Uses Bourdieus
concepts for understanding how individuals choose university.
Other critical assessments:-
Shusterman, R. (ed) Bourdieu: A Critical Reader
Adkins, L. et al (eds) (2005) Feminism After Bourdieu
McNay, L. (2014) The Misguided Search for the Political RBO <M>, Ch. 1
Boltanski, L. (2011) On Critique

Rancire, J. (2004) The Philosopher and his Poor, ch 9.

Fowler, B. (ed) (2000) Reading Bourdieu on Society and Culture
Jenkins, R. (2012) Pierre Bourdieu
Swartz, D. (1997) Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu K84.B7
Archer, M.S. (2012) The Reflexive Imperative, ch. 2



5. Foucault and Power

Foucaults work is highly original, diverse in approach, providing new ways of
thinking about power, discourse, knowledge and truth and the relations between
them, about the constitution of subjects, culture and nature and the social role of
the social sciences. For example, Foucault and followers have tracked the way in
which, through various technologies, neoliberal societies construct self-
disciplining subjects, responsible for themselves, planning their lives, and
competing with others; neoliberal universities and their students and academics
are a good example! The Anglo-Foucauldians have been especially interested in
this (see Jessop, 2010). Particularly in his early work, his writing has a strongly
anti-subjectivist character, seeing the subject as formed through power
(subjected). There are two meanings of the word subject: subject to someone
else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or
self-knowledge. (Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984).

Foucaults primary concerns are usually analyses of localised, phenomena rather

than the construction of grand social theory, reflecting a view of history as
contingent, not inevitable, as in crudely deterministic readings of Marx. Even the
more stable and widespread features of certain periods are the product of
scattered tendencies and accidents that happened to coalesce. For example, he
attempts to show that what have been seen as universal features of human
nature are in fact specific products of particular societies. His work on the
history of sexuality is an example of this. Nevertheless, he does also make
sweeping claims on the basis of these studies which have far-reaching
implications. He was probably the first social theorist to analyse neoliberalism,
and was remarkably prescient about it (see week 9). A characteristic of his work
is the conceptualisation of power as productive as well as negative (though the
tone of his writing is overwhelmingly negative), and as dispersed and ubiquitous,
rather than localised and held by particular agents. His analyses have provoked
a range of different responses, some negative, seeing concepts such as regimes
of truth as self-undermining and his work as crypto-normative, while others
argue for more positive, charitable readings. We shall focus particularly on his
conceptualisation of power and apply our usual questions to the readings.

Seminar readings:
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish, especially The means of correct
training (pp.170-194). See also: The carceral (pp. 298-308) on MOODLE
Foucault, M. (1978) The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 section on Method on
MOODLE


