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Sociologist/Theorist Presentation

Databases

Websites:

C. Wright Mills' Sociology [1916-1962]

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

The Erving Goffman Archives

Famous Sociologists

Georg Simmel Homepage

Great Social Theorists

A List of the Most Famous Sociologists

http://www.historyguide.org/The History Guide

Pierre Bourdieu

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Sociological Theorists

Victorian Web

Charles Horton Cooley   August 17, 1864 - May 7, 1929

Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau: a Radical Liberal Social Commentator

George Herbert Mead (1863—1931)

George Herbert Mead

Robert King Merton   July 4, 1910 - February 23, 2003                                                                                    

 

Parsons, Talcott   1902-1979

Talcott Parsons  December 13, 1902 - May 8, 1979

William Graham Sumner
October 30, 1840 — April 12, 1910
“Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.” –W. G. Sumner

Modern History Sourcebook: William Graham Sumner (1840-1910): The Challenge of Facts

Articles:   Daniel Bell, 91; Social Scientist Preferred Analysis to Polemics  by Mark Feeney Globe Staff / January 27, 2011
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2011/01/27/daniel_bell_91_social_scientist_preferred_analysis_to_polemics/

[Charles Horton Cooley] Isaksen, Joachim Vogt. "The Looking Glass Self: How Our Self-image Is Shaped by Society." POPULAR SOCIAL SCIENCE. N.p., 27 May 2013. Web. 18 Sept. 2015. 

Kaufman, Michael T. "Robert K. Merton, Versatile Sociologist and Father of the Focus Group, Dies at 92." New York Times 24 Feb. 2003: B7. The New York Times. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA97986790&v=2.1&u=mlin_m_norwoodhs&it=r&p=SPN.SP24&sw=w&asid=014e04bbab34f1d50d5fcbc186be0d7a

[Max Weber] Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Why Work? A Hundred Years of “The Protestant Ethic.”." 29 Nov. 2004: 154. The New Yorker. Web. 18 Sept. 2015. .

Follett Shelf ebooks:  ex. The 100 Most Influential Philosophers of All Times

Websites

Jane Addams 
Born in Cedarville in 1860, Laura Jane Addams lost her mother as a toddler. Her father remarried and she had step-siblings. She also walked crookedly from tuberculosis of the spine. Addams wanted to go to college, but her father sent her to Rockford Female Seminary. When her father died, she tried to go to medical school. In 1887, she discovered the idea of a settlement house, where the poor could learn to achieve a better life. With a donated mansion, she started all kinds of classes in languages, art, music, drama, and math. Learn about her contributions to world peace.
Topic: Addams, Jane,--1860-1935, Hull-House (Chicago, Ill.)   Language: English    Lexile: 1200 Biography   http://www.nps.gov

Hull House 
Just two years after it was founded in 1889, Hull House was already serving more than 2,000 people a week with classes, libraries, and day care. After a decade, it had a gym, a pool, housing for working women, and a place for labor unions to meet. Meet some of the women who worked at Hull House to transform sanitation, working conditions, and nutrition in the neighborhood. The women of Hull House fought for suffrage, compulsory education, juvenile courts, and child labor laws.
Topic: Hull-House (Chicago, Ill.)   Language: English Lexile: 1250       http://www.nwhm.org

Daniel Bell, Ardent Appraiser of Politics, Economics and Culture, Dies at 91  New York Times
"Mr. Bell’s output was prodigious and his range enormous. His major lines of inquiry included the failures of socialism in America, the exhaustion of modern culture and the transformation of capitalism from an industrial-based system to one built on consumerism...

He wrote about the changing structure of organized crime and even the growing popularity of gangsta rap among white, middle-class, suburban youth."

Daniel Bell, 91; sociologist foresaw the rise of the Internet  Washington Post
"...In one of his most influential books, 1973's "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society," Dr. Bell said the computer would come to define the late 20th century as much as the automobile had the first half of the century..."

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu
"No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of
the middle class in the modern world. France’s leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind..."

Pierre Bourdieu|Changing Minds.org
"...Bourdieu describes power in terms of 'symbolic capital', which comes with social position and affords prestige and leads to others paying attention to you..."

