Sociology 95A, Fall 1999
Room 403, Waterman, 9:30--10:45 T-Th
What social science is properly about is the human variety, which consists of all the social worlds in which men have lived, are living, and might live.
C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (1959)
Science Fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together.
--Ray Bradbury (1950s)
A Martian can say things that Democrats and Republicans can't.
-- (unknown)
Science fiction is often about imagining alternative social possibilities as well as technological ones. This course explores science fiction stories as ways of exploring core sociological questions: How does social life work? What happens when social life "modernizes?" Is modernization a good thing? Why do societies sometimes change and sometimes stay the same? Does our society have to be the way it is? What is the relation between self and society? What should it be? What would happen if relations between rich and poor, males and females, or ethnic groups were dramatically changed?
Prof. Thomas Streeter; phone: 656-2167; email: thomas.streeter@uvm
Office Hours: T-Th 10:45-11:45, W 1-2, and by appointment; 31 So. Prospect
Doing the Reading and Participating in class discussions. Reading assignments will be announced in class; they will roughly follow the order of the course outline below. ";Participating in class discussion"; means not only speaking up when you have something to say, but doing so thoughtfully, in a way that helps the discussion; this will usually require preparing for discussion beforehand by doing the readings and thinking about them.
Participate in the email discussion list. All students will also be required to obtain an email account and join a discussion group ("list") about the readings for this class. At least once a week (after the first week of classes) you should post a message to the list. The message should be about the readings and/or discussion for that week, and can either raise a question or make an argument. Contributions to the list will be graded, much like a reading journal. Instructions for signing up are attached.
Short Writing Assignments. Throughout the semester, there will be several short writing assignments, sometimes in class, sometimes that you do at home. More information will be given out about these during the semester.
Final Paper: During the semester, you will write a research paper that either analyzes a science fiction story with social implications or analyzes a social issue relevant to science and/or technology. There will be several components. A one page proposal is due Oct. 26. A rough draft is due Nov. 23. You will give a presentation based on your paper during the last few weeks of classes. And the final draft is due at the end of the semester, on Dec. 13. (More details on the research paper will be provided later in the semester.)
Deadlines and Changes to the Syllabus. In most cases, I can be flexible about deadlines if you give me warning that you will be late at least one week in advance. Otherwise, late assignments will result in reduced grades. All assignments must be completed to pass the course, regardless of your accumulated score on previous assignments (that means: skip one, and you flunk the course). You will receive more details about assignments in class during the course. If you miss a class for some reason, be sure to either contact another student or me to make sure you didn't miss any assignments or changes in the syllabus, course readings, etc. It's your responsibility to keep on top of what's going on in the course; if you fall behind or loose track of things, it's your job to seek me out and set things straight.
Readings: Six books have been ordered through the UVM bookstore, and should be available in the textbook section under Sociology 95A:
In addition, during the semester some stories and essays may be made available on reserve in the Bailey Howe library.
Ray Bradbury, "The Highway," in McNelly and Stover (eds.), Above the Human Landscape, (Goodyear, 1972), pp. 3-6.
