How can thinking help us to approach empirical problems in new ways? In asking this question Contemporary Social Theory puts forward a case for the practical value of theory. It is not simply that empirical problems exist ‘out there’ in the world awaiting analysis, but the way that we figure and think through a problem is a good part of its solution. Most importantly, then, the course aims to develop skills and give you confidence in your capacity to think, so that you can engage with issues and empirical problems in an original way. 

While Contemporary Social Theory covers some of the important thinkers of the post- war period, its aim is not to provide a comprehensive survey of the vast array of social theorists that you might find in a text on social or sociological theory. The idea is to expose you to some of the key problems that have animated sociology and cognate disciplines in recent years, with the hope that you might have a window into these and similar theoretical and practical problems. On the way through the course, we will pay attention to the question of what it means for thinking to be ‘contemporary’. The issue of how we grasp what ‘our present’ is raises important questions about who the ‘we’ is here, as well as the relationship between thinking and time. In exploring these and other theoretical questions, the course will relate key theoretical problems to diverse empirical examples - from consumerism and globalisation to terrorism, the information and genetic revolutions and the role of science - with the hope that it will bring the theories alive for you.
 

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Interpret original texts and discuss their implications
2. Evaluate the theories encountered and assess their relevance to contemporary problems
3. Reflect on the kinds of claims that a theory makes for itself (for example: does the theory claim to diagnose the ills of our contemporary social reality or to criticise the claims of modern knowledge?)
4. Produce an argument and marshal evidence for it
5. Discuss key themes, concepts and theories with your peers

Research-Led Teaching

I have an ongoing interest in the ways that social theory broadly, and sociological theory more specifically, can help us think through contemporary problems. I am especially interested in the ways in which, in a late-capitalist, media and information driven society, we can think about the entanglement of life with power, changing conceptions of the human and new modes and practices of resistance.

Field Trips

N/A

Required Resources

All essential resources available online via wattle

Staff Feedback

Students will be given feedback in the following forms in this course:

• written comments
• verbal comments
• feedback to whole class, groups, individuals, focus group etc

Student Feedback

ANU is committed to the demonstration of educational excellence and regularly seeks feedback from students. Students are encouraged to offer feedback directly to their Course Convener or through their College and Course representatives (if applicable). The feedback given in these surveys is anonymous and provides the Colleges, University Education Committee and Academic Board with opportunities to recognise excellent teaching, and opportunities for improvement. The Surveys and Evaluation website provides more information on student surveys at ANU and reports on the feedback provided on ANU courses.

Other Information

The information provided is a preliminary Class Outline. A finalised version will be available on Wattle and will be accessible after enrolling in this course. All updates, changes and further information will be uploaded on the course Wattle site and will not be updated on Programs and Courses throughout the semester. Any questions or concerns should be directed to the Course Convenor.

Class Schedule

Week/Session	Summary of Activities	Assessment
1	Introduction
2	What is 'Contemporary'?	Tutorial Preparation required
3	Colonial Histories	Tutorial Preparation required
4	Capitalist Subjectivity	Tutorial Preparation required/ Assessment Task 1 Due
5	Empire	Tutorial Preparation required
6	The Subject and Power	Tutorial Preparation required
7	The Control Society	Tutorial Preparation required
8	The Materiality of Things	Tutorial Preparation required/ Assessment Task 2 Due
9	Rethinking the Social	Tutorial Preparation required
10	Nature after the Human	Tutorial Preparation required
11	Unit Review	Tutorial Preparation required
12	Conclusion	Synoptic Essay Question released for Assessment Task 3

Tutorial Registration

Via Wattle

Assessment Summary

Assessment task	Value	Due Date	Return of assessment	Learning Outcomes
Collective Data Base	20 %	27/03/2023	10/04/2023	5
Research Essay	40 %	08/05/2023	20/05/2023	1,2,4
Synoptic Essay	20 %	07/06/2023	25/06/2023	2,3
Participation	10 %	*	*	1,2,5
Learning Journal	10 %	22/05/2023	29/05/2023	1,2,,5

* If the Due Date and Return of Assessment date are blank, see the Assessment Tab for specific Assessment Task details

Policies

ANU has educational policies, procedures and guidelines, which are designed to ensure that staff and students are aware of the University’s academic standards, and implement them. Students are expected to have read the Academic Misconduct Rule before the commencement of their course. Other key policies and guidelines include:

• Student Assessment (Coursework) Policy and Procedure
• Special Assessment Consideration Policy and General Information 
• Student Surveys and Evaluations
• Deferred Examinations
• Student Complaint Resolution Policy and Procedure

Assessment Requirements

The ANU is using Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the Academic Integrity . In rare cases where online submission using Turnitin software is not technically possible; or where not using Turnitin software has been justified by the Course Convener and approved by the Associate Dean (Education) on the basis of the teaching model being employed; students shall submit assessment online via ‘Wattle’ outside of Turnitin, or failing that in hard copy, or through a combination of submission methods as approved by the Associate Dean (Education). The submission method is detailed below.

Moderation of Assessment

Marks that are allocated during Semester are to be considered provisional until formalised by the College examiners meeting at the end of each Semester. If appropriate, some moderation of marks might be applied prior to final results being released.

Participation

Participation is worth 10% of your final grade as above. The participation grade assesses Learning Outcomes 1, 2 & 5. You will clearly need to attend classes (a minimum of 80% attendance is required) but this grade is an evaluation of your participation: your efforts in working with materials and contributing to discussion.

Examination(s)

No examination

Assessment Task 1

Collective Data Base

This assessment task involves your contribution to a database that will be accessible to the class as a whole. You will be asked to contribute a single resource and to write a 750 word discussion of its relevance to one of the key themes of the course, choosing from the themes listed below:

Power

Subjectivity

Control

Colonialism

Nature

Technology

Materiality

After I have read and graded your original contributions, I will integrate the resources (but not your analysis) into a collective database, to be made available to all students on Wattle. The collective database will serve as a collection of relevant empirical resources that we can draw on throughout the course. If, for example, we are talking about power, we will have a series of examples of contemporary power to which we can refer, to aid our discussion and learning.

The assessment task that you will complete as an individual has two parts:

1. You will be asked to provide an example of a contemporary phenomenon, which you believe is relevant to one of the course themes listed above. In order to contribute to a collective database, you will need to provide something tangible and electronic - for example a URL for a webpage, something from YouTube, Tiktok, etc.(anything that other students will be able to access at a later point via the database). Please note that I do not want you to find a theoretical resource - I want you to provide an empirical example that we as a class can theorise, drawing on tools from the course.
2. You need to write a short reflection on your chosen example. You should write 750 words to reflect on the issues raised by the example you have found.

You will be assessed on the basis of your reflections - your ability to think creatively about the example you have chosen and to discuss its contemporary relevance and some of the issues or questions that you think it raises. In thinking through the importance of your example, your analysis should be informed by literature from, or outside, the course. You may like to draw on the Extra Resources I have made available via Wattle or you may choose to find your own.The point is not to show how much you have read (it is not primarily a research task). Rather, it is to show that your thinking is informed by a small number (eg. 5) sources that you have read.

For example, here is a link to a page on the provision of 'innovative' mental health care via apps and, specifically, on how the quality of these apps can be regulated (https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/01/cover-trends-innovative-ways). For me, the way that mental health is discussed here raises interesting questions about the production of contemporary subjectivity, the forms of normalisation involved in that production, the non-human (eg. technological) elements of subjective production, the distribution of expertise between experts and the wider public, the increasing 'psychologisation' of subjectivity, the evolving meaning of 'mental health', the demand for innovation in contemporary capitalist societies and, associated with that, the regulation of immaterial things like knowledge and experience via copyright, patents, and so on.

If I were to select this item to include in the database, I would have 750 words in which to give some indication of the themes, questions etc. that I think are raised by the website. It is not a question of reiterating what is said on the site, but analysing its significance. I would need to cite the literature that had informed my analysis.

Please note that we will discuss this assessment task extensively at the start of the course so that you are confident about what your task and its significance are.

Rubric

Demonstration of relevance of chosen example	Sustained critical analysis	Critical and creative use of literature	Presentation	Expression

Assessment Task 2

Research Essay

This is a 2000 word research essay, which relates to learning outcomes 1,2 and 4 and contributes to 40% of your overall grade. Essay questions will be made available by Week 4. You may prefer to devise your own question – if so, you should discuss your chosen topic with me some time in advance of the due date.