Further reading
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge, section on Truth and Power
Foucault, M. What is Critique?, in Sylvre Lotringer and Lysa Hochroth eds., The
Politics of Truth (New York: Semiotext(e), 1997) also in P.Rabinow and N.Rose
(eds) The Essential Foucault, NY: New Press, pp. 263-278
Foucault, M. (2000) Michel Foucault: Ethics, ed. P.Rabinow, London: Penguin
Hoy, D.C. (ed.) Foucault: A Critical Reader, Oxford: Blackwell especially the
essay by Taylor
Fraser, N (1981) Foucault on modern power: empirical insights and normative
confusions, Praxis International, 1 (3) October pp.272-87 reprinted in Frasers
Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory
McNay, L. (1996) Foucault: A Critical Introduction
Soper, K. (1995) Forget Foucault? New Formations, 25, Summer, pp.21-7
Walzer, M The lonely politics of Michel Foucault in Walzers (2002) The
Company of Critics, NY Basic books, pp.191-209
Lemke, Thomas (2002) Foucault, governmentality and critique, Rethinking
Marxism,14(3), 49-64.
Jessop, B. (2010) Constituting Another Foucault Effect. Foucault on States and
Statecraft http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/cperc/docs/CR-Jessop-Foucault.pdf
Foucault, M. (1984) What is Enlightenment?, in Paul Rabinow ed., The Foucault
Reader, New York: Pantheon Books. On MOODLE course website, in Additional
Papers or at:
http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlighten
ment.en.html
Alcoff, Linda Martn (1996) Real Knowing, chapter 5 (and 4) on Foucault and
truth
Bartky, S.L. (2002) Sympathy and Solidarity, ch.2
Sayer, A. (2012) Power, causality and normativity: a critical realist critique of
Foucault, Journal of Political Power, 5:2, 179-194
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2012.698898
Bevir, M. (2002) A humanist critique of the archaeology of the human
sciences History Of The Human Sciences Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 119138
Tallis, R. (1999) Enemies of Hope
Archer, M 2000 Being Human, ch 1
N.Chomsky and M.Foucault (1974) Human nature: justice versus power in
F.Elders (ed) Reflexive Water, London, pp. 133-99. An interesting debate
between two very influential yet different critical social scientists. Available at:
http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbUYsQR3Mes
Nietzsche, F. On the Genealogy of Morals- if you are already familiar with
Foucault, Nietzsche will seem strikingly familiar . . .
Archer, M (2000) Being Human, chapter 1
Craib, I. 1997, Social constructionism as a social psychosis, Sociology, 31 (1) pp.
1-18
Dews, P. Logics of Disintegration
Lukes, S. Power: A Radical View, 2nd edition
For a comparison of Foucault and Bourdieu see Bennett, T (2010) Culture,
Power, Knowledge in Silva, E. and Warde, A, (eds) Cultural Analysis and

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Bourdieus Legacy: Settling Accounts and Developing Alternatives, London:

Routledge, pp.102-116




6. Reflexivity in everyday life: Margaret Archer

Sociologists generally explain social action by reference to individuals
socialization/social conditioning/subjectivation (how theyve been
shaped/made by their social situation and by dominant discourses) and the
social conditions in which they are currently acting. This is why they do x or y or
z (e.g. vote Conservative, adopt gendered behaviour, watch certain TV
programmes, etc.). Sociologists characteristically oppose individualistic
explanations common in popular thought. Although its common for sociologists
to ask people for their accounts or views of their actions and situation, these are
typically taken largely as products of their socialization and situation, and as
facts about them. A longstanding criticism of sociology is that it treats people as
cultural dopes, as no more than the sum of the influences upon them. If I said
you only think x because youre a sociology student and come from a particular
background, you would probably feel insulted. I would be implying you have no
reflexivity, no capacity to take a distance from the influences upon you, and
reflect upon them, and decide how to act or what to think. It would be
deterministic.

Margaret Archer is the author of many books on social theory including several
on lay reflexivity: i.e. the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all
normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their social contexts and
vice versa. Alternatively it may be defined as how people reflect upon the
relation between their constraints and opportunities and their own concerns.
She is critical of the many social theorists (Bourdieu, for example) who ignore or
leave little space for this everyday reflexivity, or who reduce it to products of
dominant discourses. E.g. Identities are points of temporary attachment to the
subject positions which discursive practices construct for us. They are the result
of a successful articulation or chaining of the subject into the flow of discourse.
Stuart Hall, 1996, Who needs identity? in Hall, S., and Du Gay, P. (eds) Questions
of Cultural Identity, Sage).

She has conducted some very interesting empirical research on peoples internal
conversations how they talk to themselves to assess, mediate and negotiate the
constraints and enablements or opportunities they face. She claims that different
people do reflexivity in different ways, and she offers a sociological explanation
of why this is. In addition, she argues that reflexivity is becoming an imperative
for people in late modernity: the pace of change has increased, allegedly breaking
up the classical sociological groupings and identities (class, gender, ethnicity)
and forcing individuals to make their own way through the world. In this respect,
she provides her own interpretation of ideas about increasing reflexivity and
individualism that were first raised in the 1990s in work by Ulrich Beck and
others.