Comte and Positivism
Auguste Comte was a French philosopher who lived and wrote during the nineteenth century. He developed a philosophy that came to be known as positivism. Positivism emphasized reason and logic and was considered by some to be a secular religion. Visit the Victorian Web online to learn more about Comte and positivism. You will find out how he divided the progress of mankind into three stages. Learn about some of the writers and thinkers of the time who were influenced by positivism.
Topic: Philosophers, Positive thinking   Language: English   Lexile: 1300   http://www.victorianweb.org

Positivism, Analytic Philosophy, and Linguistic Philosophy 
Described here as the philosophical ally of natural science, positivism seeks to verify, or disprove, philosophical statements, with the same level of scientific vigor applied to the natural sciences. This discussion of positivism begins with a Thumbnail Sketch of Positivism, that describes its central features, its historical development, its opposition to metaphysics and its use of logic and science. Subsequent sections trace the development of positivism through its major proponents: Auguste Comte, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Alfred Jules Ayer.
Topic: Positive thinking  Language: English  Lexile:1140       http://people.bu.edu

Charles Horton Cooley  August 17, 1864 - May 7, 1929
"...In his own works, Cooley sought to highlight the connection between society and the individual and felt that the two could only be understood in relationship to each other. One’s personality comes from one’s influences..."

The Looking Glass Self: How Our Self-image is Shaped by Society 
"...According to Cooley, this process has three steps. First, we imagine how we appear to another person. Sometimes this imagination is correct, but may also be wrong since it is merely based on our assumptions. Second, we imagine what judgments people make of us based on our appearance. Lastly, we imagine how the person feels about us, based on the judgments made of us. The ultimate result is that we often change our behavior based on how we feel people perceive us..."

Du Bois: The Activist Life 
Du Bois: The Activist Life is an online exhibit dedicated to the life of W.E.B. Du Bois. There are approximately fifteen pages in the exhibit that are filled with information on Du Bois and a collection of primary documents that span his lifetime. You can learn about every aspect of his life while reading the information found on each page, viewing related photographs, and examining related documents. The exhibit begins with his childhood and concludes with his death.
Topic: Du Bois, W. E. B. --(William Edward Burghardt),--1868-1963   Language: English    Lexile: 1040 
Biography       http://www.library.umass.edu

People & Events: W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1963
Renowned and influential intellectual William Edward Burghardt DuBois was a writer, historian, and civil rights leader. Study his career and belief in African American leadership in politics and economics through the development of the intellectual elite. Pay particular attention to his debate with Booker T. Washington over accommodations made to caste distinctions and discrimination. Analyze as well his debate and animosity with Marcus Garvey over what black independence might look like, in spite of the fact that they had many of the same goals.
Topic: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)   Language: English   Lexile: 1370  Biography    http://www.pbs.org

Emile Durkheim
"Durkheim (1858-1917) asked a simple set of questions: What holds society together? Why are people willing to form
and abide by social relationships? What processes function to sustain social order? In asking such questions Durkheim emphasized that sociology must always perform functional analysis; it must determine what a process does for the maintenance of the social order."

Anthony Giddens: A Biography|OpenLearn
"   what may be termed ‘sociological inquiry’ is a re-examination of the role of sociology. The second, ‘structuration theory’, is an analysis of the interplay between social structures and people’s freedom to act, this is also referred to as their ‘agency’. This stage in his work is where his reputation was very firmly established.

The third category, in which he discusses the relationship between the self and society, is largely based on an assessment of how people gain a sense of their own identity..."

Giddens - 7th Edition Polity
This site has been developed to help you make the most of the exciting new 7th edition of Sociology. 

Peter Lunt on Erving Goffman
"Erving Goffman has been called the most influential American sociologist of the 20th century (although he was born
and did his early studies in Canada) thanks to his study and writing centered on the social interactions of everyday life...."

Erving Goffman - Front and Back Regions of Everyday Life [1959]
"...Goffman recognizes that the self is that collection of performances that take place in and across specific locations..."

Harriet Martineau: A Brief History and Intellectual History
"Martineau was one of the first women journalists, and also worked as a translator, speech writer, and wrote acclaimed novels that invited readers to consider pressing social issues of the day."

(Harriet Martineau) I Take Up My Pen: 19th Century British Women Writers
During a the nineteenth century, when women's roles in society were changing, British women were making their voices heard and gaining power by putting pen to paper. This exhibit introduces women in nineteenth-century Britain who became professional writers, making their stories and opinions heard. The documents in the exhibit include periodicals, books, pamphlets, letters, and diaries. You will find work by Jane Austin, Christina Rossetti, Mary Kingsley, and many other women writers. The sections of the exhibit are accessible through the interactive table of contents. Many photographs can also be found throughout the descriptions of each section.
Topic: English literature--Women authors, Literature and society--History--19th century, Women authors   Lexile: 1350  Interactive  Primary Source Material   http://library.duke.edu

