From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Inner Story, Outer Story Syllabus, Spring 2018

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Syllabic Cycles"
***  *** 
On this date in Round and Square History
15 January 2017—
15 January 2016—
15 January 2015—Attendance Policy: Spring 2015
[a] Outer-Inner RF
Inner Story, Outer Story
HIST 310
Spring 2018
Tuesdays 7:10-11:00

Robert André LaFleur                                              Office Hours:
Morse Ingersoll 206                                                  For First Module: Please
363-2005                                                                    Contact Me By E-mail              
                                                                                   lafleur@beloit.edu                                                           
Required Books         
New York Review of Books (copies available at Turtle Creek Bookstore)
Round and Square Blog (www.robert-lafleur.blogspot.com) 
***  ***
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Lakoff, George. Metaphors We Live By.
Lemert, Charles. The Goffman Reader.
Lewis, Michael. The Undoing Project.
Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self, and Society.
McPhee, John. Draft No. 4.
Riesman, David. The Lonely Crowd.
Simmel, Georg. On Individuality and Social Forms.
Thaler, Richard. Nudge.


HIST 310
Inner Story, Outer Story
The anthropologist Clifford Geertz once wrote that people (and societies) tell two basic kinds of stories. The first kind are “out there”—the stories we broadcast to the outside world. In contrast to these public messages, Geertz emphasized a much less understood element of our social and cultural lives. He called them the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and they represent insiders expressing far more private messages. Both sets of stories are “true,” at least in the sense that they express things that we value about ourselves, our families, and our communities. The audiences are profoundly different, though—and so, too, are many of the details.

This seminar will examine the historiographical, ethnographic, and literary dimensions of these kinds of stories, and analyze the ways in which one or the other dominates in certain kinds of inquiry. We will also study the ways in which ideas such as “inner” and “outer” have been used by thinkers throughout the world (and throughout history) to make sense of a complex social and cultural world. Finally, we will begin to form the theoretical and methodological foundations for a serious and sustained inquiry into these contrasting messages. The instructor’s research on these topics in China will form the seminar’s foundation, but students are encouraged to come to the course from other areas of study, including other areas of history, as well as literature, anthropology, sociology, and other topics. Junior or senior standing or consent of the instructor.


Evaluation  
Quizzes/attendance                   10%
Research Prospectus                  5% 
Letter Assignment                      10%
Research Proposal                    15% 
Research Presentation              10%   
Research Paper                         50%                       
Daily attendance and class participation are expected; absences during the semester will affect your grade. Late assignments will be penalized. 

HIST 310
Inner Story, Outer Story
Spring 2018
Week I
Inner-Other, Inner-Outer
See the Late Assignment Policy  
See the Class Attendance Policy
Tuesday, January 23
No class meeting.
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Use what would have been the four hours of meeting time on Tuesday to get a jump on the reading. 
(Read your email for a full explanation—sent on Monday, January 15)
LaFleur, The Two Faces of China (book proposal)
Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (Read Part I and skim Parts II and III)
Part I: Character
     Some Types of Character and Society
     From Morality to Morale
     Jury of their Peers
     Storytellers as Tutors
     The Inner-Directed Round of Life
     The Other-Directed Round of Life
     The Other-Directed Round of LIfe (continued)
Part II: Politics
     Political Persuasion
     Images of Power
     Americans and Kwakiutls
Part III: Autonomy
     Adjustment or Autonomy
     False Personalization
     Enforced Privatization
     The Problem of Competence
     Autonomy and Utopia
1,000-word "miniature" review essay examining Riesman and LaFleur 
("inner-directed, other-directed" and "inner-story, outer-story").
***  ***
Due by Sunday, January 28 at 10:00 p.m.
in my office (MI 206)
See the Late Assignment Policy

