SOC202B PRACTICE AND SYMBOLIC POWER IN PIERRE BOURDIEU

SPRING 2005

Professor Loc WACQUANT

Wednesday 12-2pm, 206 Wheeler Office hours Monday 2-4pm 478 Barrows and by appointment loic@uclink4.berkeley.edu

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory but of a fertile new point of view. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen

This is an advanced social theory/sociology/anthropology course that presupposes familiarity, if not solid knowledge, of the key works of classical (and some contemporary) social science. Using a mixed lecture-seminar format, we attempt a systematic if compressed study of the work of Pierre Bourdieu in its sociobiographical, intellectual, and theoretical contexts, anchored by the three pillars of his thought: the (peculiar) logic of practice, the (hidden) workings of power, and the potency and limitations of (both lay and scholarly) knowledge. The objectives of the course are threefold: (i) to sharpen your analytical skills and increase your conceptual prowess and agility; (ii) to probe and trace out some of the core issues, recurrent dilemmas, and recent mutations of social theory (subject and object, structure and agent, the material and the symbolic, thought and action, power and resistance, universality and relativism, science and critique) as they manifest themselves in the writings of Bourdieu; and (iii) to gain an in-depth understanding of one of the most original and influential oeuvres of the second twentieth century. Through intensive reading, exposition, and discussion, we will strive to elucidate the epistemological principles, methodogical stances and procedures, core concepts (habitus, capital, field, doxa, symbolic violence), and substantive theories that undergird and arise out of Bourdieus varied empirical investigations of the alchemy of (symbolic) power in society and history. We will consider how these theories developed, cohere (or not), and their implications, and contrast them with alternative conceptions of social action, structure, and knowledge (including, at relevant junctures, structuralism, Marxism, phenomenology, functionalism, rational choice, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, pragmatism, and feminism/s). We aim at breadth as well at depth, precision as well as scope. Due to time limitations, we focus on Bourdieus mature work and on pivotal books and essays. The purpose is to move towards a sociogenetic understanding as well as generative grasp of Bourdieus point of view (as opposed to scholastic erudition and sycophantic veneration) that would enable us to both reproduce and challenge the models of social analysis he proposes.

Requirements: The requirements for this course are threefold. You must fullfill all three of them; do not take this course if for whatever reason you cannot not do so. 1) weekly electronic reading notes: to facilitate collective learning and avoid a situation of pluralistic ignorance, every week you will submit reading notes (3-4 pages prefaced by a key quote outlining the core issues and concepts of that weeks readings) to the class by e-mail. These notes are due imperatively by 12 noon Tuesday on the eve of the seminar. You are encouraged to read and to respond to each others reports both before and after the weeks meeting. 2) active participation in discussion: remember and apply this aphorism of Wittgenstein: Even to have expressed a false thought boldly and clearly is already to have gained a great deal. So speak up and speak out. What each of you will get out of the course depends in good measure on how much you collectively put in. This includes taking responsibility for leading discussion one week and summarizing the memos and debates of that session. 3) a crisply written, analytically rigorous term paper of no more than 20 pages (this limit is expressly designed to compell you to write as if walking on a tight rope). The paper can clarify or dissect an unresolved conceptual dilemma in (or arising out of) Bourdieus work, confront and contrast his theories with relevant rival views, extend or challenge his analyses on a given empirical terrain with new materials. Papers connected to thesis or dissertation research are strongly encouraged. Topics are to be approved by the instructor by 23 February (after Presidents Day). Papers are due IMPERATIVELY on 27 April: no extensions. NOTE: We meet four times for three-hour sessions designed to enable us to cover weighty materials; these sessions (9 Feb., 2 March, 16 March, 20 April) are indicated by an asterisk *. Required books (all by Pierre Bourdieu) [1968/73] 1991 (with Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Jean-Claude Passeron). The Craft of Sociology: Epistemological Preliminaries. New York and Berlin: Aldine de Gruyter. [1977] 1979. Algeria 1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [1979] 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. [1980] 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. [1982] 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Edited and with an introduction by John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [1986] 1990. In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford: Stanford University Press (get revised edition printed in 1994). 1992 (with Loc Wacquant) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [1992] 1996 The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Artistic Field. Stanford: Stanford University Press. [1994] 1998. Practical Reasons. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. [1997] 2000. Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. [1998] 2000. Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market. London: Pluto Press. 1.-BOURDIEU IN CAPSULE: A STRUCTURAL PRAXEOLOGY OF POWER

