SOC 301A: Topics:
Globalization,
The Long View
12:40-2:10 TR Asbury 121
DePauw University
SPRING 2009
Professor Thomas Hall
Office: 106 Asbury, x4519, email: thall@depauw.edu
OFFICE HOURS:
TuTr 11-12, 2:30-4, & by appt.
Syllabus
Last Updated
Monday January 12, 2009
COURSE GENERAL GOALS:
Everyone uses the world, "globalization," but there is little agreement on
what it means, and thus, not surprisingly even less agreement on whether it is a
good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed thing. This course
WILL NOT resolve these debates. They cannot be
resolved in a college course, or by anyone anywhere. What we
CAN DO is try to gain a more precise and more
accurate understanding of what WE mean by the term.
One of the problems with understanding globalization, which for now, can be
defined as all the interconnected "stuff" happening in the world today (there is
an [in]famous bumpersticker that uses a different word than "stuff"
for what happens!). The first
problem in trying to understand this is that it is going on now and changing
rapidly. This makes it very hard to understand. So it is useful to step back and take a longer view.
Some argue that this "stuff" started happening with invention of the modern state and the conception of the nation-state (for Soc majors, the nation-state as a Weberian ideal type) which coincide more or less with the industrial revolution. These changes drastically transformed the ways in which people lived their daily lives. Thinkers began to puzzle over how and why the changes were occurring in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Later in the nineteenth century and throughout the 20th century other thinkers have puzzled over why Europe -- and its derived settler colonies -- led and why the rest of the world either did not follow suit, or did so slowly, or even at times actively resisted following suit. The changes associated with modern European society and their spread around the world are often glossed under the term "development" or more accurately colonialism and/or neocolonialism.
In the last couple of decades this process has sped up considerably, fueled, in part, by vast increases in ability of humans to move themselves and their products over long distances rapidly, and by vast increases in the speed of communication. News of the Tsunami which hit Indonesia, Southeast, and South Asia on December 26, 2004 spread rapidly and pictures were almost instantly available. [For some interesting before and after pictures go to: http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/8.html (also on the Moodle Internet Resources page)]. We all know and recall how rapidly the news of the attacks on the twin towers spread around the world on 9/11/2001. Despite the rapid speed of the news many of the effects of 9-11 faded just as rapidly. See Podobnik (2005) article on reserve readings list. Think of the killings of the Korean missionaries in July 2007. Most recently the conflict in Gaza in early 2009.
But all of these events -- the murders, the attacks, and the destruction caused by the Tsunami -- are rooted in the same processes that led to the development of the modern state and the industrial revolution. These events, however, are rooted in much older social processes, processes that began, I argue, with first invention of states some 5,000 years ago, at Uruk in what is now Iraq. So like an athlete attempting a pole vault who needs a long start, we will back up to gain a long view of this processes. However, we will begin with discussions and readings on what various people mean by globalization, so we can have some idea of where we are trying to vault to, given this very long running start. In fact, what I want to do is simultaneously explore contemporary issues of globalization and search out its ancient roots.
SPECIFIC GOALS, i.e., Objectives: My specific objectives for each of you to gain an enhanced understanding of globalization and its historical roots, and the various debates that surround these topics. Another objective is for you to develop and strengthen what sociologist C. Wright Mills called your "sociological imagination," that is, understanding the place of your own biography in society, that is understanding your individual roles in much larger social processes.
Closely related to this is to understand Karl Marx's famous dictum: "men make their own histories, but not any way they please." [Today we would replace "men" with "humans" in this statement]. Thus, less formally this objective is to develop a more nuanced and subtler understanding how our individual actions shape change, yet also understand how the choices we have, and sometimes even make, are often constrained by processes and conditions beyond our control.
Key in all of this is developing an understanding upon which you can build future decisions about your own reactions, actions, and proactions regarding processes of globalization that will continue to affect you throughout the rest of you lives.
COURSE STRUCTURE: The course will be a combination of discussion and lecture. If the size stays small, say less than 10, I will run it as a seminar. This might change what is below. We will decide that during the first week of classes. We will have some videos, and I may occasionally ask you to attend a lecture outside of class if it is particularly germane to our topics. The course will traverse the same ground several times, but each time from a new angle and at different depth. The organization is based on a recognition that learning is often a spiral process, in which one first gains a broad, if sketchy understanding, THEN refines it in detail and scope. This also allows students with quite diverse learning backgrounds to "get on board" and fill in gaps so that they will not be left behind when we start moving much faster through other material later in the course.
We will have a review essay due later in the course. I will give further guidance on these later in the class [see Review Essays]. The books, for the most part will be from those on reserve at Roy O. [I may add more as the course progresses, and may on RARE occasions allow you to propose a book for a review essay]. You should know that for this course I consider "double dipping" a form of cheating. You must select books you have not read for other courses. The point is to read other discussions of globalization.
