History Essays
Follow the
submission
instructions
Society - Madness - Crime
Choose one theme from:
Authority and
Power, Authority in
Childhood,
Childhood,
Community,
Crime and Punishment,
Deviance and Response,
Family,
History,
Imagination,
Interrelate.
Madness,
Madness and
Crime,
Knowledge and truth,
Knowledge and
Power
Organism,
Political
Perspective,
Positive
Science,
Prison,
Science, Philosophy, Theology,
Self and Body,
Sex,
Self, body, sex and
society,
Situated Knowledge
Surveillance,
Statistics,
Symbols,
Theatre,
Total Institution.
Choose one, two or three theorists to explore, in relation to the theme,
from the list
attached to the theme. Theme and theorists must be discussed
with Andrew
Roberts and agreed by him. You should also agree the texts you will use.
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the work of
two or three of the following:
Ashley -
Edmund
Burke -
Bentham -
Robert
Dahl - Geoff
Dench - Emile
Durkheim -
Federalist
Papers -
Robert
Filmer -
Foucault -
Godwin -
Anthony Giddens -
Hegel -
Hobbes -
Kant -
Machiavelli -
James
Mill -
John Stuart
Mill -
John Locke,
- Macionis and Plummer -
Thomas Paine -
Rousseau -
Schumpeter -
Scruton -
Max Weber -
Wollstonecraft.
You need to distinguish
authority and
power. They are not just two words for the same
thing and the
quality of
your essay will partly depend on the effort you put into
examining their
difference and how they relate in the theories of your
authors. The word
legitimacy is often related to
authority.
Examples
Including Max Weber gives you clear definitions of authority and power.
Build on what others have done on
Weber - See also what others have done respecting
Talcot Parsons' translation of Weber's work. There is a need to
draft an outline of Weber's life and works as it relates to authority and
power.
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the work of Max Weber to
the perspective of Thomas Hobbes
You could begin by reading the
comparison of Hobbes and Weber in
Social Science History and the
extracts from Max Weber
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the work of Max Weber to
the perspectives of Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the work of Max Weber to
the perspectives of Emile Rousseau and Emile Durkheim.
Compare the perspective on authority and power in Thomas Hobbes'
Leviathan with that of Michel Foucault in the Power/Knowledge
collection.
Explore Emile Rousseau's concepts of authority and power. Show how he
differed from Thomas Hobbes
Essential primary text: Rousseau's
The Social Contract
Essential secondary text:
Chapter four in Social Science History
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the work of John Locke
and the writers of the Federalist Papers.
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the theories
of Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, with special reference to morality and
punishment.
Suggested start: Read
David Dewey's booklet on the problem of punishment. You could
develop the existing life and works for Bentham and
Kant, but focus
on the development of their theories of morality and how they relate to
punishment.
Compare the perspective on authority and power in the
work Edmund Burke and
Mary Wollstonecraft
useful combinations include:
two or three of: Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin (her husband),
Rousseau (who both
admired), Burke (who criticised)
two or three of Locke, Federalist Papers, John Stuart Mill, Dahl
Dahl will allow you to link modern political sociology
back to its
origins and (if you choose Mill) to contrast USA with British
theory.
two or three of Filmer, Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill,
Ashley,
Scruton
two or three of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Weber,
Durkheim,
Foucault, Dench
If you choose Locke and Durkheim, you should choose someone
like Filmer or
Rousseau or Scruton to give you a link. Filmer contrasts with
Locke, but
there are some similarities with Durkheim. Rousseau can be
viewed as a link
between Locke and Durkheim. On Scruton's analysis, Locke is a
liberal
theorist and Durkheim a conservative one.
Frank
Pearce
disagrees about Durkheim
Foucault with Bentham and one other
Analyse, compare and discuss what (if anything) two or three of the
following theorists say about authority and power in the family, the
school, in society and in politics.
