Week

                                               Date

                                           Seminar topic

                                         Required reading


Discussant

2

                                              Sep 29

                                 Cultural turn in social sciences

                                                 &

                                Constitution of cultural sociology

1.      Alexander – Meanings of Social Life, Introduction & Ch. 1, pp. 3-26.


2.      Bauman, Zygmunt. 2010. “Culture: Liquid-Modern Adventures of an Idea.” Pp. 326-334 in
Handbook of Cultural Sociology, edited by J. R. Hall, L. Grindstaff, and M. Lo. New York:
Routledge.


3.      Spillman – Introduction, pp. 1-15. (14 pp.)

1. Michaela Križáková

2.

3.

                                                 3

                                               Oct 6

                                Culture in Classical Social Theory


1.      Durkheim, Emile. 1915. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Book 2, Ch. 6 & 7, pp
.188-234. (46 pp.)


2.      Inglis, Chapter 2, pp. 27-52. (25 pp.)

1a. Lukáš Michele

1b.

2. Duaa Al Mas

                                                 4

Oct 13

                     The Durkheimians: Ritual, Classification, and the Sacred



1.      Robert Bellah. 1990[1967]. “Civil Religion in America.” Pp. 262-274 in Culture and Society.
(12 pp.)


2.      Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. 1900[1978] “Sex as Symbol in Victorian Purity.” Pp. 160-170
Culture and Society. (10 pp.)


3.      Giesen, Bernhard. 2011, “Inbetweenness and Ambivalence.” Pp. 788-804 in J. Alexander, R.
Jacobs, and P. Smith, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(16 pp.)

1.      Olga Kurbatova

2.

3. Roman Hrdina

                                                 5

                                              Oct 20

            Structuralism and the Semiotic Analysis of Culture/ The Poststructural Turn

1.      Barthes, Roland. 1990[1972] “The World of Wrestling.” Pp. 87-93 in Culture and Society. (6
pp.)


2.      Sahlins, Marshall. 1990[1976]. “Food as Symbolic Code.” Pp. 94-104 in Culture and Society.
(10 pp.)


3.      Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1955. “The Structural Study of Myth.” The Journal of American
Folklore 68(270):428-444. (16 pp.)

1. Oksana Zinchenko

2.  Alina Waidhofer

3. Melanie Fleisch

                                                 6

                                              Oct 27

                                      No class–Reading Period



                                                 7

                                               Nov 3

                             The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology:

                                     Social Performance Theory

1.      Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2011. Performative Revolution in Egypt: An Essay in Cultural Power.
London: Bloomsbury Academic.


1a. Clarisse Carrier

1b.

1c.

                                                 8

                                              Nov 10



                                          Culture as Text

1.  Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Pp. 415-451 in
Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. (36 pp.)


1.      Smith, Philip. 2011. “Narrating Global Warming.” Pp. 745-762 in J. Alexander, R. Jacobs,
and P. Smith, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (17 pp.)

1.

2. Lukas Fartaczek


                                                10

                                              Nov 24


                            Pressing Issues: Race, Gender and the Body


1.      Inglis – Chapter 1, pp. 15-26 (11 pp.)

2.      Young, Alford A., Jr. “The Conundrum of Race in Sociological Analyses of Culture.” Pp.
316-325 in Handbook of Cultural Sociology, edited by J. R. Hall, L. Grindstaff, and M. Lo. New
York: Routledge (9 pp.)

3.      Gamson, Joshua and Laura Grindstaff. 2010. “Gender Performance: Cheerleaders, Drag Kings,
and the Rest of Us.” Pp. 252-262 in Handbook of Cultural Sociology, edited by J. R. Hall, L.
Grindstaff, and M. Lo. New York: Routledge. (10 pp.)


1.

2.

3. Anastasiia Popova

                                                11


                                               Dec 1


              The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Classification & Binary Codes


1.      Meanings of Social Life. “The Discourse of American Civil Society,” Chapter 5, pp. 121-154
(33 pp).


2.      Zerubavel, Eviatar. “The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life,” Chapter 21 in
Spillman. (10 pp.)


1.

2.

                                                12

                                               Dec 8

                                         “Weak” Programs?

1.      Swidler, Ann. 1986. "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies." American Sociological
Review 51:273-286. (13 pp)


2.      Pierre Bourdieu, “Artistic Taste and Cultural Capital” (1968) pp. 205-216 in Culture and
Society. (11 pp.)


1.


2. Iuliia Nikolaenko