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For the seminar we will focus on two issues:
1. What role should the reflexivity of ordinary people play in social theory?
How far is it acknowledged/ignored/dismissed/emphasized? How far
should it be acknowledged, and in what way? Is Archers critique of the
concept of habitus right?
2. Are we now living in an era in which change is so fast, that habitual and
learned responses quickly become useless, so continual reflexivity and
ability to decide for oneself how to negotiate the world become a
necessity?

Glossary for reading Archer
Morphostasis: situation in which social processes tend to maintain a systems
existing form of organization. (Societies in this situation were called cold
societies by Levi-Strauss, the anthropologist.)
Morphogenesis: situation in which social processes tend continually to change
existing forms of organization. (Hot societies, in Levi-Strauss terms.)

Seminar main reading
Archer, M., (2007) Making Our Way Through the World, Chapter 1, on MOODLE


Further reading
Archer, M. (2012) The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity, Cambridge UP
Chapter 1
Archer, M.S. (2009) Can reflexivity and habitus work in tandem?, in Archer, M.S.
(ed) Conversations about Reflexivity, London: Routledge, also if you have time,
my own chapter in the same volume
Or: Chapter 2 of Archers The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity
Sayer, A. (2011) Why Things Matter to People, especially Chapters 1 and 3 re:
issue 1.
Adkins, L. (2002) Revisions: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity, Open UP
Beck, U. and Beck-Garnsheim, E. (2002) Individualization, Sage
Beck, U., Giddens, A., and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive Modernization



7. Feminist critiques

More than any of the other approaches discussed in the course, feminist research
is related to a strong social movement (though feminists disagree on whether the
movement has lost momentum or continued to advance). Hence, not
surprisingly, it is unmistakeably critical and its critical standpoints are more
discernible than those of others. There is also, as we shall see later, a closer
relation between positive and normative thought. However, views on the precise
nature of the problems it addresses have changed and diversified (for example,
regarding difference and equality, and sex and gender). It has also developed a
distinctive set of debates and positions regarding the nature of knowledge and

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social research, most notably feminist standpoint theory, and these have
important implications for conceptions of critique (see Anderson).

I suggest we focus on comparing some of the main characteristics and concerns
of different kinds of academic feminism. One way of doing this is by using
Mikkola Maris review of different feminist approaches to sex and gender;
another is via a comparison of Sylvia Walby and Angela McRobbies views on the
fortunes of feminist movements. We should also ask what feminist literature
implies we should do about gender?

Seminar readings we will have two or three presentations on these different
themes this week.

(i)Sex and gender
These all relate to the sex-gender distinction in feminism - what it might
be and whether its tenable:
Mikkola, Mari (2011) Feminist perspectives on sex and gender, Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Useful overview.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/
Judith Butler the most prominent critic of the distinction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc
On trans-gender interview:
http://www.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-the-
transadvocate-interviews-judith-butler_n_13652.htm
Linda Martn Alcoff on the sex/gender distinction
http://www.alcoff.com/content/chap6metags.html
Gunnarson, L. (2013) The naturalistic turn in feminist theory: a Marxist-
realist contribution, Feminist Theory, 14 (1) identifies a nature-phobic
tendency in post-structuralist feminism.

(ii) Feminism and power
Allen, A. 2011, Feminist perspectives on power, Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/

(iii) Optimistic and pessimistic views of the future of feminism, see
Walby, S. 2011 The Future of Feminism excerpt on MOODLE
McRobbie, A. 2009 The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and
Social Change excerpt on MOODLE


Further Reading
McNay, L. (2000) Gender and Agency, critique of feminist social theorys negative
view of agency.
Anderson, E (2003) Feminist epistemology and Philosophy of Science
- available both in the free online resource Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
Fraser, N. 2009 Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history, New Left
Review, 56 - is there a dangerous liaison between second-wave feminism and
neoliberalism?