Black links go directly to the biographical literature review page
Ashley -
Durkheim -
Robert
Filmer -
Macionis and Plummer -
Mill -
Examples
Analyse and discuss what Durkheim says about authority and power in the
family, the school, society and politics
You could begin by making notes and collecting quotes on how Durkheim's
Moral Education relates to the terms
in the question.
How what Durkheim says about authority and power in family, the school and
in politics relates to my experience of bringing up children.
Analyse, compare and discuss what Sir Robert Filmer and Emile Durkheim say
about authority and power in the family, the school, society and
politics.
Analyse, compare and discuss what John Stuart Mill and Emile Durkheim say
about authority and power in the family, the school, society and politics
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in two or three
of the following theorists:
Ashley
Cooper,
William
Blake,
John
Dewey,
Filmer, Anna
Freud,
Sigmund
Freud,
Locke
-
John Stuart
Mill,
William
Morris,
Talcott Parsons,
Owen,
Pavlov,
Rousseau,
Skinner,
Watson,
Mary
Wollstonecraft,
William Wordsworth,
Examples
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in John Locke
and Robert Filmer. Does this relate to both European and African
societies?
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in
William
Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
Think about childhood in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
How does it relate to his ideas on education and society, and how do his
ideas relate to those of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in Rousseau's
Emile
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in Rousseau to the
poetry of William Wordsworth and William Blake
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in Rousseau and
Freud
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in John Stuart
Mill and Sigmund Freud.
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in Freud, Watson
and Skinner.
OR
Examine the theories of Sigmund Freud, John Watson and Burrhus
Skinner in relation to their perception of childhood and how it relates to
education and society.
Essential primary texts:
Freud's 1909
lectures
Watson and Rayner's 1920 article:
"Conditioned Emotional Reactions"
Skinner's 1948 novel:
Walden Two
Compare the treatment of childhood, education and society in the work of
Talcott Parsons to their treatment in the poetry of William Blake and
William Wordsworth.
Relate the treatment of childhood, education and society in a
[specified]
21st century textbook of Sociology to the treatment by one or
two of the
following theorists: Robert Filmer, John Stuart
Mill, William Morris, Sigmund Freud, Talcott Parsons.
Explore the idea of community in the work of one, two or three of the
following:
Thomas Carlyle,
Charles
Crook,
John
Dewey,
Emile
Durkheim, Dennis Hardy,
Friedrich Hayek,
Hegel, Adolf Hitler,
Suzy Johnston
,
Marx and/or
Engels,
William Morris, Sorokin
Tonnies,
Weber,
Willmott and
Young,
Examples
Suggestion: The classical theorists, Marx/Engels, Durkheim and Weber, make
a useful combination. (or Tonnies could replace one of them)
Suggestion: Combining Carlyle, Marx/Engels and Morris would enable you to
study the
development of marxist theory in an unusual and interesting,
way.
Explore the idea of community in Engel's
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
in relation to family based and state based societies.
See lecture
notes
Explore the idea of community in Engel's
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
in relation to family based and state based societies. Does this help us
analyse the problems of post-colonial Africa?
You should acquaint yourself with material about Africa
(See subject index for
Africa), so that you know where you are going. However, this
first task is to analyse what Engels says about community, pre-state family
based political organisation, and the development of the state.
Explore the idea of community in Engel's
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
in relation to family based and state based societies. Illustrate with
examples from Somalia
Compare the concept of "morality in community life" in the works of John
Dewey and Emile Durkheim
Explore the idea of community in the work of Adolph Hitler, Karl Marx,
Friederich Engels and Ferdinand Tonnies
Explore the idea of community in the theories of
Adolf Hitler and
sociologists of his time. [One student used Weber, Arthur de
Gobineau and
Ludwig Gumplowicz as her comparisons].
Particularly useful combinations with Hitler include Hegel, Tonnies or
Weber, and Sorokin. This allows you to compare and contrast the Nazi
ideas of community with more coherent previous German social theory and
contemporary sociological theory. See the
Social Science History Timeline 1942
for some other useful reading.
Crime and Punishment
Deviance and Response
|
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Make sure you follow the links on crime, deviance and punishment
below. You must, deal with both crime (or deviance) and punishment (or the
response to deviance) in your essay.
