Dr. Werner Binder Fall 2020
Chapters in Cultural Sociology – Sociology of Performance (SOCb 2554)
Course
description
Arguably, signs, symbols and meanings have always been the province of sociologists but not
always their primary concern. Many believe we have finally taken or are in the midst of taking
a “cultural turn” in contemporary sociology. Problems of meaning, discourse, aesthetics,
value, textuality, narrativity, and performativity, topics traditionally within the purview of
humanists, have come to the fore as sociologists increasingly emphasize the role of meanings,
symbols, cultural frames and cognitive schema in their theorization of social processes and
institutions.
This course will focus on the sociology of performance and its contribution to the cultural
sociological perspective. We will start with classical accounts on performativity from Austin
and Goffman and proceed to contemporary theorists and issues, for example Judith Butler
and the performance of Gender or Jeffrey Alexander's account on social performances in
politics. The aim of this course is to provide knowledge about performances and
performativity in different spheres of social life as well as to provide analytical tools for the
empirical analysis of different social phenomena.
I Organizational Meeting
II Conference Break
III Introduction to Cultural Sociology
Required
Readings
Back, Les, Andy Bennett, Laura Desfor Edles, Margaret Gibson, David Inglis, Ronald Jacobs, and
Ian Woodward (2012): Cultural Sociology. An Introduction. Malden; Oxford: Wiley
Blackwell, pp. 19-42.
Cordero, Rodrigo, Francisco Carballo, and José Ossandón (2008). “Performing Cultural
Sociology. A Conversation with Jeffrey Alexander.” European Journal of Social Theory 11
(4): 523-542.
IV Performative Speech Acts
Required
Readings
Austin, John L. (1962): How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1-24.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1992): Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 104-116.
Presentation Derrida, Jacques (1982): “Signature Event Context”. In: Margins of Philosophy. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, pp. 307-330.
V Performances in Everyday Life
Required
Readings
Goffman, Erving (1959): “Performances”. In: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New
York: Anchor Books, pp. 17-76.
Presentation Goffman, Erving (1967): “On Face-Work. An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction”.
In: Interaction Ritual. Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction,
5-45.
VI Social Performance
Alexander, Jeffrey (2006): “Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy”. In: Social
Performance. Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual, edited by Jeffrey C.
Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason L. Mast. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.
29-90.
Presentation Turner, Victor (1980): “Social Dramas and Stories about Them”. In: Critical Inquiry 7(1), 141-
168. [AND]
Woods, Eric Taylor (2013): “A Cultural Approach to a Canadian Tragedy. The Indian Residential
Schools as a Sacred Enterprise”. In: International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society
26(2), 173-187.
VII Reading Week
VIII Politics as Performance
Required
Readings
Alexander, Jeffrey (2011): “Social, Political, Cultural, and Performative”. In: Performance and
Power. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 92-103.
Alexander, Jeffrey (2016): “Performance and Politics. President Obama’s Dramatic Reelection
in 2012”. TDR: The Drama Review 60(4): 130-142.
Havel, Vaclav (2011/1997): “Politics And Theatre”. Project Syndicate.
Presentations Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2011): The Performative Revolution in Egypt. An Essay in Cultural Power.
London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
XI Populist Political Performances
Required
Readings
Moffitt, Benjamin & Simon Tormey (2014): “Rethinking Populism. Politics, Mediatisation and
Political Style”. In: Political Studies 62(2), 381-397.
Fordahl, Clayton (2020): “Political Performance, Profanation, and Mundane Interaction. A
Revised Cultural Sociology of the 2016 American Presidential Election”. International
Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.
Presentations Gauna, Aníbal F. (2016): “Populism, Heroism, and Revolution. Chávez’s Cultural Performances
in Venezuela, 1999–2012”, American Journal of Cultural Sociology 6(1): 37-59.
X Gender as Performance
Required
Readings
Butler, Judith (1985): “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”. Theatre Journal 40(4): 519-531.
