Lecture notes with self tests on the substantive concepts discussed. These are not a "substitute" for actual lectures in class or workshops, but I have tried to cover the main concepts so that absence from class will not critically deprive you of the substance of our discussions. The tests are for your own understanding of how well you have grasped the concepts. If you are confused, please make sure you clarify the concepts with jeanne when she is available in the office.

Indexes of Previous Lectures:

• Fall 2005 Lectures in Chronological Order
• Index of jeanne's blogs: My World and Welcome to It This is where you'll find my lectures, offering theory and conceptual links, on sociology of religion.

  Spring 2005 Lectures, in Chronological order

• Winter Break 2005 Lectures, in Chronological Order
• Fall 2004 Lectures in Chronological Order

Spring 2006 Theory and Application Lectures
in Chronological Order

In the Matter of Wars Being Fought Over My God Is The "Right" God - Investigating the Murder of a Pharaoh Include the quote on no wars ever being fought in polytheistic cultures over which gods were the right gods. Cite also Guilford on many kinds of "knowing," or intelligence.

• Self Test on One Right Answer for God Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne

Mathematical Models and Reality: More Problems with the Arrogance of Knowingness - Reliable Knowledge and Error in Simulation Models By Mark Boyland, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. March 9, 2002. Our social constructs are really mathematical models by which we've approximated what we see for reality. Though we don't really calculate them mathematically, as one does with computer simulations, we do a rough calcuation with our brains. Unfortunately, we then confuse the social constructs with reality itself.

CompareRemarques sur les simulations Ceci n'est pas une pipe (René Magritte).

• Self Test on Models; Can We Trust Them? Do we distort them? Include gender M/F model and compare to homosexuality gender and sexuality model. Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne

Tradition As a Source of Knowledge - Folk Remedies and the Arrogance of Knowledge We cling to knowledge because it matters to us. We need to "know," for knowledge is power. When someone counters our knowledge by offering alternative possibilities or concepts, our power is threatened. That's personal. We fight to preserve our knowledge as the "right" knowledge.

• Self Test on Folk Remedies and the Arrogance of Knowledge Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne

The Classics As a Source of Knowledge - Why Study the Classics Many of today's articles are founded on the classic studies in sociology, psychology, anthropology, and even philosophy. By failing to acknowledge the importance of those who went before us we lose a sense of the historical depth of our field and trivialize the discipline by trying to fit it into easily publishable bits that can be replicated and extrapolated with relative ease for promotional objectives. Publishers want to sell new books, and authors want to get paid for writing new books. Distortion of the field if we forget the role of the classics.

The American Soldier, Robert K. Merton, Goffman, Weber, Parsons, Bandura and Walters, Festinger (cognitive dissonance), etc. These and many more need to be added for you. jeanne on February 10, 2006.

• Self Test on the Classics as Lending Depth to the Discipline Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne
• Self Test on a Quick Insight to Secondary Analysis of Data Huff's delightful choice of measurement in his article on Defending Our Study of the Classics. Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne

Foucault, Magritte, and Critical Pedagogy “I'm not lying, this is not a pipe”: Foucault and Magritte on the Art of Critical Pedagogy by James Palermo, Buffalo State College, Phikosophy of Education, 1994. Backup.

• Self Test on Critical Pedagogy and Standardized Testing Not Yet Up Up soon. jeanne

Costs of War Costs of War A visual sociology piece on the way framing alters our perception of art work. Frames provide a context which lends meaning to that which is constrained within that context.

• Self Test on Costs of War Art Project included.

Urban Legends There is no overall librarian for the Internet who can check sources for you. You need to be aware of hoaxes and rumors that are reproduced so often on the Internet they seem true.

• Self Test on Urban Legends Not up yet.

Critique of Representativeness of a Panel "Critique of the NIH Consensus Conference on Acupuncture," Wallace I. Sampson, MD, FACP. On the Quackwatch Website.

• Self Test on Urban Legends Not up yet.

Famous People and Concepts We Should Have Heard Of, But Often Haven't

• Allport

  "Although he was no friend of Freud's depth psychology, Gordon Allport was convinced, along with Freud, that what Freud called "the American approach to psychology" was not only boring, but misleading. Compiling ranks of statistics, averaged across individuals, leads us to what Dan McAdams (1996) has called the psychology of the stranger. It describes everyone in general and no one in particular. It misses the personal meaning of life's events, and the individual ways of responding to life's events that Allport called traits. Allport called this statistical approach to understanding human nature the nomothetic method, and contrasted its emptiness and aridity to the richness of the idiographic approach -- an approach centered on the meanings and stories of the individual." from Chuck Huff, Why Should We Care?
  Backup.

  • nomothetic approach - "Compiling ranks of statistics, averaged across individuals . . . It describes everyone in general and no one in particular." (Huff, ibid.)
  • idiographic approach - "an approach centered on the meanings and stories of the individual. . . " (Huff, ibid.)

• Bandura - learning from modelling behavior (Bandura and Walters - well-known research team)

---

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Individual copyrights by other authors may apply.