Week II
Nudge..and Thinking
See the Late Assignment Policy  
See the Class Attendance Policy
Tuesday, January 30
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Thaler, Nudge.
Part I Humans and Econs    
     Biases and Blunders
     Resisting Temptation
     Following the Herd 
     When Do We Need a Nudge
     Choice Architecture
Part II Money     
     Save More Tomorrow
     Naïve Investing
     Credit Markets      
     Privatizing Social Security: Smorgasbord Style
Part III Health
     Prescription Drugs: Part D for Daunting     
     How to Increase Organ Donations
     Saving the Planet
Part IV Freedom
     Improving School Choices
     Should Patients be Forced to Buy Lottery Tickets?
     Privatizing Marriage  
Part V Extensions and Objections
     A Dozen Nudges
     Objections      
     The Real Third Way
     Bonus Chapter: Twenty More Nudges
     Postcript: November 2008 

Week III
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Tuesday, February 6
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Kahnemann, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Part I. Two Systems
     The Characters of the Story
     Attention and Effort
     The Lazy Controller
     The Associative Machine
     Cognitive Ease
     Norms, Surprises, and Causes
     A Machine for Jumping to Conclusions
     How Judgments Happen
     Answering An Easier Question
Part II. Heuristics and Biases
     The Law of Small Numbers
     Anchors
     The Science of Availability
     Availability, Emotion, and Risk
     Tom W's Specialty
     Linda: Less is More
     Causes Trump Statistics
     Regression to the Mean
     Taming Intuitive Predictions
Part III. Overconfidence
     The Illusion of Understanding
     The Illusion of Validity
     Intuitions vs Formulas      
     Expert Intuition: When Can We Trust It?
     The Outside View
     The Engine of Capitalism  
Part IV. Choices.
     Bernouilli's Errors
     Prospect Theory     
     The Endowment Effect
     Bad Events
     The Fourfold Pattern     
     Rare Events
     Risk Policies
     Keeping Score      
     Reversals
     Frames and Reality
Part V. Two Selves.      
     Two Selves
     Life as a Story
     Experienced Well-Being      
     Thinking About Life
     Conclusions
     Appendix A: Judgment Under Uncertainty
     Appendix B: Choices, Values, and Frames
 ***  ***
Research Prospectus Due by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 11
 See the Late Assignment Policy

Week IV
Presentations of Self
Tuesday, February 13
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Lemert, The Goffman Reader.
Part I: The Production of Self
     Self Claims
     Self-Presentation 
     The Self as Ritual Object
     The Self and Social Roles
Part II: The Confined Self  
     Status, Territory, and the Self
     The Mortified Self
     The Stigmatized Self
     The Recalcitrant Self
Part III: The Nature of Social Life
     Social Life as Drama 
     Social Life as Ritual
     Social Life as a Game
Part IV: Frames and the Organization of Experience     
     Frame Analysis
     Frame Analysis of Talk
     Frame Analysis of Gender
     Social Interaction and Social Structure

Week V
Writing Week
Tuesday, February 20
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
McPhee, Draft No. 4 (entire book)
     Progression
     Structure
     Editors & Publisher
     Elicitation
     Frame of Reference
     Checkpoints
     Draft No. 4
     Omission 
LaFleur, Writing History, Writing Culture (.pdf handout)
***  ***
On Individuality and Social Forms
Tuesday, February 27 
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms
       Introduction
       Philosophy of the Social Sciences
            How Is History Possible?
            How is Society Possible?
            The Problem of Sociology
            The Categories of Human Experience
       Forms of Social Interaction
            Exchange
            Conflict
            Domination
            Prostitution
            Sociability
       Social Types
            The Stranger
            The Poor
            The Miser and the Spendthrift
            The Adventurer
            The Nobility
       Forms of Individuality
            Freedom and the Individual
            Subjective Culture
            Eros, Platonic and Modern
       Individuality and Social Structure
            Group Expansion and the Development of Individuality
            Fashion
            The Metropolis and Mental Life
            Subordination and Personal Fulfillment
       Forms Versus Life Process: The Dialectics of Change
            Social Forms and Inner Needs
            The Transcendent Character of Life
            The Conflict in Modern Culture

