Rationalizing the World: Am. Soc. Scienc

This course will cover the development of modern social science and its relation to American history and culture. The different strands of the course are indicated by its title, where “rationalizing” refers both to attempts to understand society through rational means and to the role of social science in providing a justification or rationale for existing social structures. 

Quantitative thinking and social science have become increasingly prominent in our society. But modern discussions of the political relevance of social science do not always account for the ups and downs of particular ideas. For example, Freudianism was huge in mid-century, both within psychology and in the culture at large, but has faded for both intellectual and economic reasons. The Keynesian revolution dominated economics from the 1930s through the 1960s but then was contested by later paradigms in response to the stagflation of the following decade. Trends in criminal justice policy have followed ideas from anthropology, psychology, and economics, and political theories of international relations have affected and been informed by developments in foreign policy. This course provides students with an opportunity to learn about these and other examples of the development and influence of theories in social science, and to form a larger connection between intellectual, social, and political history. 

It is common for students to learn about just one or maybe two social sciences and not to see the way that different social sciences fit together intellectually and how they compete for influence. There’s a tendency to think of any field of study as being a static set of truths as laid out in textbooks or else a steady march of progress. In contrast, this course presents a series of booms and crashes: unsustainable enthusiasms for new ideas followed by disillusionment and controversies that are often never fully resolved. Through readings, class discussion and activities, and final projects, students should learn to see social science as a process that proceeds both internally and with reference to society. 

By the end of the course, students should gain a broad understanding of the development of modern social science and its connection to American politics and society. They will read different sides of academic disputes involving figures from Margaret Mead to Milton Friedman and will gain a historically informed sense of how social science has been influenced by and has influence