For those of you who would like to get a little clearer on the details of impeachment, given that this week we’ll be turning our attention to politics, here’s a brief guide published in the New York Times (they’ve also published a useful timeline of important events leading up to the opening of the inquiry. As I mentioned in class, the impeachment inquiry turns on the details of a telephone conversation between Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, in which the former is alleged to have enlisted the latter’s aid in digging up dirt on a political opponent. Here is the reconstructed transcript of that conversation. You can also read (this is all optional reading, remember) the official whistle-blower’s complaint. Finally, for an appreciation of how good writing can play a pivotal role in such history-making events, see this appreciation of the whistle-blower’s writing.
Prep
- Review Matthew Desmond, ‘In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation’, Times Sunday Magazine (14 August 2019)
- William Little and Ron McGivern, Introduction to Sociology, Ch. 17 (‘Government and Politics’), esp. Sections 17.1 (‘Power and Authority’) and 17.2 (‘Democratic Will Formation’)
In Class
-
- Attendance
- Review: Submitting the Class Participation Essay and Midterm
- Impeachment Update
- Slavery and Capitalism
- Mapping the Argument
- BREAK
- Politics from a Sociological POV
- For Next Time
For Next Time
- HW: Annotated Bibliography
- HW: Class Participation Self-Evaluation
- William Little and Ron McGivern, Introduction to Sociology, Ch. 6 (‘Groups and Organization’), esp. Sects. 6.2 (‘Groups and Networks’), and 6.3 (‘Formal Organizations’)
- George Ritzer, ‘The McDonaldization of Society’Journal of American Culture (1983), pp.100-107
