Siue history 400 002 Diana, Princess of Wales

SIUE History 400 002 Diana, Princess of Wales

 T R 5:00 PM - 6:15PM PH 2411

 John A. Taylor, Professor of History; office PH 3216; 650-2836

 Office Hours TR 3:30-4:30  PM

 Syllabus Spring Semester 2008  

 FINAL EXAM IN PH 2411 ON THURSDAY MAY5 AT 5:00 PM IN 2411

 

Assigned books:

Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition

Andrew Morton, Diana: Her True Story

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals

Lawrence Stone, The Family Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800

Various handouts will be supplied during class sessions.

 

General Remarks

 

        This course will explore the connection between changes in household structure and changes in social values. It is based on my book, Diana, Self-Interest, and British National Identity (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), a copy of which is in Lovejoy Library. The book and the course both have the thesis that the late princess of Wales symbolized a 1990s shift in British values.  The course will connect this shift in values (the one symbolized by the princess) to shifts in the structure of actual British households. With other countries, Britain has experienced falling fertility rates, rising divorce rates, longer expectations of life, and increasing numbers of women in the work force outside the household.

        We will use notions from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, especially his notions of resentment and the transvaluation of values, to describe 1990s changes in British values.  Once centered on the household and family, we will see, British values in the 1990s allowed greater sanction for self-interested and autonomous individuals. Following German historian Ferdinand Tönnies, we will describe household values and self-interest in the terms, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Attached to this syllabus are definitions of these terms taken from The Oxford English Dictionary.  Nineteenth-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim will prompt us to ask whether British monarchy represents or ever represented social values that are or were deeply rooted and widely held.

       While this course is phrased in terms of Britain, its thesis about shifts in values is relevant to other countries as well, and examples will also be brought into the course from Japan, the United States, and elsewhere.  We will start out with materials from the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, a handout supplied to you in xerox form on the first day of class, and their exceptionally clear format and presentation will serve as models for subsequent statistical materials on household structure.

        The course will depend in part on printed materials, but you will be expected to have access to the Internet and to find other materials there, especially statistical materials, relevant to the course.

   You may consult the Japanese site at: http://www.ipss.go.jp/english/s_d_i/indip.html     U.K. data may be found at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/nsbase/site_map/default.asp

   You will find U.S. counterparts at: http://www.census.gov/ and at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
       All students will take a midterm exam and a final exam; there will also be an occasional pop quiz on assigned reading. All submissions must be written in dark ink. Pencil submissions will not be acceptable.  In addition, each undergraduate student will make an oral presentation in class.  Graduate students are expected to make oral presentations as well, and they will also write reserach papers on the topics of their presentations. In each case, topics will be selected in consultation with the instructor.  A first draft of the essay, with all notes and sources, is to be submitted to the instructor, and then a second draft is to incorporate suggested revisions.  Again, no pencil submission will be accepted. Class attendance, quiz scores, and class participation will all be taken into account. Your grade for the course will be based on an average of these major items, and each of them will have an equal weight. The worst grade can be dropped, except for the final exam grade, but no test may be omitted.

        Students will adhere to conventional rules of academic procedure. Attendance and class participation are very important, and excessive  absence (more than four class sessions) will not be tolerated. Students are not to come to class late, nor are they to interrupt class by departure previous to the scheduled end of the day's session. Turn off all pagers and mobile phones during class. Plagiarism will not be tolerated, and all work submitted in the course must be original compositions with quotations properly noted.

        This is not a fluff course. Some reading assignments in it are long and difficult, especially Durkheim, Nietzsche, and Stone, but the semester is short. Begin your reading at once.

 

 Course Schedule

 

Jan. 15 and 17.  Introduction: Thesis of the course; demographic indicators for Japan. Reading: Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Jan. 22 and 24. Cinderella; Cannadine from Invention of Tradition; Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

Jan. 29 and 31. Durkheim

Feb 5 and 7. Shils and Young

Feb. 12 and 14. N. Birnbaum

Feb. 19 and 21. Morton, Diana

Feb. 26 and 28.   REVIEW AND MIDTERM EXAM

March 4 and 6. Nietzsche

DRAFT OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE FROM GRADUATE STUDENTS MARCH 4

SPRING BREAK

March 18 and 20. Nietzsche

March 25 and 27.

SECOND DRAFT OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE MARCH 25

April 1 and 3. Inferential Statistics

April 8 and 10. L. Stone

 April 15 and 17. L. Stone
COMPLETED RESEARCH PAPER DUE APRIL 15

April 22 and 24. Review

 

 Gemeinschaft (___________). Also with lower-case initial.

[G., f. gemein common, general + -schaft -ship.]

A social relationship between individuals based on affection, kinship, or membership of a community, as within a family or group of friends; contrasted with Gesellschaft. So Gemeinschaft-like adj.

[G. gemeinschaftlich].

[1887 F. Tönnies (title) Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft.]

1937 T. Parsons Struct. Social Action xvii. 687 Both Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are what are sometimes referred to as positive types of social relationship.

Ibid. 688 Gemeinschaft_is a broader relationship of solidarity over a rather undefined general area of life and interests.

1940 C. P. Loomis tr. Tönnies's Concepts Sociol. 18 The essence of both Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft is found interwoven in all kinds of associations.

1961 L. Mumford City in History x. 310 Both primary and secondary groups, both Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, took on the same urban pattern.

<>1964 Gould & Kolb Dict. Social Sci. 281/2 Gemeinschaft is an ideal-type concept, and as such is most correctly applied in describing or analyzing social systems in its adjectival form, Gemeinschaft-like. Gemeinschaft-like social systems are those in which Wesenwille (natural or essential will) has primacy.  

Gesellschaft (___________, ___). Also with lower-case initial.

[G., f. gesell(e) companion + -schaft -ship.]

A social relationship between individuals based on duty to society or to an organization; contrasted with Gemeinschaft. So Gesellschaft-like adj.

[G. gesellschaftlich].

1887, etc. [see Gemeinschaft].

1964 Gould & Kolb Dict. Soc. Sci. 286/1 Gesellschaft-like social systems are those in which rational will (Kürwille) has primacy.