Explore the themes of
crime and
punishment in two or three of the following: OR
Explore the themes of
deviance and the response to deviance in one two or three
of the following:
Beccaria -
Jeremy Bentham - Jack
Douglas -
Emile Durkheim -
Eysenck -
Foucault -
Kant - Macionis and Plummer -
Robert Merton -
Jock Young
Examples
Beccaria -
Bentham -
Foucault
Make sure you follow the links to the authors above. Read carefully
and follow the links within the articles on the authors. You should make
full use of these resources.
Explain Cesare Beccaria's
ideas on crime and punishment. [This is a
simple question
for starting - although explaining is not so simple. It can be expanded in
different ways later - as below]. Build on
what others have done about
Beccaria
Essential primary text: Cesare Beccaria's
Of Crimes and Punishments (1764)
Explain Cesare Beccaria's
ideas on crime and punishment. Relate these to the
discussion of classical criminology in Taylor, Walton and Young's
The New Criminology
Essential primary texts: Cesare Beccaria's
Of Crimes and Punishments (1764)
and Taylor, Walton and Young's
The New Criminology
Explain Bentham's
ideas on crime and punishment. [This is a
simple question
for starting - although explaining is not so simple. It can be expanded in
different ways later - as below]. Build on
what others have done about
Bentham
You could start with the
Bentham entry. Follow the links from this. Look at the
intellectual biography that we are developing. Look at the extracts from
his work. Follow the links through to the full texts.
Explore the thories of crime and punishment in the work of Cesare Beccaria,
Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault
Explore the theories of crime and punishment in the work of Beccaria and
Bentham and relate this to the
codes of the criminal law in France after
the French Revolution
Explore the utiitarian approach to crime and punishment in the work of
Beccaria and Bentham and discuss the criticisms of Immanuel Kant
Explore the themes of crime and punishment in the work of Bentham
and Foucault
Explain Bentham's
ideas on crime and punishment and contrast with Shariah
law.
You could consider Sharia as a theological theory of law and relate it to
the discussions in
Social Science History chapter two.
The association of Shariah with "medieval punishments"
(BBC website) could be related to Foucault's contrast between
"torture" and "punishment" in
Discipline and Punish
Explain Bentham's
ideas on crime and punishment and relate to the
behaviourism of J.B. Watson.
Explore the themes of crime and punishment in the work of Emile Durkheim
OR
Explore the themes of crime and other forms of deviance and punishment and
other responses to deviance in the work of Emile Durkheim
Essential primary texts: Emile Durkheim's
The Division of Labour in Society (1893) and
The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) (1895).
Suicide
Make sure you follow the link to Suicide above. Read carefully and
follow the links from the Suicide article. You should make full use of
these resources.
Explore the themes of deviance and the response to deviance in the work of
Emile Durkheim, with respect to
suicide.
OR
Explore the theme of suicide and the response to deviance in the work of
Emile Durkheim.
Essential primary text: Emile Durkheim's
Durkeim's
Suicide. A Study in Sociology (1897)
"Explore the theme of suicide and the response to deviance in the
work of Emile Durkheim and
Jack Douglas".
Merton
Explore the theme of deviance and the response to deviance in the work of
Robert Merton.
Essential primary text: Robert Merton's
"Social Structure and Anomie" American Sociological
Review 3, pp 672-682. 1938 (Preferable), or the chapter on "Social
Structure and Anomie" in later books.
Begin with the
extracts from Merton. You will need to discuss his concepts of
conformity, deviance and crime.
Durkheim and Merton
Explore the themes of crime and other forms of deviance and punishment and
other responses to deviance in the work of Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton
Follow the relevant advive for
Durkheim
and
Merton
Prison as Punishment
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|
Examine
Bentham's theory of the
prison as
punishment as described by
Foucault in Discipline and Punish
You may want to start by drafting a description of those aspects of
Bentham's life and works that relate to the Panopticon. You can develop
this from what others have done on
Bentham. Your basic reading is Foucault's
Discipline and Punish. You will need to provide a
properly referenced analysis of relevant parts, in your own words. Start
with the extracts on
Bentham and the Panopticon. Build on what others have done on
Foucault. You will also want to read the
article on Surveillance.
Were
docile bodies essential for the development of punishment in an
organised way? Examine with respect
Bentham's theory of the
prison as punishment as described by
Foucault in Discipline and Punish
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of one, two or three
of the following:
Aristotle -
Robert
Filmer -
John Locke -
The 1611 Bible -
Jean Jacques Rousseau -
Adam Smith -
Olympe de Gauges -
Marx and/or
Engels -
John Stuart Mill -
Emile Durkheim -
Friedrich Hayek -
Roger Scruton -
Zygmunt
Bauman.
Examples
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of Robert
Filmer and John Locke and how it relates to the 1611 Bible. How does this
relate to modern times?
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of Jean Jaques
Rousseau
Essential primary text: Rousseau's
Emile or On Education 1762
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of Emile
Durkheim
You could begin by making notes and collecting quotes on how Durkheim's
Moral Education relates to the terms
in the question.
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of Talcott
Parsons
Build on what others have done about
Parsons
Discuss the family in relation to society in the work of Talcott Parsons
and compare this to the image of the family in William Blake's poetry.
Explore the significance of history in the work of one, two or three of
the following:
Aristotle, Edmund
Burke,
J.B. Bury,
Mary
Beard,
Gordon Childe,
Auguste
Comte,
Charles Darwin, Simone de Beauvoir,
Emile
Durkheim,
Friedrich Engels,
Ronald
Fletcher,
Foucault,
Hegel,
Friedrich
Hayek,
Adolph
Hitler,
Leonard
Hobhouse,
Karl Marx,
Thomas Babington
Macaulay, John Stuart
Mill, Karl
Popper, Sheila Rowbotham,
Henri Saint-Simon, Adam Smith, R.H.
Tawney, Max
Weber, Mary Wollstonecraft, Wilhelm Wundt
Examples
Suggestion:
Explore the significance of history in the work of
Henri Saint-Simon and relate it to the development of social
science.
This question develops themes raised in the first lecture. See the
Saint Simon
chart.
Explore the significance of history in the work of
Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels and relate it to the
development of social science.
Essential primary text:
The Communist Manifesto
Essential secondary text:
Marx and Engels: Scientific Socialism
Suggestion:
Explore the significance of history in the work of
John Stuart Mill and relate it to the development of social science.
Compare the significance of history in the work of Charles Darwin to its
significance in the writing of Adolf Hitler
Analysis two key texts:
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection (1859) and
Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925-1927) with respect to
the significance of history
Examine the part played by imagination in the work of one, two or three of
the
following and relate this to the study of society and/or
science: William
Blake,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Emile
Durkheim,
Julie Ford,
Sigmund
Freud,
Suzy Johnston
,
Mary Lamb,
John Locke,
Charlotte Mew,
Juliet
Mitchell,
William
Morris,
Frank Pearce,
Karl Popper,
Mary
Wollstonecraft,
Mary Shelley,
Mary Warnock,
Max Weber
Oscar Wilde.
Examples
Investigate the role of imagination in Mary Wollstonecraft's view of
science. Look at the inter-play of imagination and observation in the
creation of another human by Frankenstein (in Mary Shelley's novel), and
relate this to Karl Popper's theory of the role of imagination in science.
Explore the imagination of Mary Shelley and William Morris in their novels
Frankenstein, The Last Man and News from Nowhere.
Relate this to the study of society and/or science.
The first thing to do is, probably, to enjoy reading one or more of the
novels. See
Mary Shelley and
William Morris for electronic and printed texts. With both
authors there are discussions of the social content on this site. Follow
the timeline links from
Mary Shelley and
William
Morris - and see what happens in
2073
Build on what others have done. The work on
Mary Shelley may suggest other useful combinations to you. Mary
Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.
