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Syllabus Group Work 480 : Social Movements : Syllabus Required Texts: Tarrow, Sidney.1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carson, Clayborne. 1981. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960’s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ross, John. War Against Oblivion: The Zapatista Chronicles. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press. Dobratz, Betty and Stephanie Shanks-Meile. 1997. White Power, White Pride! The White Separatist Movement in the United States. Maryland: John Hopkins University Press. Plus various required readings are on ONCORES, the library’s on-line reserve system. To access these readings you will go to the library homepage, click on the link to ONCORES, and then log in, the login is "oncores", and the password this semester is: ciao. Once you’re in the system you can go to Sociology, my name, and then pick this course. Please download and print out the readings so that you have them and can bring them to class to reference during our discussions. Graduate Students: You have additional work required of you for this course. Each of you will read a book in addition to those listed here and will present it to the class in order to educate them. There are a few books I know that I would like covered: Piven and Cloward’s Poor People’s Movements, Why they Succeed, How they Fail; Alberto Melucci’s latest book on Social Movements; Naming the Enemy, which covers globalization and global resistances and John Isbister’s Capitalism and Justice: Envisioning Social and Economic Fairness. In addition to presenting the book to the class you will turn in a short paper (3-5 pages) analyzing the book, exploring its main contributions to the study of social movements and critiquing it. REQUIREMENTS: There are numerous requirements for this course; most of them are organized around enabling you to fully engage the material of the course in a critical way. To that end, I am going to ask you to write in this course almost every week. Almost every week you will write a 1-2 page response paper to the readings. I am structuring the class this way so that you are compelled to read the material – success in this course, and the success of the course, is the result of being prepared and able to participate in class discussions. As a pay-off for this, there will be no mid-term and the final short paper asks you to draw on the work you’ve done in the semester to come up with a culminating statement about social movement effectiveness. If you have been doing the reading all along you will do well. The other components will be doing research on a social movement of your choice (along with some of your classmates), doing a presentation in class, and writing up your research. Requirements for the course are: Attendance: Pretty clear: be here as much as possible. I do not take attendance in this course. However, for your weekly assignments to be counted, you must be here to turn them in. I DO NOT ACCEPT YOU TURNING IN YOUR ASSIGNMENTS WHEN YOU WILL NOT BE IN CLASS - UNLESS YOU HAVE A WRITTEN MEDICAL EXCUSE. I organize the course in this way because your presence, and participation, is vital to the success of this course. I can't do it without you folks. It succeeds or fails because of our collective effort. Plus, I want to see and hear you; your input and perspective is important. Weekly papers: Most weeks students will submit a 1 -2 page double spaced paper. These papers will constitute a sizeable proportion of your grade in the course. Each week you will be asked to do readings. Your paper will specify what connections you see between the articles/chapters and will point to at least one seminal question that you think arises from the combinations of readings you are assigned. This is not "no-brainer" work. Instead, you are going to have to really think about the articles and the sorts of issues they raise. You will not receive credit for simply telling me what you think the author is saying - you must think about what different readings say to each other - and what use they might be in our study of social movements. Throughout the semester each of you will share their paper and using that paper to lead class discussion. Short Papers: Two times during the semester you will be asked to write a short (3-4 page) paper. (This will replace your weekly paper). The first will ask you to explore your own life and views in relation to the issues that we are exploring in class. The second will be your consideration of what makes a social movement successful, based on all of the research and readings you’ve done this semester. Further details will follow. GROUP WORK: Each student will work with a couple of other students to research a social movement. I know that many of you hate group work, so I’ve made it as straight forward and well-defined for each individual as possible. We will generate a list of social movements people are interested in studying, then we will form groups of people interested in specific movements. I will give you a list of the topics each group MUST cover as part of their work – these topics will be divided between group members. Each group member is then responsible for the topics they have chosen/been assigned. When it comes to the presentation, each person will present on the topics they have researched. However, while it is divided up this way so that each person can be as responsible for their specific section as they chose, as a group you will still need to present a cohesive presentation. That is, you’ll have to come up a group outline and structure so that that presentation flows. You will have to communicate with each other regularly, etc. The paper you turn in will be on the topics you’ve explored. Topics that will need to be covered for each movement include: History/Time line of the movement Resources created and used (organizations, funding, etc.) Collective Frames developed Practices of Resistance (what Tarrow calls "repetoires") State responses to movement Successes/Failures A further handout will be given and ways for the group