Karl Marx (1818-1883)
To improve your understanding of Karl Marx and his importance to history and economics, visit the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (CEE) web site. You will find a clear explanation of the significance of Marx's writings and his influence on other thinkers, including Lenin and Mao Tse-tung. Learn about his work with Friedrich Engels and how they came to write The Communist Manfesto together. Discover Marx's theory of history as a series of class struggles between the capitalists and the workers as well as his criticism of capitalism. This page has links to related CEE articles and biographies.  Topic: Marxism, Marx, Karl   Language: English   Lexile: 1300  Biography      http://www.econlib.org

Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Karl Marx was one of the most important thinkers and writers of the nineteenth century. His works influenced the Communism movement in the twentieth century in many countries. This online article offers a detailed account of
Marx's life and work. Find out about Marx's education and the strong influence of the Hegel's philosophy on him. Learn about his friendship and collaboration with Friedrich Engels with whom he wrote the Communist Manifesto. Read about Marx's political activities and his ideas about world revolution. Reading this article will give you a deeper understanding
of Marx and Marxism.  Topic: Engels, Friedrich, Marxism, Marx, Karl   Language: English   Lexile: 1200  Biography   http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

George Herbert Mead (1863 - 1931)|Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"...In particular, Mead's theory of the emergence of mind and self out of the social process of significant communication has become the foundation of the symbolic interactionist school of sociology and social psychology..." 

Margaret Mead as a Cultural Commentator   
The online exhibition Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture, was created by the Library of Congress
in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth using items from the Mead Collection. This page section describing events and activities in the life of the noted anthropologist and writer focuses upon her nontraditional views of teaching, writing and research. On display are personal items such as a photograph of the family pediatrician, the influential Dr. Benjamin Spock, with her daughter, notebooks, and quotations. The professional documents include interviews, lecture notes, correspondence, and newspaper clippings.
Topic: Spock, Benjamin,--1903-1998   Language: English    Lexile: 1310  Biography    http://www.loc.gov

Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa
Coming of Age in Samoa was a best-selling book that created significant controversy 80 years ago. Anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote the book after conducting field work in Samoa and talking to female adolescents there. The goal
of her study was to find out whether the emotional conflict and distress that accompanies the teenage years was universal. She concluded that cultural factors contributed more than biological factors to the high stress levels among female American adolescents. Interviews and observations of dozens of Samoan girls revealed a carefree freedom not seen among prim and proper American girls.
Topic: Mead, Margaret   Language: English   Lexile: 1550  Primary Source     http://chnm.gmu.edu

(Émile Durkheim, Robert Merton, Karl Marx, C. Wright Mills, Edwin Sutherland)) 
Why Do People Commit Deviant Acts?
There is a wide range of deviant behavior from cheating on a test, for example, to committing murder. Read about four theories researchers have put forth to explain why people commit crimes. There are functionalist theories that look at a person’s perceived disparity between their own situation and another person or group as a cause of deviant behavior. Reinforcement theories look at the idea that people who associate with criminals will exhibit deviant behavior. Read about conflict theory and labeling theory, i.e. if you are labeled a deviant you will behave in a deviant manner.
Topic: Deviant behavior (Deviance)   Language: English   Lexile: 1380    http://books.wwnorton.com

Deviance
Deviant behavior is a social construct. What is thought to be deviant depends on the social environment. Sociologists have been attempting to define deviance for a long time. Deviance can be seen not as the act that is committed but the applications by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. The theory of anomie describes a society with weak moral guidelines that leaves the citizenry free to be deviant. Read about other theories of deviance such as labeling someone deviant (and therefore they will be); conflict of inequality; and the value of deviance in that it causes change in societies.
Topic: Deviant behavior (Deviance)   Language: English   Lexile: 1350    http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com

(C. Wright Mills and others) Social Conflict Theory
This tutorial will help you better understand the ideas of social conflict theory. This theory is based upon the ideas that Karl Marx introduced and argues that because individuals in a group come from different monetary backgrounds as well as other non-monetary categories such as nerds and jocks, the more powerful individuals will use their power to exploit those that do not have as much power.
Topic: Social conflict theory   Language: English   Lexile: 1210  Video       http://www.sophia.org

C. Wright Mills - A Biography
"The major foci of Mills's work were social inequality, the power of elites and their control of society, the shrinking middle class, the relationship between individuals and society, and the importance of an historical perspective as a key part of sociological thinking."

(Talcott Parsons) In Introduction to Sociology: Socialization

Parson's Social System (Structural Functionalists)

(Georg Simmel) The Significance of Simmel's Work

Georg Simmel - Social Types
"...Simmel conceives of each particular social type as being cast by the specifiable reactions and expectations of others. The type becomes what he is through his relations with others who assign him a particular position and expect him to behave in specific ways. His characteristics are seen as attributes of the social structure..."