Week VII
Mind, Self, and Society
Tuesday, March 6
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Mead, Mind, Self, Society
       Introduction
       The Point of View of Social Behaviorism
       Mind
       The Self
       Society
       Supplementary Essays
            The Function of Imagery in Conduct
            The Biologic Individual
            The Self and the Process of Reflection
            Fragments on Ethics
            The Work
            The Man
            The Intellectual Context
            The Social Context
            In Summary
***  ***
Research Notes and Appointments Set Up with Chris Nelson by Friday, March 9.
We'll discuss this in detail in class on March 6. You'll write a one-page overview 
of your project and send it to Chris Nelson at the library. Then you'll make an 
appointment to meet with her. This work must be done be done by March 9 
(although you may meet with Chris Nelson (soon) after break.
PLEASE DO NOT MISS CLASS ON MARCH 6!
See the Late Assignment Policy 
 
Week VIII
Spring Break

Week IX
Tuesday, March 20
PLEASE FINISH YOUR LETTERS BEFORE TUESDAY!
***  ***
Read (carefully) the .pdf about writing that I sent on Sunday afternoon.
Come to class with the following materials (notes are fine, but be ready to discuss):
Review your readings from the first half of the course:
       —Define "inner story (stories)" and "outer story (stories)." Just do it.
       —Describe your final project in no more than 150 words (the "elevator talk").
        —What is "inner" and "outer" about your final project?
       —Read my essay about writing.
       —Make a list of what you think you do well in your writing, and then another list about of matters you 
           need to remedy in your writing.
We will discuss these issues in class this week, and then start the second half of the seminar, when we will  focus upon the "end game—completion of your projects. 

Week X
Distinction I
Tuesday, March 27
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Bourdieu, Distinction, 1-254.
Part I: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste
     The Aristocracy of Culture
Part II: The Economy of Practice
     The Social Space and its Transformations
     The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles
     The Dynamics of the Fields 

Week XI
Distinction II
Tuesday, April 3
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Bourdieu, Distinction, 255-553.
Part III: Class Tastes and Life-Styles
     The Sense of Distinction
     Cultural Goodwill
     The Choice of the Necessary
     Culture and Politics
     Conclusion: Classes and Classifications
 
Week XII
Metaphors We Live By
Tuesday, April 10
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Lakoff, Metaphors We Live By 
     The Concepts We Live By
     The Systematicity of Metaphorical Concepts
     Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding 
     Orientational Metaphors
     Metaphor and Cultural Coherence
     Ontological Metaphors 
     Personification
     Metonymy
     Challenges to Metaphorical Coherence
     Some Further Examples
     The Partial Nature of Metaphorical Structuring
     How is Our Conceptual System Grounded? 
     The Grounding of Structural Metaphors
     Causation: Partly Emergent and Partly Metaphorical
     The Coherent Structuring of Experience     
     Metaphorical Coherence
     Complex Coherences Across Metaphors
     Some Consequences for Theorists of Conceptual Structure 
     Definition and Understanding
     How Metaphors Can Give Meaning to Form
     New Meaning 
     The Creation of Similarity
     Metaphor, Truth, and Action
     Truth
     The Myths of Objectivism and Subjectivism
     The Myth of Objectivism in Western Philosophy and Linguistics
     Some Inadequacies of the Myth of Subjectivism
     The Experientialist Alternative: Giving New Meaning to Old Myths
     Understanding
     Afterword, 2003
Week XIII
The Undoing Project
Tuesday, April 17
Round and Square See separate Round and Square syllabus
New York Review of Books See separate New York Review of Books syllabus
Lewis, The Undoing Project 
     Introduction
     Man Boobs
     The Outsider
     The Insider
     Errors
     The Collision 
     The Mind's Rules
     The Rules of Prediction
     Going Viral
     Birth of the Warrior Psychologist
     The Isolation Effect
     The Rules of Undoing 
     This Cloud of Possibility
     Coda: Bora-Bora
Work on your research papers (and follow the 
instructions in my writing guide)!

Final Research Paper (10,000 words, minimum) 
Due by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, 2018
[b] Inner Quarters RF
 
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