to interact will be provided. Late Work: Late papers/work will not be accepted unless circumstances justify it (i.e. you have a medical condition documented by the health center) or prior arrangements have been made. The fact that your computer is jammed, stopped working, won’t print, ran out of printer ink/paper, and so on, aren’t valid reasons for turning in work late. I assume that every student makes a back up copy of their file onto a floppy disk as they make changes, can gain access to campus computers if theirs crashes, isn’t writing their paper at 10:00pm the night before it is due, and isn’t printing their paper out for the first time 10 minutes before class. If you read this, and know that you do/don’t do these things - I suggest you change what you do. I also recommend that students keep a backup printed copy of their papers for their own files. (Faculty do sometimes misplace student papers - unfortunately it’s up to the student to produce another one for the faculty). GRADING IN GENERAL: In all your work I will take the following things into account when grading: did you write the paper you were asked to write - or did you write something else; to what extent do you demonstrate your understanding of the material - this doesn’t mean you always have to understand everything. Rather, you are expected to be able to demonstrate what you do know and fess up to what you don’t know; do you ask interesting sociological questions in your work; do you write in complete and legible sentences; does what you hand in read as if it was your first draft - i.e. have you worked on the assignment; are there typos and misspellings. While my focus is always primarily on content, I do take into account the quality of writing you turn in. You must be able to write well to get an A in this course; if you don’t feel as if you write well, don’t worry - we’ll work on it and I will help you write well. I also do take effort into account J Faculty do you no favors when we tell you that your work is exceptional (which is what an A signifies) when it is not. Course Grades: Total Points possible on each component: 8 Weekly Papers 40 pts. = 40% 2 short papers (Due Jan 29th, May 14th) 20 pts. = 20% Class Participation 10% Group Participation 10pts. = 10% Social Movement Paper 20pt = 20% Total Possible Pts. 100pts. = 100% PROPOSED COURSE OUTLINE *It could always change if conditions warrant..." January 22nd • Introductions • Ground Rules • Interests? • Film – WTO • Questions: What is a social movement? • What is a successful movement? (How define success?) • What are the various components of a movement? January 29th (Short Paper #1 Due – 3-4 pages) • Start Reading – Tarrow, Chapters 1-4; • In our first paper you will discuss several things, first, your own history with social movements (have you participated in one? Been influenced by one?); your understanding of the effectiveness of social movements – do you think they work? If so, what do you think makes them effective? Finally, shat are your hopes for this course? February 5th (Paper Due) Civil Rights Mobilization • Readings – ONCORES – Piven and Cloward ,Chapter 1 – Structure of Protest Theory • Tarrow, Chapter 5&6 • This is the first 1-2 page paper that you will write for this course. In it you will need to identify the main, or in your mind, most important concepts, that the authors raise, and if there are writings by more than one author, compare them to each other. As noted in the directions above, you should not just be paraphrasing the whole argument that the author makes, instead, YOU identify what you think are the most important ideas and then evaluate them. I know that the first few of these papers are the most difficult for you to do – so I will be giving you extensive feedback on your papers and helping you to figure out what you are doing. February 12th Resource Mobilization • Readings – Carson, Intro and Chapters 1-5 • Civil Rights Mobilization (Film) February 19th (Paper Due) Civil Rights/Black Power • Readings – Carson, Chapters 6-10 • Guest Speaker? February 26 (Paper Due) • Readings: Oncores – Melucci; Tarrow, Chapters 7 and 8 • Carson – Chapters 11-14 March 5th (Paper Due) Modeling of Civil Rights to other movements of the 60’s & 70’s • Role of the State in the formation/success of social movements • Readings: Carson, Chapter 15-18 (pages 229-300) • Tarrow, Chapters 9-10 (pg 141-175) • ONCORES: Buechler, Chapter 7; State Politics and Social Politics March 12th (Paper Due) Globalization – and the changing of social movements • Mexico and Chiapas • Readings: Tarrow, Chapter 11 & Conclusion • Oncores: Buechler, Chapter 4: National Structures and Social Movements. • ONCORES: Gedicks, Chapter 1: Scouring the Globe, from Resource • Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations. • Guest Speaker – Sterling Evans SPRING BREAK – MARCH 19TH March 26th Chiapas – Indigenous Voices • Readings: Ross, Pages 1-117 (The Time of Talking Guns) • Film: Zapitista! April 2nd (Paper Due – Think about tactics, collective frames, and response from the state – perhaps compare to the Civil Rights Movement in the US) • Readings: Ross, pages 119-280 (Chapters 6-16) April 9th (Paper Due – Compare readings with information you gather from the internet) • Chiapas - Contemporary Moment • Readings: Ross, pages 282-350. April 16th (Paper Due) Movements of the Right/ White Supremacy • Global Rise of Fundamentalisms Religious and Political • Readings: Dobratz and Shanks-Meile: Chapters 1-2 • Film: Blood in the Face April 23rd • White Supremacy • Readings: Dobratz… Chapters 3-5 • Student Presentation April 30th (Paper Due – Success in the White Power Movement and Success elsewhere?) • Collective Visions of the Right and Issues of Success in Movements • Readings: Dobratz …. Chapter 6 • ONCORES: Goldberg, "Challenger’s Legacy" • ONCORES: Downtown and Wehr: "How Peace Commitment Survives" • Student Presentations May 7th Final Discussion of Creating Change • Student Presentations May 14th – Finals Week, 5:00pm - Final Short Paper Due • Final Student Presentations if needed. |
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