Course code: SOS9004
Number of points: 2,5 ECTs including essay
Campus: Bodø
Course date: May 30th - June 2nd 2023
Course language: English
Prerequisites: Applicants who are admitted to a PhD-program will be prioritized for admission
Faculty:
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Professor Isaac Reed, University of Virginia
- Professor Johans Sandvin, Faculty of Social Sciences, Nord University
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Associate Professor Berit Irene Vannebo, Faculty of Social Sciences, Nord University
Apply:>> Apply via this link
Application deadline: April 30th 2023 Introduction
How do we generate knowledge about the human world? How can we make valid claims about social phenomena? The simple answer is by conducting good analyses, based on relevant data. But what does it mean to conduct (good) analyses in social sciences? Analysis in social science always involves the use of theory in some way or another. But how do theory and evidence interact? How should we perceive theory in relation to empirical data? And, how do we go about to utilize theory productively in our analyses?
These are questions we aim to answer in this course, which uses as its main source the book of Isaac Ariail Reed (2011): Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Social Sciences. While Reed is a sociologist, and the course has a particular focus on sociological analyses, the book is aimed at social science in general. Professor John R. Hall at University of California, Davies, says about the book:
“This pithy, deeply intellectual account — strongly based in classic sources and contemporary debates — demands the attention of the widest range of scholars in the social and historical disciplines because it offers all of us an understanding of how diverse practices contribute to our larger enterprise”.
The course offers a theoretical and practical approach to the use of theory in social analysis. The course aims to give the participants both a deeper understanding of how valid knowledge about the human world can be created, and practical knowledge about how to proceed in order to develop such knowledge.
The course is organized as a four-day workshop with lectures and practical assignments. Active participation in discussions and practical assignments is compulsory. Awarding of credits require a short paper to be submitted and approved after the course.
Learning outcomes:
These are the following learning outcomes expected upon completion of the course.
Knowledge
After completing the course, students should have gained advanced knowledge about:
- What constitutes social knowledge
- Different modes of knowing
- How theory and evidence interact
- The relation between interpretation, understanding and explanation
Skills
After completing the course, students should have advanced their ability:
- To choose theory applicable to a given set of evidence
- To actively use theory in analyzing data
- To make theoretical claims about the human world
- To validate and justify theoretical claims
General competence
After completing the course, students should have advanced their ability:
- To analyze empirical data
- To develop social theory
- To generate knowledge
Program:
Tuesday, May 30
Required Reading: before class begins on Tuesday, students should read:
- Isaac Ariail Reed, Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences, Introduction and chapter 1
09:00-10:30: Introduction
Introduction of professor Reed and students; Some notes on the history of “sociology” as a problem for knowledge; discussion of “context of investigation” and “context of explanation”
10:30-10:45: Coffee, tea and refreshments
10:45-12:00:
Theory in the human sciences: from minimal to maximal interpretation
12:00-13:15: Lunch
13:15-14:45:
Question and Answer with Professors Reed, Sandvin and Vannebo
Wednesday, May 31
Required Reading: before class begins on Wednesday, students should read:
- Isaac Ariail Reed, Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences, chapters 2 and 3
- Didier Fassin, “Another Politics of Life is Possible,” Theory, Culture and Society 26(5): 44-60, 2009.
09:00-10:15:
What is realism in social science? Why does it matter?
10:15-10:30: Coffee, tea and refreshments
10:30-12:00:
Normativism and the question of values in the human sciences
12:00-13:15: Lunch
13:15-14:45:
Question and Answer with Professors Sandvin and Vannebo
Thursday, June 1
Required Reading: before class begins on Thursday, students should read:
- Isaac Ariail Reed, Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences, chapter 4.
- Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” pp. 239-277 in Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 2000.
Recommended reading:
- Isaac Ariail Reed, “On the Very Idea of Cultural Sociology,” pp. 18-41 in Claudio Benzecry, Monika Krause, and Isaac Ariail Reed, Social Theory Now. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
09:00-10:15:
Interpretation and the very idea of “cultural sociology”
10:15-10:30: Coffee tea and refreshments
10:30-12:00:
Interpretation and theory: underinterpretation and overinterpretation
13:15-14:45:
Question and Answer with Professors Sandvin and Vannebo
Friday, June 2
Reading: before class begins on Friday, students should read:
- Isaac Ariail Reed, Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences, Chapter 5 and epilogue.
09:00-10:15:
Explanations reconsidered: Answering why questions, formation stories, and interpretive explanations
10:15-10:30: Coffee, tea, and refreshments
10:30-12:00:
Concluding lecture: Interpretation in the light of realism and normativis
12:00-13:15: Lunch
13:15-14:45:
Q & A with professors Reed, Sandvin and Vannebo
Required reading:
Isaac Ariail Reed (2011). Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Social Sciences. The University of Chicago Press. 216 pages.
About Isaac Reed
Isaac Reed is a historical and cultural sociologist with particular interests in the philosophy of social science, the historical origins of American modernity and the development of the American state, and the social theory of power. His work began with studies of the Salem Witch Trials and hermeneutic sociology, and expanded into a study of interpretation and explanation in the human sciences, and then to the sociology of power and transitions to modernity.
His book "Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the use of theory in the human sciences" (University of Chicago Press) received an honorable mention from two American Sociological Association sections (Theory and Culture). Other publications include “Power: relational, discursive, and performative dimensions” (Sociological Theory) which received the Junior Theorist Award from the ASA section on Theory, “Theory and Contrastive Explanation in Ethnography” (Sociological Methods and Research, co-authored with Paul Lichterman), and “Culture in the Transitions to Modernity: Seven pillars of a new research agenda” (Theory and Society, co-authored with Julia Adams).
He is the co-editor of "Social Theory Now" (University of Chicago Press). In 2015 he received the Lewis Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology. Isaac received his B.A. in Mathematics and Sociology & Anthropology from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University.