Corrections: Pierre Bourdieu's dates are, in fact, 1930-2002 (not 1933-2002 and definitely not 1857-1913!). That's an unfortunate pair of typos >.< I mispronounced Roland Barthes (actually pronounced: "baʁt") in the section on post-structuralism. I'm a football fan and I always, always say his name like the legendary French goalkeeper Fabien Barthes. >.
just a post-BA social sciences nerd here. appreciate these videos and your approach. i despise the overly animated/techy forms of knowledge dissemination and prefer your classic, traditional lecture. keep it up!
Thanks for posting, Cheddar. And we appreciate the feedback. With regard to the overall style, we're in a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks phase, so it's definitely helpful.
Thank you very much 🌹🌹🌹 Important Theories of social sciences: Functionalism: Founder Émile Durkheim. Structuralism: Founder Ferdinand de Saussure in linguistics. After him Claude Levi Strauss in social sciences. Post Structuralism: The most famous philosophers in this term were Pierre Bourdieu with his Habitus Idea, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes and Jacques Lacan. Social action theory: Founder Max Weber and then was Talcott Parsons the most famous sociologist in this term. Cultural Materialism: Raymond Williams and Marvin Harris as from the Marxism influenced Method.
I took social theory as an elective and am struggling to follow the content and the way it's presented, but videos like this are so helpful! Thank you!
I have a question. So i've found several sources attributing Parsons to the functionalist theoretical family, and it seems you place him under the social action theoretical family. Is there a context i'm missing :-)?
a great video. well explained and easy to follow, thanks for your work, I just came across with your channel and I am devouring the whole content, keep on with the excellent job!
Great video! I'm learning social science theories and your video really makes it much easier. I always got confused with some similar theories and wondered if there are any resources that can do quick search for relevant theories and provide brief intros? Thanks.
Thanks so much, Ann. Very glad you find the video helpful! There are tons and tons of great books out there; but, for my money, if I were only going to recommend one that's really useful for a good historical survey of social science theory, I would recommend Alan Barnard's History and Theory in Anthropology. It's not short(!), but it'll cover all the bases you would need, with great referencing, and a excellent international focus.
Hey, @IkeOkerekeNews. Great question! Now that you mention it, I realize that should have covered that in the episode. In short, I think that criticisms of post-structural anthropology can be broken down into two camps. The first is a kind of reactionary rejection of post-structuralism due to its affiliation with broader post-modern authors and literary critics (foucault, derrida, spivak, etc.). That's generally something that emerged from right wing and traditional conservative voices in academia. And, for better or for worse, their critiques are often remarkably shallow and, for that reason, often go unmentioned. The second major body of criticism is, I think, much more relevant and emerged as a part of a broad 'post' post-modernist movement in anthropology in the late 90s and 2000s. These authors (and I include myself in this camp) are critical of the lack of 'meaning' in a lot of post-structural anthropology. Let me explain... One of the side-effects of post-structural influences in anthropology was that many ethnographers abandoned cultural comparisons entirely and leaned into a kind of radical ethnographic subjectivity. If you read ethnographies from the early 80s and 90s, a lot of them double down on thick description and through emic contextualization of indigenous culture. But they rarely attempt to build a theoretical framework that explains or attempts to account for the culturally informed behavior that they are studying. The result was a body of incredibly sensitive and insightful ethnographic publications... that, unfortunately, did little more than describe the thoughts and behaviors of their subjects in emic terms. Now, I want to stress that that's a very shallow explanation and the discourses built around post-structuralism are much more complex than what I've written above. But the 'post' post-structuralist vibe is very pronounced in the literature and creates a kind of tension in the field that you can still feel in conferences and public debates today.
Sir , can we use these theories as basic concepts of anthropology ? In the exam if they ask as what are the " what are the theories that effected for the anthropology to develop as a subject" is it possible to write for the exam these explanations?
Hey there, Pathumanuradha. Some of the concepts I discuss in the video were definitely instrumental in the development of anthropology. Functionalism and structuralism, for example, were major influences in the first half of the 20th century -- as was Marxist theory in a different part of the world. But, if you're talking about the early development of anthropology (in the late 19th century through early 20th century), then there were other theoretical concepts that would be more relevant. To name just a few: unilinear cultural evolution, humanism, early linguistic anthropology, Marcel Mauss's theories of magic and witchcraft, and early work on kinship were all enormously influential (even if many of them are not taken seriously today). Just keep in mind that socio-cultural anthropology is a pretty diverse field. Even in its early days it was eclectic and heterogenous. And the first generation or two of ethnographers who began building our theoretical vocabulary drew from an diverse, interdisciplinary body of literature, which makes it difficult to pin down one or two specific theories that were the most influential. I hope that helps!
@@ArmchairAcademics wow sir, what an answer really interesting indeed, it is a lot than I expected . Definitely I need to follow more about these theories i really appreciate your kind responses that have for the students .your lectures were feel like being in the lecture hall at the University . So we are Waiting for the new lessons like history of anthropology through both urope and north America.
Can't wait for part two! I hope you aren't sick or anything? When it comes to important theories, I'd say that, politically speaking, post-structuralism has been super important in the forming of a 'world in which many world fit,' as the Zapatistas would say. Would be interesting studying the implications of the ideas of Gramsci and of post-structural marxists like Foucault, Althusser and Badiou on the spokesperson of the EZLN, subcommandante Marcos, and also on a more pragmatic level, how the Zapatista movement gave international leftist groups a libertarian push in their forms of organisation and methods of activism. Any thoughts on this subject? Would you say political ontology could be connected to any of these ideas?
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment, Bill. I was way behind this month due to a series of unfortunate coincidences, but fortunately nobody in my immediate circle was ill. And, in point of fact, part two of the top ten series just went up on the channel :) I love the idea of doing some work on the Zapatistas, as well. Thanks for the suggestion. That's an area of social/political theory that I was really engaged with as an undergrad and it would be lovely to re-engage with the literature at this point on my career. When I do, I'll be sure to give you a shout out. All the best.
Thanks for posting, Jadenslain. You raise a good point. For a lot of intellectual historians, Lacan actually occupies a kind of liminal space (a bit like Foucault) with one foot in structuralism and one foot in post-structuralism. Foucault, for example, often rejected the 'post-' label and called himself "the last structuralist" from time to time in interviews, while his work is often read posthumously as essentially post-structuralist. Similarly, Lacan continued the structuralist project in a number of ways, but his writing is very much post-Saussurian and his psychoanalytic lens was heavily influenced by postmodernists in parallel fields, like Clifford Geertz, for example; but he also borrowed heavily from authors like Roman Jacobson, who is very much in the structuralist camp. Looking back, I do think I bull-dozed a bit of that complexity in my discourse and could have done a better job representing liminal authors like Lacan and Foucault. Thanks very much for raising the issue! It's a great point.
Hi! I'm new to your channel, so I apologize if you already made some videos on this topic...Have you or can you make some videos regarding symbolic-interactionist theory, dramaturgical analysis and deontology in an Anthropological context?
Hey, Amber! Thanks for posting. We actually do have a short discussion of symbolic interactionism in Part Two of this video. That might be helpful. Goffman and Dramaturgy almost, almost made that list(!) as well and is a fantastic topic for a video in the near future. I'd have to do a bit of reading to talk cohesively about deontology, but it's something I'll put on the list for later this year :) Thanks for the suggestions! We'll be back from paternity leave in July and I'll see if we can squeeze Goffman and a bit of deontology into the schedule!
The dates posted for Pierre Bourdieu's birth and death on this vlog is, 1857-1913. That is grossly incorrect. I met Bourdieu in the 1990s when he lectured at the University of Chicago, where I was a graduate student. Pierre Bourdieu was born in France in 1930 and died there in 2002.
Thanks for posting. A number of sharp eyed viewers have pointed that out as well. Thanks. It's an unfortunate typo. There's a correction marked in the pinned comment at the top of the comment section.
There's now an 81.2% chance that I'm going to mine the Muppets for theory jokes XD Not sure about Sam, but using individual Muppets as avatars for social science theories might just be brilliant.
Nicely presented but trite. The conventional look-what-our-predecessors-got-wrong approach. Still looking for a good account of what some pretty smart people contributed of positive value, despite or because of the times in which they lived.
Corrections:
Pierre Bourdieu's dates are, in fact, 1930-2002 (not 1933-2002 and definitely not 1857-1913!). That's an unfortunate pair of typos >.<
I mispronounced Roland Barthes (actually pronounced: "baʁt") in the section on post-structuralism. I'm a football fan and I always, always say his name like the legendary French goalkeeper Fabien Barthes. >.
55 and I
just a post-BA social sciences nerd here. appreciate these videos and your approach. i despise the overly animated/techy forms of knowledge dissemination and prefer your classic, traditional lecture. keep it up!
Thanks for posting, Cheddar. And we appreciate the feedback. With regard to the overall style, we're in a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks phase, so it's definitely helpful.
