SYLLABUS

330 Themes in Social Thought: Time and Space Dr. Robert Rotenberg
Winter TTH 10:10-11:40 AM SAC 528b 325-7460
Office Hours: TTH 9:00 - 10:00 Room: TBA
W 9:30-12:00 rrotenbe@wppost.depaul.edu

TEXTS:

All of the following are available in the DePaul Lincoln Park Bookstore.

Zerubavel, E. Seven Day Cycle New York: Free Press. 1985.

Rotenberg, R. Time and Order Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. 1993.

Rotenberg & McDonogh Cultural Meaning of Urban Space. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey. 1994.

Pred Place, Practice, and Structure New York: Barnes and Noble 1986.

Photocopies of the following articles available in class.

Burgess, E.       The Growth of the City, from Park and Burgess, Eds.,     
                  The City. Chicago:  Univ. Of Chicago Press.  1925        

Foucault, M       "The 'Other' Places."  diacritics. (Spring, 1986). Pp.   
                  22-27. 1986                                              

Leach             The Symbolic Ordering of the Man-made World, from        
                  Culture and Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.    
                  Press.  1976                                             

Lebra, T. S.      The Spatial Layoit of Hirarchy: Residential Style of     
                  the mOdern Japanese Nobility. From D. Pellow, ed.,       
                  Spatial Boundaries.  Westport, CT.:  Bergin and Garvey,  
                  1996.                                                    

Lefebvre, H.      Selection from The Production of Space. London:          
                  Blackwell.  1992                                         

Lovell, A         Seizing the Moment, from H. Rutz, ed. The Politics of    
                  Time.  American Ethnological Society Monograph Series,   
                  Number 4.  Washington, D.C.:  American Anthropological   
                  Association.  1992.                                      

McKenzie, R.D.    The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human        
                  Community. from Park and Burgess, Eds., The City.        
                  Chicago:  Univ. Of Chicago Press.  1925                  

Melbin, M         Night as Frontier ASR 43(1):3-22, 1978.                  

Nelken, D         Unpredictability and Life-style in a Migrant Labor       
                  Camp.  Social Problems  17 (Spring): 472-87. 1970        

Rotenberg, R      The Power to Time and Time to Power, from H. Rutz, ed.   
                  The Politics of Time.  American Ethnological Society     
                  Monograph Series, Number 4.  Washington, D.C.:           
                  American Anthropological Association.  1992              

Rotenberg, R.     Tearing Down the Fences: Public Gardens and Municipal    
                  Power in Nineteenth Century Vienna.  From D. Pellow,     
                  ed., Spatial Boundaries.  Westport, CT.:  Bergin and     
                  Garvey, 1996.                                            

Rutz and Balkan   Never on a Sunday, from H. Rutz, ed. The Politics of     
                  Time.  American Ethnological Society Monograph Series,   
                  Number 4.  Washington, D.C.:  American Anthropological   
                  Association.  1992                                       

Schwartz, B       Waiting, Exchange, and Power: The Distribution of Time   
                  in Social Systems.  AJS 79(4): 841-870. 1974             

Thompson, E. P.   Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism.  Past   
                  and Present 38(Dec.): 56-97, 1967                        

Verdery, K.       The "Etatization" of Time in Ceauescu"s Romania, from    
                  H. Rutz, ed. The Politics of Time.  American             
                  Ethnological Society Monograph Series, Number 4.         
                  Washington, D.C.:  American Anthropological              
                  Association.  1992                                       

Zukin, S          "The Mill and the Mall;" From Landscapes of Power.       
                  Univ. Of California Press.  1991                         

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

How do time and place come to have value in our lives? The struggle to define free time and open space against the institutional interests in productivity and development occupy our thoughts. By looking into this topic, we come face to face with the problem at the very core of culture theory: How do humans fashion meaning in the social world. The course reviews ideas about this process from 20th century writers.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1. To explore contemporary social and culture theory as it applies to a significant area of human experience. In other words, to learn about how we construct our social worlds.
2. To become familiar with the process of testing theory through self-reflective research experiences.
3. To investigate aspects of the cultural shaping (structuration) of reality, especially the virtually invisible formations that account for our understanding of time and space.
4. To understand why words like structuration, cultural production, legitimacy, discourse and transformation are important to the understanding of our social experiences and practice seeing these concepts used in appropriate contexts.

EVALUATION:

1. There will be a Mid-Term and a Final Exam. The Mid-Term will be a take-home essay that will count 20% towards the final grade. The Final Exam will also be an take-home essay and will count 30% towards the final grade. Exams will be based on the readings, and lecture/discussions. Exams must be turned in at the specified day and time. Permission for extensions are available for extraordinary life events, but will not be granted for the mismanagement of time. Students must retain complete copies of the exams they hand in. In case an essay is lost, it is the student's responsibility to produce a replacement copy. Midterm essays are returned after one week with extensive comments. Final essays can be picked up at the beginning of the next term and do not include comments unless the student specifically requests them.