You could compare them with John Locke or Karl Popper on science, Mary
Warnock on imagination, or Oscar Wilde on science and art.
Suggestion: You could compare Sigmund Freud (Interpretation of Dreams) with
Mary Shelley and William Morris, both of whom structured books around a
dream. Shelley enables you to relate dreaming to science and Morris enables
you to involve interpretations of marxism.
Interelate
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Explore the interrelationship between the ideas of:
Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault
Explore
reason
and
unreason in the work of one, two or three of the
following:
Bentham,
Anthony Clare,
Eysenck,
William and Mrs
Ellis
Foucault,
Freud,
Goffman,
Susan Tyler
Hitchcock
Hume,
Suzy Johnston
,
Laing,
Charlotte Mew
,
Juliet Mitchell,
Sedgwick,
Scruton,
Szasz,
William Tuke,
Examples
Explore reason and unreason in the work of Foucault, William Tuke and
William and Mrs Ellis.
Foucault discusses William Tuke and you could consider Foucault's arguments
about
moral management in comparison with those of Tuke and/or William
and Mrs Ellis. Dr and Mrs Ellis
developed
moral management in a larger asylum than Tuke. Build on what
others have done:
Foucault -
Tuke -
Ellis -
Explore reason and unreason in the work of Sigmund Freud
Examine
Susan Tyler Hitchcock's explanations for the madness and
recovery in the life of
Mary Lamb.
Essential primary text: Mad Mary Lamb: Lunacy and murder in literary
London by Susan Tyler Hitchcock
Examine the explanations for mental illness and recovery in the life of
Suzy Johnston.
Suggestion: Using my mental
health and civil liberties article as a start, you could
consider Peter Sedgwick's ideas in comparison with one or two of Anthony
Clare, Ronald Laing, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, and/or
Thomas Szasz.
Suggestion: Freud, Eysenck and Goffman allow you to make a comparison of
psychoanalytic,
behaviourist and
symbolic
interactionist
approaches to reason and unreason.
Suggestion: With a Bentham, Foucault and Eysenck combination, you could
use Bentham's
utilitarianism to define reason
(for him) as
the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of pain. Then use
Foucault to
show how this was applied to prisons and asylums. Then look at
the
refinement of the utilitarian position by Eysenck.
Examples
Explore the relation between madness and crime in the work of
Cesare Lombroso
Essential primary text: Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man (1876)
Passages in Gibson and Rafter (below) pages 43 to 93 - Or text arranged
with Andrew.
Explore the relation between madness and crime in the work of
Eysenck and
Jock Young.
Explore the relation between madness and crime in the work of Eysenck
as
explained by Taylor, Walton and Young in
The New Criminology.
Compare Foucault's approaches to the control of madness and crime
Compare two or three of these author's theories of knowledge and truth:
John Dewey -
Mary Douglas -
Emile Durkheim -
Michel Foucault -
Immanuel Kant
Examples
Compare the theories of knowledge and truth of Kant and Durkheim
Compare the theories of knowledge and truth of Immanuel Kant, Emile
Durkheim, and Michel Foucault
Compare the theories of knowledge and truth of Immanuel Kant, Emile
Durkheim, and Mary Douglas
Investigate
Michel Foucault's concepts of power and knowledge and
how they inter-relate
You can approach this question in many different ways. For example, you
could consider medicine, psychiatry, gynaecology, penology, or education
from the perspectives of knowledge and power. The
books by Foucault that you use will depend on the way you
approach the question. It would be a good idea to study some of the essays
in
Power/Knowledge Selected
interviews and
other writings, 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault
Analyse and compare the images of
organism and
system in the
work of one or two of the following:
Auguste
Comte - Charles Darwin - Adolph Hitler -
Bronislaw Malinowski -
Radcliffe-
Brown - Talcott
Parsons -
John Rex -
Herbert Spencer
Examples
Analyse and compare the images of organism and system in the work of
Talcott Parsons
With respect to one, two or three of the following EITHER Examine the
relation of their
theories to politics OR
Examine the relationship between
their theories
and their political objectives
Emile
Durkheim,
Rousseau,
Weber,
Wollstonecraft,
Examples:
Examine the relation of the theories of Jean Jacques Rousseau to politics
OR
How does
Rousseau's political theory relate to the
French
Revolution?
