Sociology 924: Social Movements Seminar Calendar Pamela Oliver

 

Spring 2008. Course meets Wednesdays 2:25 -5 in #6310 or 8146 Sewell Social Science.

Calendar of assignments and ntoes

How this works: If you click on a topic heading, you open a page which lists readings and has hot links to on-line copies of many of them. Copyrighted materials are in a password-protected directory for class members only, but you can read the list of articles & chapters without the password.

January 23 Introduction, Overview of Social Movement Theory NOTE: This was not given out before class and no writing is required, but this page summarizes useful overviews that will help you get oriented to the literature as a whole.
January 30 Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (click on links for detailed assignment)
February 6 Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency

February 13 Resource mobilization & organizations + overview of collective action theory.

A. The two "classic" 1970s Resource Mobilization papers by McCarthy & Zald. (1) The 1973 paper "The Trend of Social Movements in America" and (2) the 1977 AJS paper "Resource Mobilization and Social Movements." These can be linked to from this page: Organizations, External Resources, Professionalization (Discussed Feb 20)

B. An overview of collective action theory. (1) Selected pages from Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective action, (2) Oliver's overview of collective action theory in "Formal Models of Collective Action", (3) Look over the "Critical Mass" papers I and II. Readings on Collective Action Theory & Mobilization Processes . You may find it helpful to have the lecture notes on this material I used in my undergraduate class. (Discussed Feb 13)

 

February 27 Political structures and movement (more on political opportunity)

Interactions of Movements with Opponents, part I Assignment: (1) Read over the two Meyer articles ("Conceptualizing Political Opportunity" with Minkoff and "Protest and Political Opportunities.") Also read the Clemens and Andrews articles that are *'d in the "Movement Tactics and Effects on States" section. If your area of emphasis is political sociology, you should read more deeply in this section.

March 5 Frames, Framing Processes, & Related Issues (assginment on topic page)

March 12 Identity, Consciousness, Emotions

Assignment: (1) Per class discussion, we will give more attention to the Ferree and Ellingson articles from last week, to focus on empirical examples of frames. (2) Della Porta and Diana Ch 4, identities, *'d with short chapter summary on assignment page (3) Also Morris & Braines (oppositional consciousness) and Poletta "It was like a fever" which are *'d in the assignment page for Identity. Assignment page: Identity, Consciousness, Emotions Note that the assignment pages for this week and last week include a lot more articles that are worth pursuing if you have a special interest in this area.
March 19 SPRING BREAK NO CLASS
March 26 Class moved to March 27 at Pam Oliver's house. See information in email and learn@UW for driving directions and car pool arrangements. NO NEW READING. Instead, you should catch up on the broader reading for your paper. Topics: (1) Sociability (2) Talk more about our specific research plans & interests, (3) Media & Movements For the "media" section, I will not require any specific readings. Instead I will summarize what I see as the key issues in the readings as a guide to you in exploring this issue. Some of you will also have relevant backgrounds to contribute. Based on this discussion, we will decide whether to read and talk in more detail about specific articles in a future session.

April 2 Networks Networks & Mobilizing Structures. I have updated the assignment, there are 4 "required" articles with *s and encouragement to look athe abstracts for more
 
not updated below here
April 9 Media & Movements (apologies for late posting!!)
April 9
April 16Politics II: Interactions. Countermovements and repression Interactions & Dynamics, part II

April 23 Outcomes & Consequences of Movements. Reading: 1. Chapter 9 of DellaPorta and Diani "Social Movements and Democracy" 2. Marco G. Giugni "Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of Social Movements" Annual Review of Sociology 1998 PDF file Note: There are four articles on the outcomes & consequences of social movements in the Blackwell Companion to Social Movements which, taken together, provide a very comprehensive overview. Writing: Pre-class comments only (unless you want to do more)

April 30 Repression & Countermovements. Read:

  1. Oliver's new Moby article
  2. McPhail et al on Protest policing in US
  3. Something about countermovements (see suggestions here): I suggest Meyer & Staggenborg for general synthesis or Andrews for an empirical study
May 7 Current Trends & Terrorism
Transnational movements
 
 
 
 
 

Sociology 924: Social Movements Calendar Pamela Oliver

Last updated April 25, 2008 © University of Wisconsin.