The Research Essay remains one of the basics of an education in the social sciences! It is an opportunity to pursue an area of interest related to the course and to develop your skills as a researcher. It is also an opportunity to show how your thinking on your chosen topic has been informed by the materials, themes and discussions in Contemporary Social Theory. While you do not have to draw on resources provided in the course, the essay should clearly be one that shows that you have done this course! While you may draw on journalistic sources, this is an exercise in scholarly research and will involve you reading and incorporating insights from scholarly books and article.

 

Research Strategies:

In your search for relevant references for your paper, the following are some useful places to try:

- The references provided in the course schedule posted on wattle (listed as ‘Suggested Readings’ under lecture summaries)

- Databases, which can be accessed via the ANU library homepage – click on ‘E-Resources and Databases’ to access a range of useful databases. In particular, the ‘Arts and Humanities Citation Index’ (web science) and the ‘International Bibliography of the Social Sciences’ should provide relevant material, which you can then seek to access through our library

- Google Scholar

- Journal browsing – you can often find specific articles and get a sense of relevant debates by simply browsing the tables of contents of journals and following up anything that looks interesting. The following journals would be especially relevant: Theory, Culture and Society; Body and Society; European Journal of Social Theory; Sociological Review; Theory and Event; Sociological Theory; Theory and Society; Social Analysis.

- Browsing the bibliographies of any especially relevant articles that you find – who has the author read to inform their argument?

 

Assessment Rubrics

You will be assessed on your ability to research a chosen topic, to synthesize your research materials and to present a sustained argument. You will also be assessed on your capacity to express and organise your ideas, to enable them to come across as clearly as possible. Apart from presenting an informed and polished paper, you should think about extending the skills of critically engagement that were applied in the first exercise. So you are encouraged to do some hard thinking! I am always pleased to see that students have worked hard with the ideas and have extended themselves. You are not expected to sort all the issues out – as you will hopefully gather from the course, the issues we discuss are complex ones that have been the subject of years of debate. But you can raise provocative or original questions and can offer new ways of thinking about the problems through your efforts at working them through.

Rubric

Clear response to Chosen Question	Sustained Argument	Critical Engagement	Use of Relevant Literature	Expression of Ideas	Organisation of Ideas

Assessment Task 3

Synoptic Essay

This is a 1500 word piece, which relates to Learning Outcomes 2 and 3 and contributes to 20% of your overall grade. The purpose of this exercise is to get you to reflect on some of the key themes that we have collectively explored in this course. You will be asked to respond to one question from a choice of three questions, which will be made available by the end of Week 10. We will use the last two workshops to synthesise some of the ideas from the course and draw out key themes. I’d encourage you to contribute to this discussion as much as possible and to raise any questions you may have. This will help you and your fellow students to complete the paper and learn from the process. The paper should be presented as a polished paper, with a necessarily brief introduction, body and conclusion.

 

In your response to the set question, you should draw on the material from the course (rather than conducting your own research) to demonstrate that you have participated in the course throughout the semester. If you site material from the workshop or readings, you must provide references (workshops should be referenced by date).

 

Rubric

Demonstration of participation in course	Understanding of themes covered	Critical Engagement	Argumentation	Presentation of ideas	Expression of ideas

Assessment Task 4

Participation

This part of the assessment relates to Learning Outcomes 1, 2 & 5 and contributes to 10% of your overall grade. Contemporary Social Theory is organised as a workshop, and active participation is a crucial part of this course. This mark assesses your participation in the course (as opposed to mere attendance). Participation means that you can demonstrate that you have participated actively in a collective learning process, that you can understand and engage with ideas and materials on your own terms and in light of class discussion, and that you contribute actively to class discussion and learning. You will be expected to come to a minimum of 80% of the classes or to provide documentation to support extraordinary circumstances.

Rubric

Efforts to Understand Material	Depth of Engagement	Contribution to Discussion	Participation in Activities	Contribution to Collective Learning Processes

Assessment Task 5

Learning Journal

This 500 word task will contribute to 10% of your overall grade. Your Learning Journal is an opportunity for you to reflect on your own learning, itself a product of the collective learning of the workshop. We will discuss examples of Learning Journals in class at the start of the course. Please also consult the excellent guide to Learning Journal assessment tasks provided here: https://www.anu.edu.au/students/academic-skills/writing-assessment/reflective-writing/learning-journals. Note that the style of the journal may be informal, the important point being that you reflect on your key learning experiences and why they matter.