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or her video lecture:

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/fraser030310.html
Sterba, J.P. Ethics the Big Questions, Debate btwn Susan Moller Okin and Jane
Flax p.422-446, on postmodernism and culture, inequality, ethics and difference
Haraway, D. (1997) Modest Witness@Second Millenium
Butler, J (1990) Gender Trouble
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender
New, C (2005) Sex and gender: a critical realist approach New Formations, 56,
pp.54-70
Nussbaum, M. (1999) Sex and Social Justice
Fraser, N. and Naples, N.A. (2004) To interpret the world and to change it: an
interview with Nancy Fraser, Signs, 29 (4) pp.1103-1124
Butler, J. (2001) What is critique?: An essay on Foucaults virtue, in S.Salih The
Judith Butler Reader or at:
http://transform.eipcp.net/transversal/0806/butler/en
or
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/kadish/what is critique J Butler.pdf
Benhabib, S and Cornell, D (1987) Feminism as Critique
Soper, K. Troubled Pleasures, feminist critiques of postmodernism



8. Well-being and Social Science

Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the
only question important for us: what shall we do and how shall we live?
Tolstoy
So far we have looked at examples of critical social science which either lack
critical standpoints or leave largely implicit their ideas as to what would
constitute improvement or emancipation. While many sociologists use negative
words like oppression, exploitation, domination or abuse in their accounts,
few are willing to say what constitutes well-being or good forms of living, indeed
many would be very wary of doing so, particularly given the variety of cultural
conceptions of well-being. Should they be?

An exception is the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum on capabilities,
providing a partial rebuttal to Tolstoys famous claim. Working in the area of
development economics and philosophy their critiques are informed by concepts
of what is involved in well-being or eudaimonia or flourishing, and suffering. In
feminist literature positive and normative thought are often closer, so that the
relation of critiques to normative ideas of what constitutes ill-being and well-
being is clearer. (E.g. empirical work on care, which has informed and been
informed by normative theory of the ethic of care - see work of Joan Tronto, Eva
Kittay). One of the features of Sen and Nussbaums approaches is a defence of
universals, opposing a common poststructuralist antipathy. This is taken up in
Martha Nussbaums chapter. The articles by Mackenzie, Menon and Charusheela
highlight the dangers of ethnocentrism in her work. Some of the further readings
e.g. Walby, 2010; Sayer 2012; Holmwood, 2013; Carpenter, 2009; Dean 2009

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argue that Sen, Nussbaum and co. take too little account of sociological
knowledge.

Seminar main reading:
Nussbaum, M.C. (2000) In defense of universal values, in her Women and
Human Development, on MOODLE

Further Reading
Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, especially ch. 4
Nussbaum, M. (1999) Sex and Social Justice
Sayer, A (2011) Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical
Life (CUP) Chapter 4
Mackenzie, J 2009 Refiguring universalism: Martha Nussbaum and Judith Butler
an uneasy alliance, Australian Feminist Studies, 24 (61) pp. 343-358
Nussbaum, M. (2012) Creating Capabilities
Walby, S. (2010) Sen and the measurement of justice, Theory, Culture and
Society
Charusheela (2009) Social analysis and the capabilities approach: a limit to
Martha Nussbaums universalist ethics, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33 (6)
pp.1135
Menon, N. (2002) Universalism without foundations? Economy and Society, 31,
(1) pp152-169 (review of Nussbaums Women and Human Development)
Dean, H. (2009) Critiquing capabilities: the distractions of a beguiling concept,
Critical Social Policy, 29(2), pp. 261278.
Carpenter, Mick (2009) The capabilities approach and critical social policy:
lessons from the majority world? Critical Social Policy, Vol.29 (No.3). pp. 351-
373
Sayer, A. (2012) Capabilities, contributive justice and unequal divisions of
labour Journal of Human Development and Capabilities: A Multi-Disciplinary
Journal for People-Centered Development,
13:4DOI:10.1080/19452829.2012.693069
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2012.693069
Doyal, L and Gough, I. 1991 A Theory of Human Need, Basingstoke: Macmillan,
Part I defence of universalism
Tronto, J (1995) Moral Boundaries
Tobias, S. (2005) Foucault on freedom and capabilities, Theory, Culture and
Society, 22 (4) 65-85.
Wilkinson, I. (2005) Suffering: A Sociological Introduction, Cambridge: Polity
N.Chomsky and M.Foucault (1974) Human nature: justice versus power in
F.Elders (ed) Reflexive Water, London, pp. 133-99. An interesting debate
between two very influential yet different critical social scientists, with Chomsky
supporting and Foucault opposing universals and the idea of critique appealing
to human nature. Transcript also available at:
http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm
An edited video version can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbUYsQR3Mes
Holmwood, J. (2013) Public Reasoning without Sociology: Amartya Sen's Theory
of Justice Sociology, 47: 1171: http://soc.sagepub.com/content/47/6/1171