(19 January) Social Space and Symbolic Power (1986), in In Other Words, pp. 123-139. Prologue, in The State Nobility (1989/1996), pp. 1-6. Programme for a Sociology of Sport (1987), in In Other Words, pp. 156-167. How to Read an Author, in Pascalian Meditations, pp. 85-92. Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Part I, pp. 1-59 (preferably entire). Wacquant, Loc. 2002. The Sociological Life of Pierre Bourdieu. International Sociology 17-4 (December): 549-556. To go further Brubaker, Rogers. 1993. Social Theory as Habitus. Pp. 212-234 in Pierre Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Edited by Craig Calhoun, Edward LiPuma, and Moishe Postone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2.-FROM PHILOSOPHY TO SOCIAL SCIENCE: ACADEMIC POSSIBILITIES, INTELLECTUAL PROCLIVITIES, AND THE ALGERIAN CRUCIBLE (26 January) Fieldwork in Philosophy, in In Other Words, pp. 3-33. Preface, in The Logic of Practice, pp. 1-21. [2002] 2004. Algerian Landing. Ethnography 5-4 (December): in press. Algeria 1960, The Disenchantment of the World, pp. 1-93. [1963] 2004. The Peasant and his Body. Ethnography, 5-4 (December): in press. From Rules to Strategies (1985), in In Other Words, pp. 59-75. Introduction and Critique of Scholastic Reason, Pascalian Meditations, pp. 1-43 (esp. Impersonal Confession, which you should read third). To go further Boschetti, Anna. [1985] 1988. The Intellectual Enterprise: Sartre and Les Temps Modernes. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 3.-EPISTEMOLOGICAL GROUNDS: REGIONALIZED (2 February) RATIONALISM HISTORICIZED AND

The Craft of Sociology (entire, starting with the postface, pp. 247-259, plus illustrative texts 1-5, 14-16, 18, 22, 24, 31-33, 34, 42). The Historicity of Reason, chapter 3 in Pascalian Meditations, pp. 93-127. 1963. Statistics and Sociology. Excerpt from Travail et travailleurs en Algrie. The Hague: Mouton (available from instructor). 1977. The Scientific Method and the Social Hierarchy of Objects. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 1-1 (available from instructor). [2002] 2005. Prologue to The Ball of the Bachelors [available from instructor]. To go further Tiles, Mary. 1984. Bachelard: Science, and Objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*4. CONCEPTUAL CORE: HABITUS, CAPITAL, FIELD (9 February) [1977] 1979. Symbolic Power. Critique of Anthropology 13/14 (Summer): 77-85 (reprinted in Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 163-170). The Logic of Practice, Book I, Critique of Theoretical Reason, pp. 23-141. 1986. The Forms of Capital. In J.G. Richarson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 241-258. The Soviet Variant and Political Capital, in Practical Reasons, pp. 14-18. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, pp. 94-139, 224-235. To go further [1973] 1977. Strategies of Reconversion: Social Classes and the Educational System translated as Changes in Social Structure and Changes in the Demand for Education (with Luc Boltanski). Pp. 197-227 in Contemporary Europe: Social Structures and Cultural Patterns. Edited by Scott Giner and Margaret Scotford-Archer. London: Routledge. 5.- HABITUS REDUX: THE TIME OF PRACTICE BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND SUBJECT (16 February) 1964. The Attitude of the Algerian Peasant Toward Time. Pp. 55-72 in Mediterranean Countrymen. Edited by Jesse Pitt-Rivers. Paris and The Hague: Mouton. The Logic of Practice, Book II, Practical Logics, pp. 143-270. Bodily Knowledge, chapter 4 in Pascalian Meditations, pp. 128-163. Codification, in In Other Words, pp. 76-86. Is a Disinterested Act Possible, in Practical Reasons, pp. 75-92. To go further Charlesworth, Simon J. 2000. A Phenomenology of Working Class Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *6. FIELD(S) (2 March) [1971] 1991. Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field. Comparative Social Research 13: 144. 1975. The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason. Social Science Information 14-6 (December): 19-47. [1981] 1990. Political Representation: Elements for a Theory of the Political Field. Chapter 8 in Language and Symbolic Power, pp. 171-202. 1983. The Field of Cultural Production, or the Economic World Reversed. Poetics 12 (November): 311-356 (rep. as chapter 1 in The Field of Cultural Production, 1995). The Economy of Symbolic Goods, chapter 5 in Practical Reasons, pp. 92-123. [1993] 1996. Outline of the Field of Power: Differentiation, Reconversion, Legitimation. Selections from The State Nobility. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 261-278, 382-389).