2. Class participation component. The instructor will award a grade equal to 10% of the final grade for the following features of class participation: Students will be assigned essays to read and summarize for the class. Students who renege on their assignment will not receive passing grades in this component. All students are expected to read everything that is assignment and be prepared to discuss the readings on the day indicated on the class schedule below. Students who consistently show up unprepared will be evaluated lower than those who show up prepared. Students are expected to have ideas about the assignments and offer those ideas during discussion. Students who consistently offer questions or statements that distract the class, change the direction of the discussion (tangents), or show a lack of familiarity with the assigned readings will be evaluated lower than those whose ideas advance the class discussion. Attendance will not be required at all class meetings, but students are responsible for all information presented in class, including films and changes in the syllabus, whether they have attended class or not. Most students who are attentive to the class requirements will earn a B in this component unless they can offer challenging insights into the material, or show a strong commitment to the ideas involved through thoughtful discussion.

3. Research Paper: There will be a research paper required of every student. The evaluation of the research paper will count 40% towards the final grade. The details of the research paper are included on the last two pages of this syllabus. The due date of the term paper is stated on the following course schedule. Students must retain complete copies of the papers they hand in. In case a paper is lost, it is the student's responsibility to produce a replacement copy. Late papers may not be accepted. Extensions are not granted automatically. No extensions are granted for mismanagement of time. The research paper requires extensive research time and cannot be done at the last minute. Research paper are returned after one week with comments.

Components of the Final Grade (Summary):

Mid term Essay 20%
Research 30%
Class Participation 10%
Final Essay 30%

Statement of Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use, in writing, of another person's intellectual work. It can take two forms. The first is the direct copying of another person's work, in whole or in part, published or unpublished, without acknowledging that the work belongs to someone else. The second is the paraphrasing of another person's work, with minor changes in structure or vocabulary, without acknowledging indebtedness for the underlying ideas. This definition will be applied in all cases where plagiarism is suspected. In every instance, plagiarism is dishonest. It constitutes academic and intellectual theft. It will be treated severely wherever and whenever it is found.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Time Management: It is absolutely crucial that you do not fall behind in these courses, or the workload will become unmanageable. If you have any problems, you must alert the instructor. Do not wait until the last minute.

Make-Up Policy: It is the policy of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that instructors schedule make-up exams through the College Office. These make-up exams are scheduled for a week or two after the regular midterm and final weeks. These make-up exams entail a modest fee that the student has to pay. These make-up exams are conducted in quiet surroundings, enabling the student to concentrate on the work without the distractions of normal business in office corridors. Department secretaries, office workers and graduate assistants are not permitted to give make-up exams. The instructor may give a make-up exam at his discretion during his normal office hours only (see the first page header). Students with written, excused absences due to university functions (athletic competitions, debate meets, Model UN conferences, etc.) may not have to pay the make-up fee. All arrangements for make-up exams are handled by the college office in the campus where the class meets (LPC 325-7310; LC 362-8870). It is the student's responsibility to schedule their own make-up exams.

Student Record Keeping Responsibilities: Be sure to keep a copy of all your work notes, and drafts. Always make photocopies of everything you turn in and keep these copies in a safe place until your graded work has been returned to you. You are entirely responsible for reconstructing "lost" papers.

Paper Format Standards: Since all papers must be typed, if you do not have access to a typewriter or computer, you ought to arrange for typing as soon as possible. If your printer should break or something else goes wrong, you may be turned in a diskette formatted for DOS. At this time, Macintosh, Brother, Wang, or similar dedicated word processing disks cannot be accepted. You may use WordPerfect (5.1 or earlier), Wordstar (4.0 or earlier), or Word (5.1 or earlier), or you can save the file in ASCII format. It is important that you mark which word processing program you are using on the diskette. You may use 5.25" diskettes DOS formatted for 360 kb, 720 kb or 1.44 mb, or 3.5" diskettes DOS formatted for 1.2 mb. The diskettes will be returned with comments printed on paper.

Format for Presentation of Article Summaries

SOC 330 Themes in Social Thought: Time and Space Winter 1994

First article you are assigned & presentation date:

Second article you are assigned & presentation date:

Writing an analytical summary: An analytical summary is a condensed account of an essay, article, chapter, story or other work, written largely (but not necessarily exclusively) in your own words and limited to the essential IDEAS in the original work.

I A summary includes certain essential information.

1. In the first sentence, state the author and title of the work you are summarizing along with
2. the controlling idea (thesis) of the work.
3. In subsequent sentences, give the major points of the work (the supporting ideas) which develop the argument. You must select what ideas are most important. You should also take care to show the relationship among the points the work makes-- definitions, causes and effects, examples, and so on-- as you summarize them. Transitional expressions such as "because, however, when, moreover, secondly, in addition" and countless others fulfill this function.
4. Finish with a concluding sentence, perhaps a condensed version of the author's conclusion, or a restatement of his controlling idea.
5. If the work reveals a dominant attitude, such as sarcasm or admiration, you should note the attitude.
6. Unless there is a compelling reason not to, the present tense should dominate. The author writes, not wrote.

II A summary should be brief, clear, accurate, and objective.

1. Brevity. A summary is usually one-fourth as long as the work it summarizes.
2. Accuracy and Clarity. Be brief, but not obscure. Make sure that you have not omitted essential links or changed the author's meaning.
3. Objectivity. A summary condenses a work; it does not analyze or comment on it. Therefore, your own opinions, reactions, and preferences are out of place. Although you are writing in your own words, you are simply condensing the author's statements, not adding your own.

Description of Research Project

SOC 330 Themes in Social Thought: Time and Space Spring, 1996

The research component of this class consists of a project on the placesof the middle landscape.

The project is due: June 6th. Late papers will not be accepted. See syllabus for additional conditions.

Description:

The first stage of the research project is an annotated photo album. You will be required to take photographs. If you do not own a camera, Kodak sells an inexpensive holiday camera that holds 24 frames for $12 ($18 if you require a flash for indoor shots). Students must produce a collection of photographs of the places in another person's life. The person should choose the places in answer to the following questions:

The places must be photograph-able. The photograph must clearly show the place in its larger, panoramic context, and also in detail. The place must be lit is a clear manner and have its main features in shadow. Poor photographs will not be accepted. The student must do the photography themselves. No help allowed, except from the person whose places you are documenting.. You may collect no more than ten photographs. You may print the photographs to any size you wish. Experienced photographers with access to a darkroom will want to produce 5x7 glossy prints. For orther, ordinary "R" or 3 x 5 format is sufficient. It does not matter if you use color or black and white, but you should use the highest density grain available(Kodak Ektar for Color (Fuji has an equivalent) or Tmax for black and white). Use the lowest film speed possible for the light conditions (i.e. 100 ASA). If you print yourself use high quality paper.

The second stage of the research project is to interview the person about the photographs. When you ask the person to show you the places for the photography, they will be tempted to explain why they picked these places. Be prepared to take down their remarks then, but do not probe their remarks at that time. Wait until the photographs are developed and go back to them. Then, with the photographs in front of the person, ask about the initial remarks and learn the story behind each place. It would be helpful if you were well advanced in the reading before beginning this stage. Ask the person about the points raised in the theoretical discussion of places, especially the Foucault and Lefebvre. Remember to translate the theoretical jargon into ordinary language. You are testing theory here. Keep accurate handwritten notes of the person's responses to the photographs, even if you use a tape recorder.

In the third stage of the research, write a report in which you talk about the value of the theoretical perspectives for understanding the value of things to this person. The thesis of your report should be: Does the theory help you to understand the process through which this place became attached to this person. The paper should emphasize the theory and not the places themselves, using the person's remarks about the places to evaluate the relative merits of the theorist's position. This paper must be turned in on the day specified in the schedule. It must conform to the standards of scholarly communication (that means proper citations) and compositional style.

What you turn is the photo album with captions and the report. It is OK to bind the two together into one booklet. Mid-Term Essay Exam

Directions:  Write essays dealing with each of the questions below.  Papers must be typed, double-space, with one inch margins.  Use a typewriter style font (Courier 10 pitch (12 pt.)).  If your printer breaks or malfunctions, you can submit a disk as long as it is not in Wang, Brother or Macintosh format.  Average length is 3-5 pages per essay.  

Due: May 5.. Late essays will not be accepted. See syllabus for additional conditions.

Essay 1 What does it mean to have a "modern" conception of time? Is it possible to have a non-modern conception of time and still live in a contemporary society? Give examples from the readings and your own lives of how our modern conception of time shape our everyday experience.

Essay 2 Time is institutionalized through schedules. We have examined the week and the day schedules at both a micro- and macro- level. We have seen how order can be achieved by government activism in shaping schedules. However, schedules can have power over our lives even without centralized government control. Describe the dominant schedules in your lives and analyze the interests and power relationships that have created them. Use the analytical tools provided by the readings to show the conflict between your interests and those of the schedule makers.

Final Essay Exam

Directions:  Write essays dealing with each of the questions below.  Papers must be typed, double-space, with one inch margins.  Use a typewriter style font (Courier 10 pitch (12 pt.)).  If your printer breaks or malfunctions, you can submit a disk as long as it is not in Wang, Brother or Macintosh format.  Average length is 3-5 pages per essay.  

Due: Tuesday, June 11, 1996. Late essays will not be accepted. See syllabus for additional conditions.

Essay 1 What is the "middle landscape" and how do you differentiate it from the polarized landscape of the dominant school of thought on social space? Give and example of a site within the middle landscape and show how it can be described using Lefebvre's "three space" model.

Essay 2 How do you differentiate between space and place? Using the clues provided in the readings, describe the "other" places in your lives, your attachment to these places, and the role that gender or class plays in threats to your control over these places.