Thank you very much 🌹🌹🌹
Important Theories of social sciences:
Functionalism: Founder Émile Durkheim.
Structuralism: Founder Ferdinand de Saussure in linguistics. After him Claude Levi Strauss in social sciences.
Post Structuralism: The most famous philosophers in this term were Pierre Bourdieu with his Habitus Idea, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes and Jacques Lacan.
Social action theory: Founder Max Weber and then was Talcott Parsons the most famous sociologist in this term.
Cultural Materialism: Raymond Williams and Marvin Harris as from the Marxism influenced Method.
I took social theory as an elective and am struggling to follow the content and the way it's presented, but videos like this are so helpful! Thank you!
So glad that you found it helpful!
Great video! Waiting for the second part
Thanks so much, Егор. Part two should be up shortly after Christmas!
I've learned more in a quarter of this video than I have in over half of my theory course.
Hey Nora! That makes my day! Thanks so much for posting.
Great lectures on Anthropology.
Please cover Indian anthropology too
I have a question. So i've found several sources attributing Parsons to the functionalist theoretical family, and it seems you place him under the social action theoretical family. Is there a context i'm missing :-)?
a great video. well explained and easy to follow, thanks for your work, I just came across with your channel and I am devouring the whole content, keep on with the excellent job!
Thanks so much, Santiago! That makes my day. I hope that it's helpful.
Great video! I'm learning social science theories and your video really makes it much easier. I always got confused with some similar theories and wondered if there are any resources that can do quick search for relevant theories and provide brief intros? Thanks.
Thanks so much, Ann. Very glad you find the video helpful! There are tons and tons of great books out there; but, for my money, if I were only going to recommend one that's really useful for a good historical survey of social science theory, I would recommend Alan Barnard's History and Theory in Anthropology. It's not short(!), but it'll cover all the bases you would need, with great referencing, and a excellent international focus.
@@ArmchairAcademics and the I'm
What are some of the criticisms of post-structuralism?
Hey, @IkeOkerekeNews. Great question! Now that you mention it, I realize that should have covered that in the episode. In short, I think that criticisms of post-structural anthropology can be broken down into two camps. The first is a kind of reactionary rejection of post-structuralism due to its affiliation with broader post-modern authors and literary critics (foucault, derrida, spivak, etc.). That's generally something that emerged from right wing and traditional conservative voices in academia. And, for better or for worse, their critiques are often remarkably shallow and, for that reason, often go unmentioned.
The second major body of criticism is, I think, much more relevant and emerged as a part of a broad 'post' post-modernist movement in anthropology in the late 90s and 2000s. These authors (and I include myself in this camp) are critical of the lack of 'meaning' in a lot of post-structural anthropology. Let me explain...
One of the side-effects of post-structural influences in anthropology was that many ethnographers abandoned cultural comparisons entirely and leaned into a kind of radical ethnographic subjectivity. If you read ethnographies from the early 80s and 90s, a lot of them double down on thick description and through emic contextualization of indigenous culture. But they rarely attempt to build a theoretical framework that explains or attempts to account for the culturally informed behavior that they are studying. The result was a body of incredibly sensitive and insightful ethnographic publications... that, unfortunately, did little more than describe the thoughts and behaviors of their subjects in emic terms.
Now, I want to stress that that's a very shallow explanation and the discourses built around post-structuralism are much more complex than what I've written above. But the 'post' post-structuralist vibe is very pronounced in the literature and creates a kind of tension in the field that you can still feel in conferences and public debates today.
Wonderful informative content ❤thank you
You are so welcome! Thanks for posting.
Sir , can we use these theories as basic concepts of anthropology ? In the exam if they ask as what are the " what are the theories that effected for the anthropology to develop as a subject" is it possible to write for the exam these explanations?
Hey there, Pathumanuradha. Some of the concepts I discuss in the video were definitely instrumental in the development of anthropology. Functionalism and structuralism, for example, were major influences in the first half of the 20th century -- as was Marxist theory in a different part of the world. But, if you're talking about the early development of anthropology (in the late 19th century through early 20th century), then there were other theoretical concepts that would be more relevant. To name just a few: unilinear cultural evolution, humanism, early linguistic anthropology, Marcel Mauss's theories of magic and witchcraft, and early work on kinship were all enormously influential (even if many of them are not taken seriously today). Just keep in mind that socio-cultural anthropology is a pretty diverse field. Even in its early days it was eclectic and heterogenous. And the first generation or two of ethnographers who began building our theoretical vocabulary drew from an diverse, interdisciplinary body of literature, which makes it difficult to pin down one or two specific theories that were the most influential. I hope that helps!
