Program in European Cultural Studies

Princeton University

Cultural Systems:

Culture and Inequality in Comparative Perspective

ECS 320/SOC 359

Intellectual objectives:

This course, which focuses on race, class and immigration in France and the United States, aims at bringing students to think more systematically about the relationship between culture and inequality in contemporary societies. Some of the questions we will examine include: Is American society becoming more segmented culturally? How much distance is there between Euro-American and African-American cultures? How do people justify drawing racial boundaries? How does French and American racism compare?

Lectures will first introduce several approaches used to study culture, including Marxist and poststructuralist approaches. You will be asked to write a paper on intergroup cultural difference by drawing on participant observation or interviews. These papers will be discussed in precepts/ workshops during the course of the semester.

Practical information:

Our course will meet on Thursday from 1:30-4:20. My office hours will be held in Green Hall, 2-C-12. Hours will be announced at the beginning of the semester.

A reading packet can be purchased at Pequod (6 Nassau, tel: 921-7888). The following books are available on reserve at Firestone Library and at the U-Store:

• Charles Ragin, 1994. Constructing Social Research, Pine Forge Press.
• Jay MacLeod, 1994. Ain't No Makin' It, Westview Press.
• Jennifer Hochschild, 1995. Race, Class, and the American Dream, Princeton University Press.
• Thomas Edsall, 1992. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights and Taxes on American Politics, W. W. Norton.
• Michèle Lamont, 1992. Money, Morals and Manners, University of Chicago Press.
• Bryan Turner, 1988. Status, University of Minnesota Press.

• Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, 1983. Ethnography: Principles in Practice, London: Tavistock
• Raymond Gorden, 1980. Interviewing, Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press
• Taylor Steven and Robert Bogdan, 1984. Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

1. Take-home final exam (30% of final grade)
2. Class participation (20% of final grade)
3. Research paper of 15 to 20 pages. First draft due by November 30th (20%) Second draft due on Dean's Day (30%)

   (The paper topic and outline should be discussed with the professor by October 13th)

4. You will also be required to read between 100 and 200 pages a week.

Week 1: Introduction to the study of culture

• John R. Hall and Mary Jo Neitz, 1993. "Sociology and Culture," in Culture: Sociological Perspectives, Prentice Hall, pp. 1-19.

Week 2: The Marxist and the Weberian approaches to culture and inequality

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1978. "The German Ideology," in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by R. Tucker, W. W. Norton. pp. 147-200.
• Bryan S. Turner, 1988. Status, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1-64.

Week 3: Culture and Inequality: the Case of Cultural Resistance

• Jay MacLeod, 1987. Ain't No Makin' it, Westview Press.

Week 4: Thinking about social research

• Charles C. Ragin, 1994. Constructing Social Research, Pine Forge Press. Chapters 1-5.

Week 5: The Durkheimian approach to culture: symbolic boundaries

• Steven Lukes, 1973. Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work. A Historical and Critical Study, Stanford University Press, pp. 440-484.
• Jeffrey Alexander, 1992. "Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society" in Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, edited by Michèle Lamont and Marcel Fournier, University of Chicago Press, pp. 289-308.

Week 6: Morality and exclusion

• Michel Foucault, 1979. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage Press. Selections.
• Nicola Beisel, 1992. "Constructing a Shifting Moral Boundary: Literature and Obscenity in Nineteenth-Century America," in Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, University of Chicago Press, pp. 104-131.

Week 7: High culture and exclusion

• Michèle Lamont, 1992. Money, Morals, and Manners: the Culture of the French and the American Upper-Middle Class. University of Chicago Press.
• Richard Peterson and Albert Simkus, 1992. "How Musical Tastes Mark Occupational Groups," in Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, edited by Michèle Lamont and Marcel Fournier, University of Chicago press, pp. 152-187.

Weeks 8 and 9: Class, Race, and Immigration in France

• Horowitz, Donald, 1992. "Immigration and Group Relations in France and America," in Immigrants in Two Democratices: French and American Experience, edited by Donald L. Horowitz and Gerard Noiriel, New York University Press, pp. 3-39.
• Brubaker, Roger, 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press, pp. 1-50, 75-114, 138-164.

Weeks 10 and 11: Class, Race and Immigration in the U.S.

• Hochschild, Jennifer, 1995. Race, Class, and the American Dream, Princeton University Press.
• Edsall, Thomas Byrne with Mary Edsall, 1992. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights and Taxes on American Politics, W. W. Norton.
• Massey, Douglas and Nancy A. Denton, 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, Harvard University Press, Chapter 6.

Week 12: Conclusion