ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory Fall 2018
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
Part I: Canonical theory
Sep. 17: PRESENTATION DATES SCHEDULED.  
    READ: Weber, Max (1946) “Class, Status, Party” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 180-195;  available at https://archive.org/stream/frommaxweberessa00webe#page/180/mode/2up

What did you come up with from your perusal of journals?
            
The following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make sense of this, and other, theories. In addition, we will apply the theory to the video shown on the first day of class.

How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created?
What questions does this theory ask?
What information does this theory see as important?
What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?
How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

Some key concepts from Weber:
- power
- class
- status
- party
- “empirical sociology”
- rationalization, reason:
- ideal type
- modernity
- interpretive sociology: meaningful action; again rational choice
- relationship between the individual and society
- norm versus rule (or law)
- bureaucracy
- enchantment/disenchantment
- charismatic leadership (could compare to Gramscian idea of hegemony) (also Weberian notions of traditional authority and rational-legal authority)
- Weber’s notion of history (as distinct from Marx’s; why is a theory of history important?)
- interest in religion (e.g. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism)

- applying Weber to the video:
    - what is the (social) meaning of the job interview, the behaviours?
    - what can we tell about the people’s class (in Weberian terms, her life chances)?
    - what does this video tell us about status and about how status works in this society?
    - why do people do this (what are their motivations? how is this rationalized?)
    - what is the role of a video that presents this information? Note how it rationalizes job interviews.
    - what “ideal type” elements of a job interview, and of candidates, employees and workplaces can we derive from this video?