Rubric

Evidence of Participation	Reflections on own learning	Reflections on collective learning processes	Readability	Structure

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a core part of the ANU culture as a community of scholars. At its heart, academic integrity is about behaving ethically, committing to honest and responsible scholarly practice and upholding these values with respect and fairness.

The ANU commits to assisting all members of our community to understand how to engage in academic work in ways that are consistent with, and actively support academic integrity. The ANU expects staff and students to be familiar with the academic integrity principle and Academic Misconduct Rule, uphold high standards of academic integrity and act ethically and honestly, to ensure the quality and value of the qualification that you will graduate with.

The Academic Misconduct Rule is in place to promote academic integrity and manage academic misconduct. Very minor breaches of the academic integrity principle may result in a reduction of marks of up to 10% of the total marks available for the assessment. The ANU offers a number of online and in person services to assist students with their assignments, examinations, and other learning activities. Visit the Academic Skills website for more information about academic integrity, your responsibilities and for assistance with your assignments, writing skills and study.

Online Submission

You will be required to electronically sign a declaration as part of the submission of your assignment. Please keep a copy of the assignment for your records. Unless an exemption has been approved by the Associate Dean (Education) submission must be through Turnitin.

Hardcopy Submission

No hardcopy submission

Late Submission

Individual assessment tasks may or may not allow for late submission. Policy regarding late submission is detailed below:

• Late submission not permitted. If submission of assessment tasks without an extension after the due date is not permitted, a mark of 0 will be awarded.
• Late submission permitted. Late submission of assessment tasks without an extension are penalised at the rate of 5% of the possible marks available per working day or part thereof. Late submission of assessment tasks is not accepted after 10 working days after the due date, or on or after the date specified in the course outline for the return of the assessment item. Late submission is not accepted for take-home examinations.

Referencing Requirements

Accepted academic practice for referencing sources that you use in presentations can be found via the links on the Wattle site, under the file named “ANU and College Policies, Program Information, Student Support Services and Assessment”. Alternatively, you can seek help through the Students Learning Development website.

Extensions and Penalties

Extensions and late submission of assessment pieces are covered by the Student Assessment (Coursework) Policy and Procedure. Extensions may be granted for assessment pieces that are not examinations or take-home examinations. If you need an extension, you must request an extension in writing on or before the due date. If you have documented and appropriate medical evidence that demonstrates you were not able to request an extension on or before the due date, you may be able to request it after the due date.

Privacy Notice

The ANU has made a number of third party, online, databases available for students to use. Use of each online database is conditional on student end users first agreeing to the database licensor’s terms of service and/or privacy policy. Students should read these carefully. In some cases student end users will be required to register an account with the database licensor and submit personal information, including their: first name; last name; ANU email address; and other information.
In cases where student end users are asked to submit ‘content’ to a database, such as an assignment or short answers, the database licensor may only use the student’s ‘content’ in accordance with the terms of service – including any (copyright) licence the student grants to the database licensor. Any personal information or content a student submits may be stored by the licensor, potentially offshore, and will be used to process the database service in accordance with the licensors terms of service and/or privacy policy.
If any student chooses not to agree to the database licensor’s terms of service or privacy policy, the student will not be able to access and use the database. In these circumstances students should contact their lecturer to enquire about alternative arrangements that are available.

Distribution of grades policy

Academic Quality Assurance Committee monitors the performance of students, including attrition, further study and employment rates and grade distribution, and College reports on quality assurance processes for assessment activities, including alignment with national and international disciplinary and interdisciplinary standards, as well as qualification type learning outcomes.

Since first semester 1994, ANU uses a grading scale for all courses. This grading scale is used by all academic areas of the University.

Support for students

The University offers students support through several different services. You may contact the services listed below directly or seek advice from your Course Convener, Student Administrators, or your College and Course representatives (if applicable).

• ANU Health, safety & wellbeing for medical services, counselling, mental health and spiritual support
• ANU Diversity and inclusion for students with a disability or ongoing or chronic illness
• ANU Dean of Students for confidential, impartial advice and help to resolve problems between students and the academic or administrative areas of the University
• ANU Academic Skills and Learning Centre supports you make your own decisions about how you learn and manage your workload.
• ANU Counselling Centre promotes, supports and enhances mental health and wellbeing within the University student community.
• ANUSA supports and represents undergraduate and ANU College students
• PARSA supports and represents postgraduate and research students