Nussbaum, Martha (1999): “Professor of Parody”. In: The New Republic.
Presentations Garfinkel, Harold (1967): “Passing and Managed Achievement of a Sex Status in an
‘Intersexed’ Person”. In: Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 116-
185.
XI Performativity of Things
Required
Readings
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2020): “The Performativity of Objects”, seminar at the Center for
Cultural Sociology, Bar-Ilan University (Israel), May 6, 2020; YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=porymkHjwqQ
Latour, Bruno (1991): “The Berlin Key or How to Do Words with Things”. In: Graves-Brown,
Paul (ed.), Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture. London: Routledge, pp. 10-21.
Presentation Karen Barad. (2003): “Posthumanist Performativity. Toward an Understanding of How Matter
Comes to Matter”. Signs 28(3): 801-831.
Winter Break
XII Economics and Performance
Required
Readings
MacKenzie, Donald A. (2007): „Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the
Construction of Derivative Markets”. In: MacKenzie, Donald A., Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu
(eds.): Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, pp. 54-86.
Merton, Robert K. (1948): “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”. The Antioch Review, 8(2): 193-210.
Presentations Tognato, Carlo (2012): Central Bank Independence: Cultural Codes and Symbolic Performance.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
XIII Cultural Performances
Required
Readings
Geertz, Clifford (2006): “Deep Play. Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”. In: The Interpretation of
Cultures. Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, pp. 412-453.
Barthes, Roland (1972): “The World of Wrestling”. In: Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang,
pp. 15-25.
Presentation Stephenson, Barry (2010): Performing the Reformation. Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press.
Requirements
for Passing
the Course
1. Six response essays (2-3 pages, two of them submitted before the reading week, five before
Christmas) – 60%
2. Participation in the discussion – 10%
3. Presentation in class OR final essay (6-8 pages) - 30%
Additional
Literature
Abercrombie, Nicholas and Brian Longhurst (1998): Audiences. A Sociological Theory of
Performance and Imagination. London; Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2010): The Performance of Politics. Obama's Victory and the Democratic
Struggle for Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey (2011): Performance and Power. Cambridge: Polity.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2017) The Drama of Social Life. Cambridge; Malden: Polity.
Alexander, Jeffrey C., Bernhard Giesen and Jason L. Mast (2006, ed.): Social Performance.
Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Alexander, Jeffrey C., & Jaworsky, N. Bernadette (2014) Obama Power. Cambridge; Malden:
Polity.
Barad Karen (2007): Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of
Matter and Meaning: Duke University Press.
Bell, Elizabeth (2008): Theories of Performance. Thousand Oaks; London: Sage.
Eyerman, Ron (2008): The Assassination of Theo Van Gogh. From Social Drama to Cultural
Trauma. Durham: Duke University Press.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2008): The Transformative Power of Performance. A New Aesthetics.
London: Routledge.
Garfinkel, Harold (1956): “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies”. In: American
Journal of Sociology 61(5), 420-424.
Knoblauch, Hubert (2008): “The Performance of Knowledge. Pointing and Knowledge in
Powerpoint Presentations”. In: Cultural Sociology 2(1), 75-97.
St John, Graham (2008, ed.): Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance. New York;
Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Rappaport, Roy A. (1999): Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Schechner, Richard (1990). By Means of Performance. Intercultural Studies of Theatre and
Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tambiah, Stanley J. (1985): “A Performative Approach to Ritual”. In: Culture, Thought and
Social Action. An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp.
123-166.
Tognato, Carlo (2012): Central Bank Independence: Cultural Codes and Symbolic Performance.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Turner, Victor W. (1980): The Ritual Process. Structure and Antistructure. Cornell: Cornell
University Press, 166-203.
Turner, Victor W. (1986): The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ.
Turner, Victor W. (2004): From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness of Play. New York:
PAJ.
Wagner-Pacifici, Robin Erica (1986): The Moro Morality Play. Terrorism as Social Drama.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.