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Soci 571 -- Contemporary Theory ASSIGNMENT FOR WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26 Your first assignment is a library search. Everybody will be expected to summarize their findings in class. The purpose of the assignment is two-fold: 1) Research is partly detective work, in which you dig through journals, books, and other documents in search of the answer to a particular question. Part of this assignment is designed to familiarize you with the NIU library resources. 2) We will be covering a number of theorists this fall, and everybody will be expected to do readings on their own to fill in gaps in our all-too-short reading list. In this assignment, you will have a particular question you will address. These questions are of the type that graduate students would normally be expected to have answered (or quickly be able to answer) before a course begins. You will be assigned (or may select) *ONE* of the following questions: 1. What are some good journals for doing research in theory? Why? (give examples of the kinds of articles the best contain). A corralary is which journals would you steer people away from? 2. Who is George Ritzer and what relevance does he have for this class? What is his theoretical perspective? 3. What is your instructor's theoretical perspective? (give evidence to back up your claim). 4. We have several people in NIU's sociology department who generally teach the contemporary theory course or who have "theory" as a major interest. Who are they? What is their perspective? 5. How might a contemporary theory course taught in 1970 be different than one taught in 2005? 6. We talk about "social" or "sociological" theory. How do these theories differ from those of anthropology, political science, or history (if they do)? The questions are broad and could, in themeselves, be a term paper. But, you are not expected to have definitive answers. But you should demonstrate that you have "done your homework" and be able to not only suggest *preliminary* answers and insights to the questions, but should also be able to describe tricks and traps for answering them. This first assignment is intended to get you thinking theoretically as well as to start thinking about your final paper.
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