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Olson, E. and Sayer A. (2008) Radical geography and its critical standpoints:
embracing the normative, Antipode, 41 (1), pp. 180-198
Nussbaum interview
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1489004289964352741




9. Neoliberalism: a contested concept

This is an example of how different critical social theorists approach a particular
topic. Neoliberalism is usually taken to be the dominant form of contemporary
capitalism, characterised not only be market fundamentalism a belief in the
superiority of the market as a form of social organisation and regulation, and the
increased dominance of global capital over labour but by certain common
cultural tendencies, forms of governmentality, precarity, the replacement of
welfare by workfare and perhaps penalfare. Within education it is arguably
exemplified by the obsession with curriculum vitae, self-assessment and self-
promotion, audits, models of best practice, performance monitoring, league
tables and competition, and more broadly the treatment of education as servant
to the economy.

If the term neoliberal is to be of any use for interpreting contemporary society it
cannot simply refer to everything about contemporary society: it must be more
specific. In what respects is it neoliberal? In what respects might university
education be said to be neoliberal? We might also ask what is not neoliberal?


Reading
For this week I dont want everyone to read the same thing for the seminar, but
to choose one of the following that appeals, and be prepared to describe, explain
and reflect on it to the rest of the group, so we can get a wider view and compare
notes.

Mirowski, P. (2013) Never Let a Serious Crisis to Go to Waste, ch. 3. On MOODLE.
The author is particularly good on the intellectual and institutional origins of
neoliberalism in a group of economic theorists the neoliberal thought
collective, and in this chapter on how it affects everyday life.

Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Note this has a chapter on
Neoliberalism and China) RAYL3 (H) or electronic copy in library

Foucault, F. (1979, 2008) The Birth of Biopolitics, Lecture 9, particularly pp.226-
231, and lecture 10, pp.243-259. On MOODLE. A remarkably prescient analysis of
neoliberalism, given it had hardly begun as a political movement in 1979.
Explains the significance of competition, human capital, and the individual as
entrepreneur of herself.

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Wendy Brown short talk on universities and neoliberalism at Berkeley U of

California https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4xYBGdQgw

And a more theoretical lecture:-
Brown, W. (2014) Governmentality in the age of neoliberalism video lecture at:
http://pactac.net/2014/03/wendy-browngovernmentality-in-the-age-of-
neoliberalism/

Wacquant, L. (2010) Crafting the neoliberal state, Sociological Forum, 25 (2) pp.
197-220. Argues, with reference to the US case, that most theorists of
neoliberalism have missed its relation to workfare and penalfare.
http://loicwacquant.net/assets/Papers/CRAFTINGNEOLIBERALSTATE-pub.pdf

Bob Jessop on neoliberalism and crisis
http://bobjessop.org/2014/05/08/interview-the-fessud-annual-conferencefinancialisation-and-the-financial-crisis/
http://www.newsrecord.co/neoliberalism-and-the-commercialization-of-
higher-education/

