Sociology of Critique - JSM477

• Title: Sociology of Critique
• Czech title: Sociologie kritiky
• Guaranteed by: Department of Sociology (23-KS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2015 to 2017
• Semester: winter
• E-Credits: 8
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:2/0, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: 30 / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: doc. Dr. Paulus Albertus Blokker
• Teacher(s): doc. Dr. Paulus Albertus Blokker
• Class: Courses for incoming students

Annotation

Last update: Simon Smith, M.A., Ph.D. (20.09.2022)

The course introduces students to the sociology of critique and the sociology of justification, developed in France by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot and their followers around the world. It explores the main concepts of the approach - justification, orders of worth, regimes of engagement, institutions, truth, reality and existential tests, perception and intuition. The sociology of critique will be situated in the context of sociology and social theory and its analytical power will be illustrated using case studies taken from recent empirical research about topics such as journalism, knowledge translation and health communication.
The course is particularly suited to those with an interest in discourse studies and socio-linguistics.

Syllabus

Last update: Simon Smith, M.A., Ph.D. (09.09.2021)

 

Syllabus

This online course alternates two kinds of session:

- lectures: introducing key concepts in the pragmatic sociology of critique, usually followed by case studies taken from an actual research project using the concepts introduced in the lecture. Slides and audio recordings will be made available through Moodle for self-study in your own time.

- reading groups: reading and group discussion of set texts. We will meet online for reading groups at the scheduled times - Mondays at 18:30 in weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 (via Zoom). It is vital that students prepare for the reading groups, i.e. be ready to give a critical appraisal of the set texts.  

 

Session plans

Week 1. Lecture. Introduction: From critical sociology to a sociology of critique

- The exigence of justification and the value of studying disputes and crises

- Institutions and institutionalisation

- The dynamics of critique in the tension between ‘is’ and ‘should be’ (Boltanski) or ‘confidence in’ and ‘could be’ (Thévenot)

 

Week 2. Reading group. On Critique, chapter 3: The Power of Institutions. 

 

Week 3. Lecture. Confirmation and critique: the concept of test (épreuve)

Case study. Truth and reality tests: why is it difficult to extend truth tests to reality tests in evaluative research?

Case study reference: Smith, S., Ward, V. & Kabele, J. (2014) Critically evaluating collaborative research: Why is it difficult to extend truth tests to reality tests? Social Science Information 53(3): 374-402.

 

Week 4. Reading group. On Critique, chapter 4: The Necessity of Critique. 

 

Week 5. Lecture. Judgement, qualification and evaluation as routine practices

Case study. Frontline professional knowledge work: the classificatory and inferential judgements of online discussion administrators

Case study reference: Smith, S. (2017) Discussing the News: The Uneasy Alliance between Participatory Journalists and the Critical Public. London: Palgrave. Chapter 4.

 

Week 6. Reading group. On Justification, Preface: How we wrote this book. 

 

Week 7. Lecture. Perception and intuition

Case study. Collective practices of vigilance: activating the social web's affordances as a facilitator of critical testing and proving

Case study reference: Smith, S. (2017) Discussing the News: The Uneasy Alliance between Participatory Journalists and the Critical Public. London: Palgrave. Chapter 6.

 

Week 8. Reading group. Bessy & Chateauraynaud, Being attentive to things, chapter 3. From the phenomenology of perception to a pragmatic approach to people's sense of things.

 

Week 9. Lecture. Orders of worth as specifications of the common good

Case study. Judgements of competence and the competence to judge: medical, legal and journalistic constructions of mental illness

Case study reference: Smith, S. (2021) Storifying routines and routinising stories. A dualistic subject positioning analysis of controversies about constraints on patient autonomy. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 51: 145-163.

 

Week 10. Reading group. On Justification, chapter 3: Political Orders and a Model of Justice.

 

Week 11. Lecture. Existential tests and familiar regimes of engagement

- The role of emotion and passion in critique and the access of personal attachments to public criticism

 

Week 12. 'Listening' group. You call yourself the caring professions? Conflicts and compromises between points of view in the Alder Hey scandal (radio recording).

 

 

Prerequisites

Some knowledge of critical sociology is recommendable.