To go further [1988] 1993. The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 7.-SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE AND THE FABRICATION OF SOCIAL COLLECTIVES (9 March) [1980] 1990. The Force of Representation: Notes on the Idea of Region. Pp. 220-228 in Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [1984] 1985. Social Space and the Genesis of Classes. Theory and Society 14: 723-744 (rep. in Language and Symbolic Power, pp. 229-251). [1994] 1996. The Family as Realized Category. Theory, Culture & Society 13-3 (August): 1926 (rep. in Practical Reasons, pp. 64-74). [1993] 1994. Rethinking the State: On the Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field. Sociological Theory 12 (March): 1-19 (abridged version repr. in Practical Reasons, pp. 35-63). [1970] 1977. Exclusion and Selection (with Jean-Claude Passeron) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage, pp. 141-176. Symbolic Violence and Political Struggles, chapter 5 in Pascalian Meditations, pp. 164-205. To go further Sayad, Adbelmalek. [2000] 2004. The Suffering of the Immigrant. Cambridge: Polity Press. *8.-SOCIOLOGIZING KANT: CLASSES AND CLASSIFICATION STRUGGLES ( 16 March) 1993. A Japanese Reading of Distinction. Poetics (rep. as chapter 1 in Practical Reasons, pp. 1-13). Distinction, entire (esp. chapters 2-6, 8, Conclusion and appendix pp. 503-518). To go further Boltanski, Luc. [1982] 1987. The Making of a Class: Cadres in French Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * SPRING BREAK* 9. THE INVENTION OF ART AND THE SCIENCE OF CULTURE (30 March) Bourdieu, Pierre and Marie-Claire Bourdieu. 2004. The Peasant and Photography. Ethnography 5-4 (December): in press. The Rules of Art, pp. 1-283. To go further [1965] 1990. Photography: A Middle-Brow Art. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10.-TRIPLE HISTORICIZATION AND THE CONUNDRUM OF VERSTEHEN

(6 April) Bourdieu Pierre and Alain Darbel. [1969] 1990. The Rules of Cultural Diffusion (Chapter 5) and Conclusion in The Love of Art: European Museums and their Public. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 71-108. The Rules of Art, pp. 177-348 (overlaps with week 9 by design: do re-read). To go further [1987] 1993. Manet and the Institutionalization of Anomie. Chapter 9 in The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 238-243. *11.- REASON, JUSTICE, AND THE CIVIC MISSION OF INTELLECTUALS (20 April) Wacquant, Loc. 2003. Pointers on Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics. Constellations 11-1 (Spring): 3-15. [1984] 1985. Delegation and Political Fetishism. Thesis Eleven 10/11 (November): 56-70 (reprinted in Language and Symbolic Power, pp. 203-219). [2001] 2004. The Mystery of the Ministry: From Particular Wills to the General Will. Constellations 11-1 (Spring): 37-43. [1971] 1993. Public Opinion Does Not Exist. In Sociology in Question, pp. 149-157. [1986] 1994. The Uses of The People. In In Other Words, pp. 150-155. 1989. The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World. Telos 81 (Fall): 99-110 (rev. version in The Rules of Art, 1996. The Chokehold of Journalism, in On Television, pp. 68-78 [corrected translation available from instructor]. Acts of Resistance, esp. The Left Hand and the Right Hand of the State, Return to Television, Job Insecurity is Everywhere Now, and Neo-Liberalism: The Utopia of Boundless Exploitation Becoming Reality. 1998. On the Fundamental Ambivalence of the State. Polygraph 10: 21-32. Bourdieu, Pierre and Loc Wacquant. [1998] 1999. The Cunning of Imperialist Reason. Theory, Culture, and Society 16-1 (February): 41-57. To go further Wacquant, Loc (ed.). 2005. Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics: The Mystery of Ministry. Cambridge: Polity Press. 12.- REFLEXIVITY AND RECOGNITION (27 April) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, pp. 26-46, 62-93, 202-215, 235-260. A Lecture on the Lecture (1982) in In Other Words, pp. 177-198 (imperatively 1994 translation). [1984] 1988. A Book for Burning? and The Categories of Professorial Understanding, Homo Academicus. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1-35, 194-226. [1993] 1996. Understanding. Theory, Culture, and Society 13-2 (May): 13-37 (also in Bourdieu et al., The Weight of the World, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1999).

Social Being, Time, and the Sense of Existence. Chapter 6 in Pascalian Meditations, pp. 206245. [2001] 2004. Why the Social Sciences Must Take Themselves as their Object. Part III of Science of Science and Reflexivity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 85-116. [1998] 2001. Postcript on Domination and Love. Pp. 109-112 in Masculine Domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2004. The Odyssey of Appropriation. Ethnography, 5-4 (Winter): in press. To go further 2002. Participant Objectivation: The Huxley Medal Lecture, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9-2 (February): 281-294. 13.- EVERYTHING YOUVE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT BOURDIEU BUT NEVER DARED TO ASK (YOUR ROOMATE) (4 May) Screening of Sociology is a Martial Art (Pierre Carles, 2001); looking back and looking ahead (place TBA) To go further Yvette Delsaut et Marie-Christine Rivire. 2002. Bibliographie des travaux de Pierre Bourdieu. Pantin: Le Temps des Cerises, 169 p.