There are lots of things on neoliberalism and higher education on the internet. Here
are a few, but you can find your own too:
Giroux, H. (2014) Defending higher education in the era of neoliberal
savagery http://www.discoversociety.org/2014/03/04/defending-highereducation-in-the-age-of-neoliberal-savagery/
Radice, H. (2013) How we got here: UK higher education under neoliberalism
http://www.acme-journal.org/vol12/Radice2013.pdf
An organisation called govknow epitomises a neoliberal approach to
education. See this and other events it sponsors: http://govknow.com/eventdetail.html?id=849


10. Conclusions

Using the MOODLE discussion board, the purpose of this last seminar is to
discuss the major points or questions you want to raise that seem important to
you that arise from the course. Please post 200-400 words on this, either taking
up issues others have raised or initiating your own.

It would also be helpful to discuss this article on overcritique: - it criticizes the
overwhelmingly negative view of society given in much critical social science,
using the example of Bauman.

Kilminster, R. (2013) Critique and overcritique in sociology, Human Figurations,
2 (2):

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http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0002.205/--critique-and-overcritiquein-sociology?rgn=main;view=fulltext
If this interests you, you may find these useful, too:
Graeber, D (2001) Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, Palgrave, pp.26-30
uses Bourdieu as an example of overcritique
McNay, L. (2000) Gender and Agency,
Lynch, M. 2000 Against reflexivity as an academic virtue and source of privileged
knowledge, Theory, Culture Society, 17 (3) pp.26-54
You may also find the debates on Public Sociology, initiated by Michael Burawoy
interesting:
http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/PS.Webpage/ps.mainpage.htm



Essays: guideline titles:

1. Critique, whether it realises it or not, presupposes a conception of the
good life, or human flourishing. Discuss by reference to examples in social
science.
2. [C]ritique is understood as an interrogation of the terms by which life is
constrained (Judith Butler, Undoing Gender). Discuss.
3. Assess Foucaults views on critique {[A] critique is not a matter of saying
that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what
kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered
modes of thought the practices that we accept rest. (1998, Interview with
Didier Eribon, 1981. In L.Kritzman (ed) Foucault: Politics, Philosophy,
Culture, N.Y.: Routledge, p.155). Criticism is no longer going to be
practised in the pursuit of formal structures with universal value, but
rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to
constitute ourselves and recognise ourselves in what we do, think and
say. (Foucault in Rabinow, 1984, p.46 and in Foucault, What is
Enlightenment?) The role of an intellectual is not to tell others what they
have to do. By what right would he do so? The work of the intellectual is
not to shape others political will: it is, through the analyses that he
carried out in his own field, to question over and over again what is
postulated as self-evident, to disturb peoples mental habits, the way they
do and think things. Foucault (1997, Polemics, Politics and
Problematization: An Interview, P.Rabinow (ed.) Essential Works of
Foucault, NY, New Press, p.131). [ if you do this, use a short title for your
essay!]
4. What is the distinctive nature of the critiques developed by
Marxist/feminist/Bourdieuian/Foucauldian social scientists? How can
their critiques be justified?
5. Compare two contrasting conceptions of, or approaches to, critical social
science.
6. Critical theory presumes that the normative ideals used to criticize a
society are rooted in experience of a reflection on that very society, and

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that norms can come from nowhere else. I.M. Young (1990) Justice and
the Politics of Difference, Princeton UP, p. 5. Discuss
7. Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the
only question important for us: What shall we do and how shall we live?
(Tolstoy, quoted in Weber, Science as a Vocation.) Evaluate this claim
with reference to contemporary sociological theory as an example of
social science.
8. [S]ocial criticism is less the practical offspring of scientific knowledge
than the educated cousin of common complaint. (Walzer, 1993, p.56).
Discuss
9. Do people have responsibility for their actions? {this implies a discussion
of concepts like habitus, subjectification, lay reflexivity}
10. Can and should we do without a concept of human nature?
11. Public sociology: long overdue or a step too far?
http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/PS.Webpage/ps.mainpage.htm
12. Sociology and the accusation of overcritique.
13. Does neoliberal just mean bad?



