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Sociology

mary wollstonecraft a vindication of the rights of woman
How do individuals know what they know?

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

In A Vindication, Wollstonecraft asks questions that are part of the human experience. How does who I am affect how I am viewed in the world in which I live? What has shaped others’ understanding of who I am? What are the assumptions, biases, misconceptions that impact how the world sees me? Wollstonecraft’s text examines the repeating social patterns that have led to the belief that women do not possess reason and that their singular purpose and potential is to be attractive and beautiful.

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Annihilation of Caste B.R. Ambedkar
Does free will exist?

Annihilation of Caste

Annihilation of Caste is an authoritative text about social hierarchy and denial of basic human rights. It discusses how one class constructs political, legal, and social systems through which basic human rights including right to education, occupation, movement, and freedom to consume food of one’s choice is denied to a large section of the society, who then are forced to live in abject poverty. The first and second year students can effortlessly relate to the arguments made by Ambedkar as many of students have experiences discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or class themselves or are aware about these discriminations as they are discussed in news or social media platforms. Faculty should consider using this text as it demonstrates the universal aspect of class division and how different communities have established diverse methods to control one class over another.

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Beloved by toni morrison
What is Justice?

Beloved

Beloved is a powerful novel. Upon finishing it, one student looked up and said, “I love this novel.” Perhaps the reason this student loved the novel so much is its insistence on the capacity for love and community, its belief in the possibility of healing. While Morrison focuses on the range of dehumanization of African Americans, from the image of the ceramic “blackboy’s mouth full of money” on the shelf in the home of two abolitionists (300), to the egregious dehumanizing capacity of schoolteacher who uses science as rationalization for enslavement and torture, she places the strength of community and the grace of self-love at the center of the novel. The novel is about memory, about how the past lives in the present but also the ways that the past can be healed and our bodies purified when we have a community toward which we can offer up our hearts.

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gloria anzaldúa borderlands
How do individuals know what they know?

Borderlands / La Frontera

This can be an intimidating text, especially for the non-Spanish speaker. Ask students to observe how they respond to the shift between Spanish and English throughout the text. Anzaldúa’s flow between languages is more than code switching. It is an enactment of mestiza consciousness. The same is true for the flow between genres in the text. Some students will feel empowered by Anzaldúa’s flow between languages and genres. Other students will feel they are missing something by not being able to interpret the Spanish sections. Other students may have a response to Anzaldúa’s counter narrative to U.S. narratives of exceptionalism, heroism, freedom, opportunity, and individualism.

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Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
What is Justice?

Communist Manifesto

The Manifesto of the Communist Party is a pamphlet that discusses economic disparity. The primary aim of the text was to demand equal rights for all social classes. The inequalities of wealth discussed by the authors are ubiquitous in our present society, and the first-year students enrolled in community colleges are quick to recognize and can relate with the disparities of wealth discussed in the text. Marx and Engels argued that the capitalistic system established in Europe was inherently flawed, and presently our students are experiencing a world that is reeling with the aftereffects of a highly industrialized world. The present climate change and environmental degradation, food insecurity, pollution, inequality in pay, and refugee crisis are all products of the industrialized capitalistic world.

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Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
How do individuals know what they know?

Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky stands among the great Russian novelists and world writers. In his characters, the reader encounters the complexity of human thought and desire, the quest for understanding ourselves, and the perennial questions that mark human interaction. Dostoevsky’s ideas at the time of the novel’s composition were very much informed by the radical political climate in St. Petersburg, ideas which Dostoevsky felt were morally and politically dangerous.

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Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Modern Library, 1994
How do individuals know what they know?

Invisible Man

Ellison’s Invisible Man is one of the great American novels of the last 100 years. It combines an impressionistic portrait of a nameless protagonist and his journey as part of the Great Migration of Black Americans to the north during the early part of the twentieth century. Published in 1952, the work speaks to a pivotal moment in history, as many aspects of American society were scrambled and reinvented in the years following World War II. The book also traces the tumultuous events of the civil rights movement, including the various and often opposing social factions within the Black community and the frequent acts of civil disobedience and riots (including the Harlem Riot of 1943 that inspired the closing scenes of the novel). The book provides countless opportunities for reflection on Black (and White) identity, politics, class, race, and Black bodies (including “visibility” and “invisibility”). The Candide-like innocence of the protagonist in much of the novel provides many opportunities for both horror and humor, as he is pushed this way and that by ideology and political expediency.