Examine the relation of the theories of
Jeremy Bentham and
Robert Owen to politics
Compare and contrast the treatment of "positivism" in two or three of
the
following:
Auguste
Comte,
Michel Foucault,
Leszek Kolakowski,
Bertrand Russell,
Jock Young,
Examples
Compare and contrast the treatment of "positivism" in the work of Auguste
Comte, Emile Durkheim and Jock Young.
Examine the relation of
science,
philosophy and
theology
in one, two or three of the
following:
Thomas
Aquinas,
Auguste
Comte,
Emile
Durkheim,
Bertrand Russell,
Mary Shelley,
Mary Wollstonecraft
Examples
Examine the relation of
science, philosophy and theology in the work of Thomas Aquinas, Auguste
Comte and Bertrand Russell.
Useful combinations include:
Comte with Thomas Aquinas and Durkheim
If you try this, I would suggest you use
Comte as your key author
Mary Wollstonecraft with Mary Shelley and Comte
Examine the relationship of self and body in one, two or three of the
following.
Some of these links go directly to work that other students have done -
Follow links from there
Plato -
Rene
Descartes
-
John Stuart Mill -
Sigmund Freud -
George Herbert
Mead
-
Erving Goffman
-
Christine
Battersby
-
Elizabeth Grosz
-
Jana Sawicki
Examples
Examine the relationship of self and body in relation to John Stuart Mill
and Sigmund Freud
Examine the relationship of self and body in the work of George Herbert
Mead and Erving Goffman
A variation on this question
Examine the relationship of mind and body and society in the work of George
Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman
Examine the relationship of self and body in the theories of George Herbert
Mead and Christine Battersby
Essential primary texts: George Herbert Mead's
Mind, Self and Society, from the Standpoint of a Social
Behaviourist (1934) and Christine Battersby's
"Her Body/Her Boundaries" article (1998/1999)
Examine the relationship of self and body in the theories of Jana Sawicki
Compare the social significance of sex in the theories of
two or three of the
following:
Friederich
Engels.
Shulamith Firestone,
Anna Freud,
Michel Foucault,
Sigmund Freud,
Erich Fromm, Malthus,
Macionis and Plummer
,
Juliet
Mitchell,
William
Morris,
Plato,
Wilhelm Reich, Rousseau, Roger Scruton,
Wollstonecraft,
Do not confuse
sex and
gender
You are advised to take Freud as your key author.
Brown, J.A.C.1961/1964 discusses
Anna Freud,
Reich and Fromm.
Mitchell,
J. 1974 discusses Reich and Laing
Examples
Examine the relationship of sex and society in the work
of Sigmund Freud
Build on what others have done - The life and works outline does
not successfully relate Freud and sex, or relate
that to its social significance. A serious
effort to do this would make an excellent start.
Compare the
social significance of sex in the work of Plato and
Sigmund Freud
Essential primary texts:
Plato's Republic
and Freud's
Outline of Psychoanalysis.
Compare the social significance of sex in the theories Sigmund Freud and
Erich Fromm
Discuss the relevance of
situated knowledge to social theory with respect to two or three
of the
following:
AWAITING ENTRY
Examine the importance of looking (observation) in the
writings of one, two or three of
the following:
Bentham,
Connolly,
Foucault,
Goffman,
Owen
Examples
Examine the importance of looking (observation) in the
writings of
Bentham and
Foucault.
Relate the treatment of looking (observation) in the
writings of
Bentham and
Foucault to issues of surveillance in the 21st century.
Compare surveillance observation or inspection in the factory/community of
New Lanark in the work of Owen, with the prison as a place of observation
described by Foucault and the asylum as a place with an underlife, away
from observation, as analysed by Goffman.
