Rethinking the Social

You are required to prepare a workbook entry each week. Your workbooks will record your reactions to the readings, and possibly, your responses to discussions in lectures and tutorial. The workbook is intended as a tool that will allow you to reflect on your thoughts as they change and develop over the semester. I am particularly interested in how the readings challenge your previous assumptions, what they encouraged you to think about in new ways, and what you perceive their limits to be. Reading isn’t simply a comprehension exercise: you are being asked only to enter into relationships with texts, to work with them, allow them to help you carry ideas. In sum, I would like you to record your responses to the texts, both positive and negative. Your entries should be organised by a particular passage or sentence or example in the readings. Your choice of passage is entirely yours, but it should be something that grabs your attention and sets you thinking. Expect to write between 400 to 500 words per week. Each entry should have the following elements:

A clear indication of which passage you are responding to
A response to the readings written before class
A response to the readings written after class

*each week should be separated and indicated

References:
week 5: Erving Goffman (1956) The presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
week 7: Marcel Mauss (1973[1935]) ‘Techniques of the Body’ Pp. 70-88.
week 9: George Simmel (1971[1907]) ‘Exchange’ Pp. 43-69 in On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings
week 10: Jim Johnson (1988) “Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer”