Author: George Murray

Prep

• ‘Sociology and the Sociological Perspective’, Sections 1.1 (‘The Sociological Perspective’), 1.2 (‘Understanding Society’), and 1.3 (‘Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology’)
• Karl Marx, Thesis XI of ‘Theses on Feuerbach’
• Max Weber, ‘The Case for Value-Free Sociology’, excerpted from ‘Politik als Beruf’(1920)
• Joel Best, ‘Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics’, The Chronicle of Higher Education(4 May 2001). Note: You can just skim this one.

In Class

1. ‘Activity: Find Top Authorities for a Subject’ (cont’d)
2. BREAK
3. Discussion:
   1. The Sociological Imagination
   2. Macro vs. Micro
   3. Social Facts
   4. Objectivity
   5. Public Sociology
4. Manifesto: ‘Facts are not given. They must be taken’.
5. Low-Stakes Writing Assignment: What Are Your Goals for the Course?
6. For Next Time

For Next Time

• Adam Smith, ‘The Invisible Hand’ (1876)
• Svenonius, Ian. 2015. ‘Against Tipping’. Jacobin. 

Prep

• Michael A. Caulfield, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers (2017), Part I (‘Four Strategies and a Habit’); Part II (‘Look for Previous Work’), Sections 1 (‘How to Use Previous Work’), 2 (‘Fact-Checking Sites’), 3 (‘Wikipedia’); Part III, Section 1 (‘Going Upstream to Find the Source’); Part IV (‘Reading Laterally’), Sections 1 (‘What Reading Laterally Means’), 18 (‘Basic Techniques: Web Domains, WHOIS’); 20 (‘Stupid Journal Tricks’); 21 (‘Finding a Journal’s Impact Factor’); 22 (‘Using Google Scholar to Evaluate Author Expertise’), 23 (‘How to Think About Research’), 25 (‘Choosing Your Experts First’), 26 (‘Evaluating News Sources’), 27 (‘National Newspapers of Record’)
• Joel Best, ‘Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics’, The Chronicle of Higher Education(4 May 2001). Note: You can just skim this one.

In Class

1. Introduction to Hypothes.is
2. Q&A: Four Strategies and a Habit
3. ‘Activity: Find Top Authorities for a Subject’
4. BREAK (12:45)
5. ‘Facts are not given. They have to be taken’: Best (2001) Q&A
6. Low-Stakes Writing Assignment: What Are Your Goals for the Course?
7. On Reading [Time Permitting]
8. For Next Time

For Next Time

• ‘Sociology and the Sociological Perspective’, Sections 1.1 (‘The Sociological Perspective’), 1.2 (‘Understanding Society’), and 1.3 (‘Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology’)
• Karl Marx, Thesis XI of ‘Theses on Feuerbach’
• Max Weber, ‘The Case for Value-Free Sociology’, excerpted from ‘Politik als Beruf’(1920)
• Joel Best, ‘Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics’, The Chronicle of Higher Education(4 May 2001). Note: You can just skim this one.