History 1324: French Social Thought

From the Eclipse of Positivism to the Rise of the Symbolic

Prof. Peter E. Gordon

Department of History
Harvard University

Spring Semester, 2011

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30-1pm.

Professor Gordon’s Office Hours:

Tuesdays, 3-5pm,
The Center for European Studies, Room 305
pgordon@fas.harvard.edu

Course Teaching Fellows:

Sarah Shortall: shortall@fas.harvard.edu: Fridays, 4-6pm, Robinson L-13
Philip Fileri: pfileri@fas.harvard.edu: Wednesdays, 1-3pm, Barker 046

Course Description

This course introduces students to the major themes of French social theory in the twentieth century, from the
sociological writings of Émile Durkheim to the rise of a post-Marxist theory of democracy. The course is designed
to provide students with a lucid but rigorous grounding in the predominant schools and movements that have
animated French intellectual life over the past century. Although this course is classified as a lecture course in
intellectual history, the very identity of the course as “historical” should be taken with a grain of salt. As students
alive to the interdisciplinary character of these movements, we will not confine ourselves to any one mode of
analysis but will instead borrow freely from all disciplines as the subject requires, from sociology and philosophy,
history and political theory, tracing out the major lines of argument and dispute that have preoccupied some of the
greatest theorists in the French intellectual tradition. The course is organized into five thematic units, as follows: 1,
the French sociological tradition; 2, the challenge of French existentialism; 3, the emergence of structuralism; 4, the
genesis of post-structuralism; and 5, power, distinction, democracy. Major readings are by the following authors:
Durkheim, Lévi-Strauss, Kojève, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, Fanon, Foucault, Althusser, Derrida,
Barthes, Bourdieu, and Lefort.

Course Requirements

The course readings are typically of moderate length but they will require lively critical engagement: they cannot
be read casually or at spare moments. Students will be expected to attend all lectures and sections, and they will
also be expected to participate actively in section discussion. The basic requirements are as follows:

• Full attendance of all lectures and weekly sections

• Active participation in weekly sections
• Three paper assignments, to be turned in at the specified times as indicated below

Grading Policy

The course-grade as determined at the end of the semester breaks down into the following components with
percentages as indicated:

• Section participation: 30%

• Paper 1 (5-7pp.) 20%
• Paper 2 (7-9pp.) 25%
• Paper 3 (7-9pp.) 25%

Please note that attendance at all lectures and sections is a requirement. If you must miss a section, please be
certain to notify your TF in advance to explain the reason for your absence. Late papers without prior clearance
with the TF will be marked down at the TF’s discretion.
Books Available for Purchase

The following books are available for purchase from the Harvard Coop. ISBN information is provided here for
students who prefer to comparison-shop. Shorter selections will be available for downloading as pdfs on the
password-protected course website:

Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (trans. Lewis Coser)

(Free Press, 1997); ISBN-10: 0684836386; ISBN-13: 978-0684836386

Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

(Oxford University Press, 2008) USA, abridged edition;
ISBN-10: 0199540128; ISBN-13: 978-0199540129

Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies
(Norton, 2000); ISBN: 9780393320435

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

(New Directions, 1969); ISBN: 0811201880

Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind

(University Of Chicago, 1968); ISBN-10: 0226474844; ISBN-13: 978-0226474847

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
(Vintage, 1988); ISBN-10: 067972110X; ISBN-13: 978-0679721109

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. I, An Introduction

(Vintage, 1990); ISBN-10: 0679724699; ISBN-13: 978-0679724698

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences

(Vintage,1994); ISBN-10: 0679753354; ISBN-13: 978-0679753353

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste

(Harvard University Press, 1987); ISBN-10: 0674212770; ISBN-13: 978-0674212770
Course Syllabus

PART I — THE FRENCH SOCIOLOGICAL TRADITION

Lecture 1: Introduction: French Social Thought from Positivism to the Symbolic
Tues., 25 Jan. readings: none

Lecture 2: Durkheim and Society as an Object

Thurs., 27 Jan. Émile Durkheim, “What is a Social Fact?” and “Rules for the Observation of Social
Facts,” from The Rules of Sociological Method. (1895).

Lecture 3: Durkheim on the Promise and Pathology of Modern Society

Tues, 1 Feb. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Modern Society (1893), selections, as follows:
Introduction, and Chs.1, 2, and 3.
Durkheim, Suicide (1897), selections, as follows: “Preface,” “Introduction,” and
“Anomic Suicide.”

Lecture 4: Durkheim and the Rise of the Symbolic

Thurs., 3 Feb. Durkheim, The Elementary Frameworks of Religious Life (1912), selections, as follows:
Introduction, and Book 1, ch.1, “A Definition of the Religious Phenomenon and of
Religion”; Book 1, ch.4, “Totemism as an Elementary Religion”; Book 2, ch.1,
“Central Totemic Beliefs: The Totem as Name and Emblem”; Book 2, ch.3, “Central
Totemic Beliefs—The Cosmological System of Totemism and the Notion of Genus”;
Book 2, ch.6, “The Origins of these Beliefs—The Notion of the Totemic Principle or
Mana, and the Idea of Force”; Book 2, ch.7, “The Origins of these Beliefs—The
Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana,” and Conclusion.

Lecture 5: Durkheim on Metaphysics, Ideology, and Social Solidarity

Tues., 8 Feb. Durkheim, “Individualism and the Intellectuals” (1898), and
“The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social Conditions.” (1914)

Lecture 6: French Social Thought after Durkheim: The Reproduction of Social Solidarity
Thurs., 10 Feb. Marcel Mauss, The Gift (1924), pp.1-83, (all).

PART II — THE CHALLENGE OF FRENCH EXISTENTIALISM

Lecture 7: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Origins of Existentialism
Tues., 15 Feb. Sartre, Nausea (1938), all.

Lecture 8: Alexandre Kojève and the Origins of Existential Marxism

Thurs., 17 Feb. Kojève, “In Place of an Introduction” in Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. (1947)

Lecture 9: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Tasks of Existential Phenomenology

Tues., 22 Feb. Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943), selections, as follows:
“The Origin of Negation”; “The Look”, “Quality as a Revelation of Being”
and “Conclusion.”

Lecture 10: Jean-Paul Sartre and the Burdens of Freedom

Thurs., 24 Feb. Sartre, “The Humanism of Existentialism.” (1946)

§ First Paper Due, Monday, 28 February, 4pm.

Lecture 11: Existentialism and Alterity: Beauvoir and Fanon
Tues., 1 Mar. Simone de Beauvoir, “Introduction” to The Second Sex. (1949)
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952): Chs. 6, 7, and 8.
Sartre, “Preface” to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. (1963)
Fanon, “Conclusion” to The Wretched of the Earth. (1963)

Lecture 12: Existentialism, Humanism, Marxism

Thurs., 3 Mar. Martin Heidegger, “Letter on ‘Humanism.’” (1947)
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Freedom” from The Phenomenology of Perception. (1945)

PART III — THE EMERGENCE OF STRUCTURALISM

Lecture 13: The Origins of French Structuralism
Tues., 8 Mar. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course on General Linguistics (1915), selections, as follows:
Part One, Chs. I-III; and Part Two, Chs. I-VIII.

Lecture 14: Foundations of French Structuralist Anthropology

Thurs., 10 Mar. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), selections, as
follows: Ch. 1, “Nature and Culture” and Ch. 2, “The Problem of Incest.”
Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (1955), selections, as follows:
“1: Setting Out,” “28: A Writing Lesson,” and “38: A Little Glass of Rum.”

§ Spring Recess, from Saturday 12 March through Sunday 20 March

Lecture 15: Lévi-Strauss: Culture as a Symbolic System

Tues., 22 Mar. Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (1962), selections, as follows:
Preface; Ch. 1 “The Science of the Concrete”; Ch. 2, “The Logic of
Totemic Classifications”; Ch. 4, “Totem and Caste”; and Ch. 9, “History and
Dialectic.”

Lecture 16: From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism

Thurs., 24 Mar. Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (1964), “Overture.”
Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences.” (1966)

PART IV — THE GENESIS OF POST-STRUCTURALISM

Lecture 17: Foucault: Reason and Unreason as a Symbolic System
Tues,. 29 Mar. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (1961), selections, as follows:
Ch. I, “‘Stultifera Navis’”; Ch. II, “The Great Confinement”; Ch. VII, “The Great
Fear”; Ch. VIII, “The New Division”; Ch. IX, “The Birth of the Asylum,” and
“Conclusion”

Lecture 18: Foucault/Derrida: The Internal Critique of Structuralism

Thurs., 31 Mar. Derrida, “Cogito and the History of Madness.” (1967)

§ Second Paper Due, Monday, 4th April, 4pm.

Lecture 19: Foucault: Structuralism and the Historicity of the A Priori

Tues., 5 Apr. Foucault, The Order of Things (1966), selections, as follows:
“Preface”; Ch. 3, “Representing”; Ch. 7, “The Limits of Representation”;
Ch. 9, section VIII only “The Anthropological Sleep”; and Ch. 10, “The Human
Sciences.”
Lecture 20: The Philosophy of May ’68: Anti-Humanism and Emancipation
Thurs., 7 Apr. Derrida, “The Ends of Man.” (1968)
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author.” (1968)
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” (1970)

Lecture 21: Foucault: Social Order and the Critique of Modern Surveillance
Tues., 12 Apr. Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975), selections, as follows:
Part One, Ch. 1, “The Body of the Condemned”; Part Three, Ch. 3, “Panopticism”;
and Part Four, Ch. 3, “The Carceral.”

Lecture 22: Jacques Lacan: Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, and the Symbolic

Thurs., 14 Apr. Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I.” (1949; 1966)

PART V — POWER, DISTINCTION, DEMOCRACY

Lecture 23: The Will to Knowledge and the Invention of the Soul
Tues., 19 Apr. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. I (1976), all.

Lecture 24: Pierre Bourdieu: Power, Culture, and the Habitus

Thurs., 21 Apr. Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1979)
selections, as follows: “Introduction”; Ch. 1, “The Aristocracy of Culture” (pp.10-56
only); and Ch. 3, “The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles” (pp.169-175 only).

Lecture 25: The End of Revolution and the Rebirth of Liberalism

Tues., 26 Apr. Claude Lefort, “The Question of Democracy.” (1983)

§ Please note: There will be required sections during the week of April 25-29.

27th April: Last Day of Spring Term

28th April—5th May: Reading Period
6th May—14th May: Examination Period

§ Final Paper Due 5th May, 4pm