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 9. Doing Fieldwork Among the Yanomamo, by Napoleon A. Chagnon
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 7. Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, by Horace Miner
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 19. Hanging Tongues: A Sociological Encounter with the Assembly Line, by William E. Thompson
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 44. Social Change Among the Amish, by Jerry Savells
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 46. The McDonaldization of Society, by George Ritzer
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Film: Metropolis
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 31. Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 33. The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats, by G. William Domhoff
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 30. The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All, by Herbert J. Gans
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 16. If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably, by Philip Meyer
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 35. Life on the Global Assembly Line, by Barbara Ehrenreich, Annette Fuentes
Shelley, Frankenstein
Film: Blade Runner
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 11. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 36. Learning the Student Role: Kindergarten as Academic Boot Camp, by Harry L. Gracey
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 13. On Becoming Male: Reflections of a Sociologist on Childhood and Early Socialization, by James M. Henslin
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 14. Sexuality and Gender in Children's Daily Worlds, by Barrie Thorne, Zella Luria
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 15. But What Do You Mean? Women and Men in Conversation, by Deborah Tannen
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 47. Being "The Other": Ethnic Identity in a Changing Society, by Arturo Madrid
Film: Brazil
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 39. The Great American Football Ritual, by Douglas E. Foley
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 34. Fraternities and Rape on Campus, by Patricia Yancey Martin, Robert A. Hummer
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 6. Street Corner Society, by William Foote Whyte
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 10. The Sounds of Silence, by Edward T. Hall, Mildred R. Hall
Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time
Down to Earth Sociology, Chapter 3. The Promise, by C. Wright Mills
All students in this class are required to obtain an electronic mail (email) account (if you don't already have one), join an electronic discussion group (known in Internet jargon as a "list") made up of all the students in the class. The idea is that instead of talking to yourself in a journal about the readings, you'll be talking to your classmates on the discussion list. To create this "collective journal" of the class, each of you is required to post at least one message per week to the email discussion list. The message can be a question, a comment, an argument, or an observation, but it must in some way be about the reading, in a serious, substantive way. A typical posting will contain at least one quote from, or at least one very specific reference to a particular reading. Most postings, I expect, will be responses to others' postings.
Each of your postings will be collected and graded. You may skip three postings in the semester without penalty.
There's a larger purpose to the list: it is a place for students to ask questions of me and/or other students, and for all of us to discuss the course and the mass media. It's sort of like electronic office hours. If you have a question while you're studying, you can post it to the discussion group right away, even if it's three in the morning, rather than trying to chase me down during ordinary office hours. And you'll be able to read everything that gets posted to the list, so you can read both other students' questions and the answers to them. So it should be a pretty useful study aid. (Who knows, it may even turn out to be interesting.)
Detailed instructions for getting an email account are available in the basement of Waterman, if you don't have one already. If you've never used a computer before, you may want to take a computer-savvy friend with you, and spend some time playing with the machines just to get a feel for them. And you can always ask one of the computer counselors for help.
To participate in the class discussion group, you need to be "subscribed" to the "list" set up specially for our class; it's called scifisoc. If I have your email address, I can do it for you. But if I don't, you have to do it yourself. To do that, go into Pine, and send an electronic mail message to this address: listserv@list.uvm.edu. Do not put a subject heading on the message. The message should be one line and one line only, and it should read:
subscribe scifisoc your name
(where your name, of course, is whatever your full name happens to be.) Once you've joined, you should begin receiving whatever messages are posted to the list (after the point that you joined). Whenever you sign on, any new messages there are will be waiting for you in Pine.
To post a message to the list, simply send an electronic mail message to this electronic address:
scifisoc@list.uvm.edu
You should automatically receive a copy of your message back, so that you'll know if you've done it correctly.
You will receive more detailed information about using the list when you sign on, and can get even more information from UVM's web page. Feel free to ask questions of me as well, either in person, on the list or via direct email. Also, if you call 656-1170, you can sign up for free tutorials on E-Mail and the like. Good luck.
The College of Arts and Sciences has provided the following guidelines for student behavior in class. (Individual professors may have their own differing expectations for student behavior; if you're uncertain what's expected, ask the professor.)
1. Students are expected to attend and be prepared for all regularly scheduled classes.
2. Students are expected to arrive on time and stay in class until the class period ends. If a student knows in advance that he or she will need to leave early, the faculty member should be notified before the class period begins.
3. Students are expected to treat faculty and fellow students with respect. For example, students must not disrupt the class by ostentatiously not paying attention or by leaving and reentering the classroom during the class period. Actions which distract the class from the work at hand are not acceptable. It is expected that students will pay respectful attention to comments made by the lecturer and by fellow students.
Behavior that departs from these guidelines as well as any additional guidelines specific to the individual course is not acceptable and may be cause for disciplinary action.