Also to keep us on track on the readings I will ask for brief Reading Reports (approximately one half page) on some of the readings. Each student will need to submit 20 of these over the semester. These will be due in a "rolling sequence," and once a due date is past they may not be made up. Count on doing at least one a week. Often, when there is a relevant speaker or other event, that too, may be used for a reading report. I will announce such occasions in class. I can announce right now that a set of events, the teachin on sustainability on Thursday Feb. 5, will present several opportunities for reading reports [in fact our 'class' that day will be to attend during the time class would have met]. Also if YOU learn of an event that fits, let me know so I can invite the entire class to use it too.
There will be a midterm and final. I will post a study guide for each at least a week before the tests.
For grading see Grading and Attendance page.
THE READINGS (also listed under Textbooks):
Chase-Dunn,
Christopher and Salvatore J. Babones. 2006. Global
Social Change: Comparative and Historical Perspectives. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press. HM831 .G495 2006
Chew, Sing. C. 2008. Ecological Futures: What History Can Teach Us. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. GE149 .C538 2008
Hobson, John M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CB251 .H63 2004
Lechner, Frank J. and John Boli, eds. 2007. The Globalization Reader,Third Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell. HF1359 .G59 2008
Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. HB501 .R625 2
Sklair, Leslie. 2002. Globalization: Capitalism and Its Alternatives, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. HD2755.5 .S564 2002
ABOUT THE TEXTS:
We will read several texts in tandem, that is, moving through each of them as the course
progresses. Why not read one book at a time? I have a couple of
reasons for this. First, this is not a reading course, but a course on
globalization. Second, this breaks up the concentration on only one text. Third, it allows comparing and contrasting the differing approaches to
globalization. Fourth, and most important, it allows us collectively, as a
class, to develop our own understandings of globalization.
I note too, that as we come to explanation, or theory toward the end of the course. Again this placement has several reasons. First, it allows you to begin struggling to develop you own understanding, i.e., theory, of globalization. Thus, when you encounter the explanations of others, you will have already thought about this a lot, and will be able to read them critically. Second, you will have seen a great deal of the evidence in the readings, again allowing you to be critical of various theories. Finally, by looking at these last we have a great review and preparation for the final.
Chase-Dunn & Babones provide a series of essay on social change from a world-systems perspectives. I co-authored a chapter on change w/ Chase-Dunn. There are also a few chapters on globalization. One by Chase-Dunn, one by Sklair, another author we will be reading.
Chew is the third book in a trilogy on environmental change. [The other two are on reserve and would make great books for review]
Hobson goes back nearly 2,000 years. He also reverses the usual approach of asking why Europe leads in development, to ask how did such a backward place ever get out front. His short answer is by borrowing, and often stealing ideas and "stuff" from Asia. He also opens with some fascinating discussion of maps, which we will pursue throughout the course. You may find it interesting to look at the original of the cover picture on his book which superimposes one of Columbus's caravels over one of Zheng He's treasure ships. It is an excellent metaphor of the relative "power" and size of Europe and China in the fifteenth century. The original drawing is by Jan Adkins at: http://www.janadkins.com/treasure.html
Lechner & Boli provide an edited collection, focusing on globalization in contemporary times. They have writers from virtually every school of thought on globalization. Again, they have simplified the articles to get to the point quickly. They end each section with a set of questions. I suggest you START with the questions, so you know what to look for in the readings. Lechner and Boli are sociologists who work, as I do, from a world-systems analysis perspective. I suggest we start with Part III on how we experience globalization, to help us ground many of the other more abstract discussions in real daily experiences.
Robinson gives a somewhat different account of globalization. He emphasizes traditional sociological factors, class, production, and the state. In particular he makes a strong, though controversial, argument that a global transnational elite is already well developed and growing.
Sklair provides a straight forward account of globalization, although he strongly emphasizes it new-ness over its older roots. He also finishes with discussions about possible futures. In many ways this is our main text. This course is, in part, a critique of Sklair, but not one saying he is wrong. Rather, it is what I call a "yes, but" critique: What this author is saying is factual and correct, but other factors also need to be considered.
Along with a student from a social change course at DePauw, I wrote
and published a review of Sklair:
Hall, Thomas D. and Erica McFadden. Globalization: Capitalism and Its
Alternatives. By Leslie Sklair. Journal of World-Systems
Research 9:1(Winter, 2003):187-189. It is available on-line at:
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/index.php
The review will give you my take on Sklair.
Reserves:
The course books and other materials are, or will, be on reserve at
Roy O.
Library. These are listed on the
Reserve Readings page.
Watch for updates. Some items will be available through the moodle page for this
course. Others are readily available on-line.
Communications with professor Hall:
Some questions or issues cannot be dealt with via email. In that case we can meet during office hours or any other mutually agreed upon time.
Occasionally I will respond to an emailed question asking you to please re-ask the question in class. This is because I think you have an excellent question, and that the entire class would benefit from hearing along with the answers.
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Send comments or questions to thall@depauw.edu