Examine the importance of looking (observation) in
Erving Goffman's theory of asylums
Build on what others have done:
Goffman
Examine the contribution made by statistics to the study of
society in the
work of one, two or three of the following:
Ashley, Durkheim, Jack
Douglas,
Engels,
William Farr,
Francis Galton,
Thomas Malthus,
Quetelet, Jock
Young, Peter
Townsend,
Examples
Use the statistical writings of Adolphe Quetelet and William Farr to look
at the way the historical construction of the normal person was used to
evaluate mental hospitals.
Examine the contribution made by statistics to the study of
society in the work of Emile Durkheim and his critic, Jack Douglas.
Relate the treatment of symbols in one, two or three of the following
theorists to
their concepts of mind and society: Durkheim, Freud, Hobbes,
Hume, Locke,
Mead, Juliet
Mitchell,
Parsons,
Examples
Relate the treatment of symbols in Talcott Parsons and George Herbert Mead
to their concepts of mind and society
Examine the formation of symbols in the work of George Herbert Mead. Does
this help us understand the public sphere use of symbols? Relate to the
work of one of the following,
Theodor Adorno -
Stuart Hall -
Jürgen
Habermas -
Zygmunt Bauman.
Examples
Examine the formation of symbols in the work of George Herbert Mead. Does
this help us understand the public sphere use of symbols? Relate to the
work of Jürgen
Habermas
Examine the formation of symbols in the work of George Herbert Mead. Does
this help us understand the media and consumption in the work of Zygmunt
Bauman?
Examine the theatrical imagery in the theories of one, two or three of the
following:
Erving
Goffman,
Macionis and Plummer
,
George Herbert
Mead,
Peter
Morea,
Talcott
Parsons
This question could be adapted by considering the issues in relation to the
work of a dramatist:
Shakespeare for example.
Examples
Examine the theatrical imagery in the theories of George Herbert Mead and
Erving Goffman.
Compare the analysis of the asylum, workhouse, alternative
community, factory/community, family, and/or prison in the
work of two or three of
the following theorists:
Bentham,
Cohen and Taylor,
Connolly,
Donnelly,
Foucault,
Goffman,
Dennis
Hardy,
Suzy Johnston
,
Kathleen Jones,
Laing,
Owen,
Thompson and
Wheeler,
Peter Townsend,
Rothman
Goffman's concept of a total institution could provide you
with a useful
conceptual framework - so consider including him. Build on what others have
done about
Goffman. - Alternatively, you could
focus on Goffman
If you choose to include family, you should use Owen and/or
Thompson and
Wheeler and/or Laing amongst your authors.
If you choose to include alternative communities, you should
use
Dennis
Hardy's book
on them. This combines well with Owen.
Workhouses (poor-houses) are best considered with asylums.
Foucault
provides a link between the two in that he argues that the
lunatic asylum
(mental hospital) developed from institutions for general
confinement of
the poor. Rothman would combine well with Foucault. Gothman's
studies of
total institutions were based on a mental hospital.
Examples
How might a total institution alter the characteristics of an
individual (if at all)? Examine in relation to Erving Goffman's concept of
the moral career of a mental patient and compare to Lombroso's ideas about
the need for criminal lunatic asylums.
Start with a careful analysis of the essays in Goffman's 1961 book
Asylums. Build on what others have done with
Goffman
Essential primary text for first part of the question: Goffman's Asylums, essays
"On the Characteristics of Total Institutions" and on
"The Moral Career of the Mental Patient"
Compare the analysis of the asylum and alternative community, in the work
Erving Goffman, Dennis Hardy and Robert Owen.
Relate Goffman's concept of
total institution to his concept of
the
moral career and
underlife.
Start with a careful analysis of the essays in Goffman's 1961 book
Asylums. The question could later be related
to
Kathleen Jones or to
Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. One student
used Goffman's concepts to analyse Nelson Mandela's argument that prison is
a crucible that "tests a man's character".
Build on what others have done:
Goffman
Relate Goffman's ideas on
total institution to
Beccaria and
Bentham's ideas on
punishment
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