Other interesting quotes that might motivate an essay:-

[The critic} is not a detached observer, even when he looks at the society
he inhabits with a fresh and skeptical eye. He is not an enemy, even when
he is fiercely opposed to this or that prevailing practice or institutional
arrangement. His criticism does not require either detachment or enmity,
because he finds a warrant for critical engagement in the idealism, even if
it is a hypocritical idealism, of the actually existing moral world. (Walzer,
M (1989) Interpretation and Social Criticism, Harvard UP p. 61)

According to Max Horkheimers . . . definition, a theory is critical only if it
meets three criteria: it must be explanatory, practical and normative, all
at the same time. That is, it must explain what is wrong with current
social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear norms for
criticism and practical goals for the future. (James Bohman 1996, p.190)

Paradoxically, sociology frees us from the illusion of freedom, or, more
precisely, from misplaced belief in illusory freedoms. Freedom is not a
given but a conquest, and a collective one. (Bourdieu, 1987, p.26. cited in
Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1991, p. 49 n87).

The time has come to go beyond the old alternative of utopianism and
sociologism, and propose utopias that are sociologically based. This
requires that specialists in the social sciences collectively manage to burst
apart the censorship they believe they have to impose on themselves in
the name of a mutilated idea of scientificity. [ . . . ] These sciences have
paid for their access to scientific status (still contested, in any case) by a
formidable renunciation: a self-censorship that amounts to a self-
mutilation, and sociologists and I start with myself, as I have often

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denounced the temptation to prophecy and social philosophy have

staunchly rejected, as deviations from scientific morality that threaten to
discredit their authors, all attempts to propose an ideal and global
representation of the social world. Bourdieu, 2008, in Political
Interventions, p. xiv

By underestimating actors critical capacities and offering them an
image of themselves that stresses their dependency, passivity and
illusions, overarching sociologies of domination tend to have an effect of
demoralization and, in some sense, dispossession of self, which
especially in historical contexts where reality seems particularly robust
can transform relativism into nihilism and realism into fatalism. Luc
Boltanksi, 2011, On Critique, p.46

Foucaults analyses seem to bring evils to light; and yet he wants to
distance himself from the suggestion which would seem inescapably to
follow, that the negation or overcoming of these evils promotes a good.
(Charles Taylor, 1986, Foucault on freedom and truth in D.C.Hoy [ed.]
Foucault: A Critical Reader, p.69

In effect, the idea of critique is meaningful only when there is a difference
between a desirable and an actual state of affairs. L.Boltanski and E.
Chiapello The New Spirit of Capitalism, p. 27

"There is no such thing as truth. Science is a social phenomenon and like
every other social phenomenon is limited by the benefit or injury it
confers on the community" (Hitler, cited in G.Daniel The Idea of Pre-
History, London, C.A.Watts and C0. 1962, p.118).

"Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by
intuition . . . From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all
ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody
has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to
enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable" (Mussolini, cited in
Veach, 1962).

The intellectuals error consists in believing that one can know without
understanding or even more feeling and being impassioned (not only for
knowledge in itself but also for the object of knowledge; in other words
that the intellectual can be an intellectual (and not a pure pedant) if
distinct and separate from the people-nation, that is, without feeling the
elementary passions of the people, understanding them and therefore
explaining and justifying them in the particular historical situation and
dialectically connecting to the laws of history and to a superior
conception of the world, scientifically and coherently elaborated i.e.
knowledge. One cannot make politics-history without this passion,
without this sentimental connection between intellectuals and people-
nation (Gramsci, 1971, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p.418).

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Andrew Sayer, January 2015

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