Università Roma Tre

Émile Durkheim: Understanding a classic to interpret the present

This course aims to present the complexity and theoretical prominence of one of the founders of sociological thought, Émile Durkheim. Each week we will raise a main question that will allow us to read and comment on parts of his work, reconstructing its historical and conceptual development. To do so we will follow a threefold scan devoted: to the method and object of sociological knowledge; to the understanding of legal and political institutions; and to the historical and reflective consideration of forms of collective idealization.Through the study of Durkheim's work, we intend to subtract this author from the inevitable simplifications to which he has often been destined in his textbook reductions, partly because of the dominance of the Weberian paradigm in a widespread part of Italian sociological culture. Our aim will be not only to understand the thought of a classic by addressing the entirety of his reflection but, equally, to detect its interest in interpreting the present. In this regard, the course intends to compend the weekly reading of anthological texts from Durkheim's work with some selections of essays from secondary literature. With the exception of a few texts, almost the entirety of the bibliographic material-both primary and secondary literature-will be uploaded to the course website and updated throughout the semester.

PART I - KNOWLEDGE
1. What is modernity? Individual and society
2. What are the pathologies and risks of modern societies? Society and criticism
3. In what does the sociological method consist? Social facts and collective representations
4. What are the aspirations and risks of modern individuals? Individual and critique

PART II - INSTITUTIONS
5. Does modernity make us freer? Collective morality and autonomy
6. What is the state? Intermediate bodies and individualism
7. Local justice or universal justice? Cosmopolitanism and contract
8. Does modernity make us more equal? Temporal power and sociology

PARTE III – IDEALI
9. Le modernità ci rende più riflessivi? Potere spirituale e sociologia
10. Come capire il mutamento sociale? Autorità e rivoluzione
11. Il nostro pensiero è sociale? Credenze e categorie
12. Che relazione intrattengono scienza e religione? Rituali e conoscenza

All the primary texts can be easily found in french and/or in english