What is the nature of the relationship between individuals and society? How is it that we get along such that we have a social order? How is order maintained? How does social change occur and affect this order? Sociologists have had a longstanding interest in these questions, dating back to its ‘classical’ era.

The purpose of this course is to examine these questions by introducing students to the classics in sociological theory. Social theory, though sounding formidable, is really something we do all the time as we make sense of the world around us. That is, we are continually engaged in trying to understand and explain ‘the social’ to ourselves and others. We will focus on the contributions of those who have come to be seen as the ‘founders’ of sociology – Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber. We will also examine work from some lesser-known but still important early sociological theorists (Georg Simmel, W. E. Du Bois, for example). Everyone we will examine has been instrumental to the development of modern social theory.