@@ArmchairAcademics wow sir, what an answer really interesting indeed, it is a lot than I expected . Definitely I need to follow more about these theories i really appreciate your kind responses that have for the students .your lectures were feel like being in the lecture hall at the University . So we are Waiting for the new lessons like history of anthropology through both urope and north America.
Can't wait for part two! I hope you aren't sick or anything?
When it comes to important theories, I'd say that, politically speaking, post-structuralism has been super important in the forming of a 'world in which many world fit,' as the Zapatistas would say. Would be interesting studying the implications of the ideas of Gramsci and of post-structural marxists like Foucault, Althusser and Badiou on the spokesperson of the EZLN, subcommandante Marcos, and also on a more pragmatic level, how the Zapatista movement gave international leftist groups a libertarian push in their forms of organisation and methods of activism. Any thoughts on this subject? Would you say political ontology could be connected to any of these ideas?
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment, Bill. I was way behind this month due to a series of unfortunate coincidences, but fortunately nobody in my immediate circle was ill. And, in point of fact, part two of the top ten series just went up on the channel :)
I love the idea of doing some work on the Zapatistas, as well. Thanks for the suggestion. That's an area of social/political theory that I was really engaged with as an undergrad and it would be lovely to re-engage with the literature at this point on my career. When I do, I'll be sure to give you a shout out.
All the best.
1930-2002 were Bourdieu’s years. You have a typo
Thanks James! Sharp eyes. We put a correction up in the comments.
Thank you a lot ! Absolutely great video to have an overview of the state of Social Science.
Hey Alex! Very glad it was helpful!
Lacan invented the psychoanalytic algebra, with such formulas like quilting ...I think he was decidedly structuralist?
Thanks for posting, Jadenslain. You raise a good point. For a lot of intellectual historians, Lacan actually occupies a kind of liminal space (a bit like Foucault) with one foot in structuralism and one foot in post-structuralism. Foucault, for example, often rejected the 'post-' label and called himself "the last structuralist" from time to time in interviews, while his work is often read posthumously as essentially post-structuralist. Similarly, Lacan continued the structuralist project in a number of ways, but his writing is very much post-Saussurian and his psychoanalytic lens was heavily influenced by postmodernists in parallel fields, like Clifford Geertz, for example; but he also borrowed heavily from authors like Roman Jacobson, who is very much in the structuralist camp. Looking back, I do think I bull-dozed a bit of that complexity in my discourse and could have done a better job representing liminal authors like Lacan and Foucault. Thanks very much for raising the issue! It's a great point.
No you did great overall, very insightful comparison of the different schools. Thanks for clearing that up about Lacan and Foucault!
Hi! I'm new to your channel, so I apologize if you already made some videos on this topic...Have you or can you make some videos regarding symbolic-interactionist theory, dramaturgical analysis and deontology in an Anthropological context?
Hey, Amber! Thanks for posting. We actually do have a short discussion of symbolic interactionism in Part Two of this video. That might be helpful. Goffman and Dramaturgy almost, almost made that list(!) as well and is a fantastic topic for a video in the near future. I'd have to do a bit of reading to talk cohesively about deontology, but it's something I'll put on the list for later this year :) Thanks for the suggestions!
We'll be back from paternity leave in July and I'll see if we can squeeze Goffman and a bit of deontology into the schedule!
@@ArmchairAcademics Thanks so much for your kind reply! Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Enjoy your paternity leave :)
Bourdieu (1930-2002)
Whoops! Thanks for posting, Egor. Quite right -- and good eyes! 👍 Hopefully that's the only typo (but somehow I doubt it!).
@@ArmchairAcademics later on in the list the dates were correct though
The dates posted for Pierre Bourdieu's birth and death on this vlog is, 1857-1913. That is grossly incorrect. I met Bourdieu in the 1990s when he lectured at the University of Chicago, where I was a graduate student. Pierre Bourdieu was born in France in 1930 and died there in 2002.
Thanks for posting. A number of sharp eyed viewers have pointed that out as well. Thanks. It's an unfortunate typo. There's a correction marked in the pinned comment at the top of the comment section.
Sam the American Eagle is a functionalist.
There's now an 81.2% chance that I'm going to mine the Muppets for theory jokes XD Not sure about Sam, but using individual Muppets as avatars for social science theories might just be brilliant.
Nicely presented but trite. The conventional look-what-our-predecessors-got-wrong approach. Still looking for a good account of what some pretty smart people contributed of positive value, despite or because of the times in which they lived.