2023-2024 Undergraduate Academic Catalog

CSOCL 3500 Social Theory

This course introduces students to the major foundation theorists in sociology and their respective impact on the development of sociological thinking. Students will read and analyze selections from the thinkers considered to be the "classical" theorists in sociology those who work shaped the discipline in its early stages in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as they attempted to explain social change and the structure of society and social interaction. We will focus on sociological theories of Karl Marx May Weber Emile Durkheim George Simmel and their impact on subsequent thinkers who developed their theories in more contemporary times in the West. We will study theorists explanations of economic social and cultural changes of their worlds. The Impact of these classical thinkers on contemporary sociological thinkers and schools of thought will be culminating part of the course.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

Three CSOCL courses (9 credits), or permission of instructor