Information Package
baskent.edu.tr

Program of Sociology (Turkish)

SOC440

SOCIOLOGY OF FUTURE

Course Code
SOC440
Semester
-
Theory+Practice
3 + 0
ECTS
5
Course TypeElective Course
Course LevelBachelor's Degree
Year of Study-
Semester-
ECTS5
Name of Lecturer(s) -
Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, the students;

  1. Discuss the relationship between the past, present and future.
  2. Gather knowledge about the impact of imagination over social and political organization.
  3. Evaluate utopias and dystopias from a historical and sociological perspective.
  4. Critically interpret the concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism.
  5. Make sociological evaluations about futurological studies.
Mode of DeliveryFace to face
PrerequisitesNo
Recommended Optional Programme ComponentsNo.
Course DescriptionThis course examines the utopias of prominent figures/thinkers in the past, the physical and mental changes that brought those utopias into being, and what actually happened despite their expectations. This course not only opens to discussion the tension between the future expectations of the past and the realities faced but also focuses on the potential futures that the present is pregnant with. Further, the future appears on the horizon of sociology as a field of study particularly when sociological imagination is applied to modern societies in permanent transition. Within the scope of this course, students will read various utopias, dystopias and futurological studies from ancient times to the present, in order to comprehend the extent of human imagination in different times and places and to expand the boundaries of their own (sociological) imagination. In addition to the reading materials, students will watch films and documentaries about the societies of the future. The goal of this course is to reflect on how the society of the future can be shaped based on the classical and contemporary sociological theories and, of course, the empirical data we already have.
Course Contents
WEEK TOPICS
1st Week 1. Week Is sociology of future possible?
2nd Week 2. Week Utopianism Before Renaissance (i.e., Plato?s Republic)
3rd Week 3. Week Birth of utopia in the Renaissance and Reformation, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (i.e., Thomas More, Michel de Montaigne)
4th Week 4. Week Seventeenth century (i.e., Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon)
5th Week 5. Week Eighteenth century (i.e., Jonathan Swift, William Godwin, Rousseau)
6th Week 6. Week Nineteenth century utopian socialism (i.e., Charles Fourier, C. H. de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen)
7th Week 7. Week Marx and counter-Marx
8th Week 8. Week Mid-term (Literature Review on Utopias)
9th Week 9. Week Twentieth century utopianism I (i.e., H. G. Wells, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,Katherine Burdekin,)
10th Week 10. Week Twentieth century utopianism II (i.e., Aldoux Huxley, B.F. Skinner, George Orwell, Ursula K. Le Guin)
11th Week 11. Week K. Mannheim, ?Ideology and Utopia? (pp. 55-108)
12th Week 12. Week Digital utopias/dystopias: Movie/Documentary Assignment and In-class discussion
13th Week 13. Week Digital utopias/dystopias: Movie/Documentary Assignment and In-class discussion
14th Week 14. Week Futurological studies
15th Week
Recommended or Required ReadingPlaton, Republic.
Rousseau, J.J. Social Contract
Marx, K. Communist Manifesto.
H. G. Wells, ?The So-Called Science of Sociology,? Sociological Papers 3 (1907): 357?369,
Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (London: Blackwell, 1987)
Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future (London: Verso, 2005)
Jameson, F. (1981) ?Conclusion: The Dialectic of Ideology and Utopia,? in The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; pp. 281-300
Tom Moylan, Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia (New York: Routledge)
Zygmunt Bauman, Retrotopia (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), 1?12
Lowry, Lois (1993) The Giver.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1998) Herland. Dover Thrift.
Harvey, D. (2000) ?Spaces of Utopia,? in D. Harvey, Spaces of Hope, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press; pp. 133-181
Popper, K. (1971) ?Aestheticism, Perfectionism, Utopianism,? in The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume 1: Plato, Princeton: Princeton University Press; pp. 157 - 168.
Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
J. E. Stiglitz. (2012) The Price of Inequality.
Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods
  • Lecture
  • Questions/Answers
  • Presentation
Assessment Methods and Criteria
Quantity Percentage (%)
Assignment 2 50
Total(%) 50
Contribution of In-term Studies to Overall Grade(%) 50
Contribution of Final Examination to Overall Grade(%) 50
Total(%) 100
ECTS Allocated Based on Student Workload
Activities Quantity Duration (Hour) Total Workload (Hour)
Midterm exam 1 2 2
Preparation for Quiz
Individual or group work 9 10 90
Preparation for Final exam 1 10 10
Course hours 14 3 42
Preparation for Midterm exam 1 10 10
Laboratory (including preparation)
Final exam 1 2 2
Homework
Total Work Load156
Total Work Load / 30 (h)5.2
ECTS Credit of the Course5
Language of InstructionTurkish
Work Placement(s)No

Programme Qualifications / Learning Outcomes

LO1 LO2 LO3 LO4 LO5
K1
K2
K3 X X X X X
K4
K5 X X X X X
K6
K7
K8
K9
K10
K11 X X X X X
K12