Herbert Spencer: 1820-1903 
If you want information on the famous published works of Herbert Spencer, this is the Web site you should investigate.
If you want to watch a Power Point presentation on the life of Herbert Spencer, this is the site you should investigate. Take a look at this site if you are interested in famous quotes by Herbert Spencer. You will have access to different sources of information about this famous philosopher, sociologist, and educator when you check out the topics
presented on this Web page.
Topic: Spencer, Herbert,--1820-1903  Language: English  Lexile: 190 Biography     http://www.faculty.rsu.edu

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Herbert Spencer contributed a lot to the fields of philosophy and sociology in the nineteenth century. The British philosopher devoted most of his time trying to gain knowledge and explain the world through understanding the process of evolution, similar to studies by the famous naturalist Charles Darwin. In fact, Darwin's respect for Spencer was significant. Read this interesting Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article about Herbert Spencer to learn what he wrote about life, human nature, religion, politics, and morals in human society.
Topic: Spencer, Herbert,--1820-1903   Language: English   Lexile: 1540      http://www.iep.utm.edu

William Graham Sumner -  October 30, 1840 — April 12, 1910|American Sociological Association
"...A Social Darwinist and Conservative in thought, Sumner worked continuously in charting the evolution of human customs, folkways and mores..." 

“The Rich Are Good-Natured”: William Graham Sumner Defends the Wealthy
"...Is it wicked to be rich? Is it mean to be a capitalist? If the question is one of degree only, and it is right to be rich up to a certain point and wrong to be richer, how shall we find the point?..." 

(Edwin Sutherland) The Sociological Origins of White-Collar Crime
Understand what is considered a white collar crime as you read this legal memorandum from the Heritage Foundation. The memorandum asks if millions of Americans are white collar criminals. There is discussion about the difficulty of prosecuting white collar criminals equally, and the difference between different types of white collar criminals. The sociologist who coined the term white collar crime explains his perception of why people commit these crimes. There
is also debate over the presumption of guilt.
Topic: White collar crimes   Language: English   Lexile: 1680     http://www.heritage.org

Edwin H. Sutherland|American Sociological Association

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America
Democracy in America, written by Alexis de Tocqueville after his travels in America in 1831-1832, has become a classic work of political science and sociology. It is one of the most influential books about American politics and society ever published. Learn more about the writing of the book and about its author on the web site of The Library of America. You will find out about why the book has enjoyed such lasting popularity and relevance. Discover how Tocqueville's American observations provided insights for European society.
Topic: Tocqueville, Alexis de,--1805-1859  Language: English  Lexile: 1540   Biography     http://www.loa.org

Alexis de Tocqueville
If you are studying Alexis de Tocqueville, visit this web site to deepen your understanding of this political thinker and historian. Tocqueville travelled and wrote extensively. Follow his travels and his writings closely on this site. Explore
the different sections to find portraits, maps, biographical information, and excerpts from his books. You can learn about the period of French history in which Tocqueville was involved. An illustrated timeline follows Tocqueville's life and career along with French history. The photographs and links provide a comprehensive education about this influential thinker and writer. The site is accessible in English and French.
Topic: Tocqueville, Alexis de,--1805-1859   Language: English, French   Lexile: BR  Biography http://www.tocqueville.culture.fr

[Ferdinand Tonnies] Friendship
Read what Aristotle, Cicero, Adam Smith, and C.S. Lewis had to say about friendship in great works of literature.
The criterion for friendship varies from culture to culture, and even from person to person. Although friendship varies
by setting, Aristotle suggested three components of friendship: Friends enjoy each other's company, are useful, and share a commitment. He suggested that friendships might be based on mutual advantage, pleasure, or goodness.
Cicero thought that we receive and give to friends that which is good, and C.S. Lewis said that companionship is simply the framework upon which friendship is built. 
Topic: Friendship   Language: English   Lexile: 1250     http://www.infed.org

Verstehen: The Sociology of Max Weber 
Max Weber is a highly respected theorist on the subject of sociology. He describes three types of authority. Traditional authority relies on respect for tradition. Rational-legal authority is rooted in rules and laws. Charismatic authority relies on the appealing personality and influence of a leader. In reality, authority is often a combination of more than one type. Bureaucracy is a hierarchy of authority, with information going up and directives going down. Other topics addressed by Weber include social action, causality, oligarchy, rationalization, and sociocultural evolution.
Topic: Authority   Language: English    Lexile: BR   
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu

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