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Jataka Tales
How do individuals know what they know?

Jatak Tales

Jataka tales are about life’s challenges, temptations, and uncertainties. They are held in esteemed position in all Buddhist traditions and have been immortalized in art, music, and drama. The Jatakas are the most comprehensible among all Buddhist literature and are perfect text to introduce first year college students to Buddhism and Buddhist literature. Students can easily relate to the moral and philosophical questions addressed in the text, including who is deceitful? Who is a good politician? What should be the ethics of running a business?

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Mahabharata
Is there a Supreme Being or Beings?

Mahabharata / Bhagavad Gita

Mahabharata is the ultimate tale ever told; it is the longest poem in the world with almost 80,000 verses. It’s ingenious and engaging stories have captured the fancy of people for centuries and its stories and characters have found afterlives in contemporary drama, cinema, and popular culture including music and video games. What is most beautiful about the text is that there is no single Mahabharata, but many. While the Sanskrit version of the text is believed to have been composed by the mythical sage Vyasa, several versions or recensions of the texts appear in many different South Asian languages and traditions. This not only reflects on the diverse communal tradition of the subcontinent, but also about the power of the stories narrated. Students can find meaning in the stories because of their relatable themes of human aspirations, greed, lust, and resentment.

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Metamorphosis
What is Beauty?

Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is about human suffering and is a perfect novella to introduce students to Kafka’s work. While the story can be disorienting in the beginning, as the reader progresses, they can relate to Gregor’s situation. The story is a complex narrative with multiple layers that explores variety of human emotions and relationships including, fear, frustration, disappointment, love, loneliness, suffering, meaning of death, and disgust.

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On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy
Is there a Supreme Being or Beings?

On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy

Philosophy, by its very nature of bringing things into question, is at odds with the authority of the political and the religious. So it is no small task that the twelfth century Andalusian philosopher, Ibn Rushd, sets for himself in On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy. This harmony is achieved by adjusting the Quran to fit Aristotelian philosophical thought through the allegorical interpretation of intransigent passages. That scripture should be interpreted symbolically when it conflicts with demonstrative truths was quite radical for its time, and makes this work important for the history of hermeneutics in general and scriptural interpretation in particular. This work is essential reading for anyone interested in the concept of esoteric and exoteric readings of texts. What is even more radical than Ibn Rushd’s hermeneutic prescriptions, particularly for us, is his insistence that not everyone is capable of the truth, and thus that the truth should not be revealed to everyone equally—for some it can actually be harmful to their ability to believe religious claims and ultimately to their motivation to act morally. Thus this text tangentially brings up questions about the connection between religion and morality.

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Phenomenology of Spirit
How do individuals know what they know?

Phenomenology of Spirit

The Phenomenology of Spirit is arguably one of the most difficult philosophical texts to engage with. Partly this stems from Hegel having to, like Plato and Kant before him, invent terms and phrases to describe ideas and concepts for which ordinary language is inadequate. Because of this, there is not always agreement on just what Hegel is doing. Wherever one comes down interpretively, his impact on the history of thought is undeniable. He is the culmination of German idealism, a philosophical movement that starts with Kant and runs through Fichte and Schelling. His treatment of sense certainty has been taken up by many 20th century critiques of empiricism within the analytic tradition, while the master-slave dialectic has proven to be equally influential within 20th century continental philosophy. Of course, the influence Hegel had on Marx’s dialectical materialism, and hence the historical development of Western radical politics, cannot be overstated. Whatever one may ultimately think of Hegel, reading through the Phenomenology is a philosophical experience like none other, full of “moments” of deep insight as one explores with hallucinatory fluidity his processional-thought terrain.

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Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Vintage International, New York
How do individuals know what they know?

Song of Solomon

Complex characters sit at the center of every Toni Morrison novel. She creates all her characters, these flawed and human people, the admirable and disreputable characters, with great empathy and love, and we as readers love them as well. She constructs the novel from a mixture of history, myth, spirituals and the supernatural that makes the writing deeply resonant. What is past is never past, as the ancestors are always present. In a Toni Morrison novel, understanding one’s ties to these ancestors and healing the traumas of the past brought into the present are integral to self-acceptance and moving forward.

