Foundations of Modern Social Theory

This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.

About Professor Iván Szelényi

Iván Szelényi is Dean of Social Sciences at NYU Abu Dhabi. When "Foundations of Modern Social Theory" was recorded for Open Yale Courses, he was William Graham Sumner Professor of Sociology and Professor of Political Science at Yale. Professor Szelenyi, who specializes in the comparative study of social stratification across cultures over time, received his Ph.D. from Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1973, and is the author of The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, Urban Inequalities Under State Socialism, Socialist Entrepreneurs, Making Capitalism Without Capitalists,Poverty, Ethnicity and Gender in Eastern Europe During the Market Transition (with R. Emigh), and Theories of the New Class: Intellectuals and Power (with L. King, 2004). His most recent book Patterns of Exclusion was published in 2006 and was awarded the Karl Polanyi Prize.

Sessions
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Lecture 1 Introduction
Lecture 2 Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order
Lecture 3 Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent
Lecture 4 Montesquieu: The Division of Powers
Lecture 5 Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will
Lecture 6 Rousseau on State of Nature and Education
Lecture 7 Mill: Utilitarianism and Liberty
Lecture 8 Smith: The Invisible Hand
Lecture 9 Marx's Theory of Alienation
Lecture 10 Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism
Lecture 11 Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.)
Lecture 12 Marx's Theory of History
Lecture 13 Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation
Lecture 14 Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
Lecture 15 Freud on Sexuality and Civilization
Lecture 16 Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
Lecture 17 Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination
Lecture 18 Weber on Traditional Authority
Lecture 19 Weber on Charismatic Authority
Lecture 20 Weber on Legal-Rational Authority
Lecture 21 Weber's Theory of Class
Lecture 22 Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity
Lecture 23 Durkheim's Theory of Anomie
Lecture 24 Durkheim on Suicide
Lecture 25 Durkheim and Social Facts