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“Sonny’s Blues” is also included in Baldwin’s story collection Going to Meet the Man, Vintage International, New York
What is Beauty?

Sonny’s Blues

The emotional lives of these characters is the story’s most immediate concern and the text takes seriously the question of how we endure loss. As well, it is impossible to understand these characters fully without understanding the racial context of their lives. They grew up in Harlem, and they, as the narrator observes of his high school students, “were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities” (328). The suffering that the narrator and Sonny endure is individual as well as generational.

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The Souls of Black Folk
How do individuals know what they know?

Souls of Black Folk

Du Bois is one of the most influential US authors in the 20th century. His work helped shape productive advocacy for equal rights and treatment of Black people in the United States and remains relevant in that continued struggle. His penetrating insight into “double consciousness” remains an important psychological and sociological framework. Du Bois is an evangelist for the liberatory power of Liberal Education and its, “simply old time-glorified methods of delving for Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life, and learning the good of living.” In our time of spiritual striving and moral ambiguity, Du Bois’ work may help students reorient their educational paths from one pointed solely at work to one also aimed at Truth, and perhaps also to see with him the final product of education as, “neither a psychologist nor a brick mason, but a man.”

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The Awakening Kate Chopin
Does free will exist?

The Awakening

’Yes,’ she said. ‘The Years that are gone seem like dreams-if one might go on sleeping and dreaming- but to wake up and find- oh! Well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.(133) Kate Chopin Does free will exist? Who am I? What is love? The Awakening Kate Chopin Free Text “I love you. Good bye- because I love

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Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Is there a Supreme Being or Beings?

The Color Purple

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is not simply a novel that focuses on feminism. It is also a work that examines how people can break free of cultural shame as well as the pity that others feel to gain agency and empowerment. The Color Purple offers a moving narrative that focuses on growing up and self-realization. At the same time, the novel covers issues of gender equality through a story that illustrates women rejecting values and mores that society deems moral and respectable. For example, The Color Purple offers a new look at religion. Christianity played a major role in developing Black communities during the antebellum and postbellum periods. Yet, in The Color Purple, Walker presents traditional Christianity as patriarchal, facilitating female obedience. This is something that is ultimately rejected in favor of a more spiritual religion where God is not personified.

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The Rihla Ibn Battuta
What is Beauty?

The Rihala

Rihla is about passion for traveling, learning, and experiencing new cultures. Battuta had a great appetite for travel and adventures, and this sentiment comes across to the readers. The beauty of the text lies in its vivid description of people, flora-fauna, food, and customs of the land he travelled. Ibn Juzayy, the writer of the text brilliantly interspersed these physical descriptions with poetry and satirical personal anecdotes. Rihla is an exceptional travelogue and exposes the global interconnectedness of the medieval world, something that is challenging for first year students to comprehend. The text is also an excellent commentary on fourteenth-century global economics, polity, and international relations.

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Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
What is Justice?

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is the foundational argument for capitalism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, and derivatively, libertarianism. It is the central text of political economy. While the work is often invoked by the ideologues of free-market capitalism, it is just as often misunderstood, misread, or ignored by those same proponents. Smith’s analyses of how interventions and changes in one section of the economy have unforeseen ramifications elsewhere is always fascinating and insightful. His fundamental belief that the self-interested economic behavior of individuals can lead, as an epiphenomenon, or as he says, by an “invisible hand,” to economic prosperity for the whole of society, can be seen as the ultimate conclusion to a line of thought initiated by Thomas Hobbes.

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Mill, Utilitarianism
What is Justice?

Utilitarianism

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.

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Zadie Smith, White Teeth, Vintage International, New York
How do individuals know what they know?

White Teeth

Smith tackles major issues around race, culture, history and the influence of science and religion with humor and humanity. There are many questions and few answers in the novel. Through her characters and their complicated histories, Smith explores the tensions between 1) the roots of history and the idealistic dream of a multicultural melting pot; 2) cosmopolitanism and patriotism; 3) science and religion; 4) idealized beauty and self-identity; 5) eugenics and genetic engineering. The story is told through multiple perspectives in both the first and second generations of the novel. It is at once funny, satirical and earnest. Smith has an ear for language and sharp observations of human desire, fear and motivation.

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