Tags: du bois, immigration/citizenship, inequality, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, theory, double consciousness, jim crow, white supremacy, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2011 Length: 7:05 Access: YouTube Summary: In this YouTube video, Baratunde Thurston vehemently declares the release of President Obama’s birth certificate an outrage and indicative of the continued existence of a white supremacy in the United States. He discusses the implications and meaning behind the release of the birth certificate, and briefly discusses the messages conveyed to the American public through the wealthy White man who took credit for stirring up the Birther controversy, Donald Trump. He argues that the demand that President Obama release his birth certificate in order to prove he is eligible to run for the Presidential office is racially motivated. One could liken the request for Obama to produce a birth certificate to similar demands on Black Americans to pass literacy tests in order to vote during the Jim Crow era. This video could be used to introduce students to Du Bois's concept of a double consciousness. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois wrote, "One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder" Du Bois was articulating the experience of African Americans as being both insiders and perpetual outsiders to the nation; as being American but the wrong type of American. Thus, even after being elected to the highest, most respected American office, Barack Obama was still asked to prove that he belongs to the American nation. Submitted By: Beatrice Sorce
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Anthony Robles wrestles for the 2011 NCAA Championship Tags: bodies, disability, goffman, sports, theory, master status, stereotypes, stigma, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2011 Length: 9:43 Access: YouTube Summary: Anthony Robles is an Arizona State University student who won the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championship, despite having only one leg. His case is an interesting example of stigma (i.e. a social or individual attribute that is devalued and discredited in a particular social context). When looking at him, people are likely to place an immediate stigma on him (note that many videos and headlines refer to him as a "one-legged wrestler" rather than "wrestler"), discrediting his physical abilities and perhaps assuming a poor performance in competitive sports. As noted by Goffman, this link is done through stereotypes, rather than objective attributes, which becomes clear in this video showing his 7-1 victory in the championship match. The tendency to qualify him as a one-legged wrestler and continually comment on his disability, as these announcers do, suggests the way a disability is used to form one's master status. In other words, Robles' missing leg becomes his primary identifying characteristic, overshadowing all other markers of status. This clip can be used in class to discuss disability, stereotypes, and master status, but it would also be useful to use the clip as a means of discussing how people often resist the stigmas assigned to them. Submitted By: Lia Karvounis Tags: crime/law/deviance, goffman, theory, folkways, mores, norms, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 4:55 Access: YouTube Summary: What happens when more than 250 Soc101 students do absolutely nothing in a public place for 15 minutes? Find out in this video and discover how doing nothing can teach us a lot about norms, deviance, and Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. This video would work well in an intro to sociology class, in a class on the sociology of crime/deviance, and even a social theory course. Better yet, watch the clip and then have your class do nothing on your campus. Note, this activity is based on “The Sociology of Doing Nothing: A Model ‘Adopt a Stigma in a Public Place’ Exercise” by Karen Bettez Halnon (2001) in Teaching Sociology. Submitted By: Nathan Palmer Tags: gender, theory, feminist theory, judith butler, performativity theory, queer theory, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1963 Length: 1:22; 3:12 Access: YouTube (clip 1; clip 2) Summary: Key concepts in Judith Butler's "gender as performance" theory are illustrated by a simple close reading of these two mainstream Hollywood films from 1963, (the very same year, incidentally, that Betty Friedan published The Feminist Mystique). The first shows the tom boyish Nancy (Hayley Mills) and Nancy's girly cousin Julia (Deborah Walley) teaching the dowdy Una (played by Mariah Popham) that being a socially successful woman is simply a matter of walking, talking and smiling in a feminine way, as well as dressing in equally feminine clothes. As Butler suggests, gender is something we "make" and "make-up." The next clip takes this idea a little further, with popular and newly pinned Kim (Ann Margaret) singing about the virtues of growing from a girl into a woman. However, importantly, although Kim's lyrics remind us that being a woman is all about "wearing mascara" and "smiling a woman's smile" she is, at the same time, pulling a sweet, vaguely flirtatious switcheroo by almost completely disrobing, taking off her dress and pulling on an oversized sweater, socks, jeans and a baseball cap. As Butler might describe it, she is "subverting" her gender through "parody" or "drag," for the perfectly socialized Kim, as distracted by love as she may seem, is herself still very well aware that defying gender norms are as easy as following them, especially when the naked body is only hinted at and never fully exposed or seen. Submitted By: Audrey Sprenger Tags: goffman, theory, ambiguity, breakdown, breaking frame, disruption, dramaturgy, frame alignment, frames, impression management, key, norms, reparation, symbolic interactionism, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 5:52 Access: YouTube Summary: Many students will be familiar with Minerva, Ohio Councilman Phil Davison's speech, in which he sought the nomination for Stark County Treasurer. In this viral clip, the unbridled enthusiasm and apparent anger expressed by Councilman Davison catch us off guard and strike many as inappropriate. But the fact that we, as the audience, have expectations that were violated suggests there is an underlying structure or script that regulates the speaker's demeanor in situations such as these. I would argue that Erving Goffman's work offers a useful conceptual framework for describing the situational structure environing Councilman Davison's speech, and the speech can be used in a class as a means of illustrating many of Goffman's theoretical concepts. For starters, an instructor might note that by applying a dramaturgical analysis, one can examine Davison's speech as more than a mere announcement. It is instead a performance, analogous to the kind one might pay to see at the theater. For example, there is a stage. Davison's suit and podium are his props. His handwritten speech is like a script, but it should be noted that there already exists a general kind of script for such speeches. Furthermore, one can use Davison's speech to engage Goffman's concept of impression management. How is Davison attempting to control people's impressions of him? What impressions is he "giving off," irrespective of his intentions? Goffman (1986, p. 10) discussed the notion of a frame, referring to the definitions of a situation. Frames orient people to a collective understanding of "what's going on" in a given situation, and there exists frame alignment when there is a consensus among all participants about appropriate behaviors in a given situation. A key, by contrast, is a set of conventions seemingly imported from one activity and applied to another with the aim of transforming the latter (p. 44). At one point, Davison attempts--perhaps unsuccessfully--to layer his speech with meaning by keying his approach to the job of County Treasurer to an act of war. At another point, he keys it to an aggressive game of football. Finally, an instructor can use this clip to emphasize Goffman's attention to breakdowns (breaking frame) and reparations. One could argue that Davison broke frame once his speech too closely resembled the kind of pep talk a player gets before a big game. The audience's embarrassment at being unable to save Davison's performance for him can be understood as a ritual reparation, paid as a consequence of the broken social order. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Robert Jensen draws on W.E.B. Du Bois to discuss race and racism Tags: du bois, inequality, multiculturalism, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, theory, colorblind racism, institutional racism, post-racial America, unconscious racism, white privilege, white supremacy, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2009 Length: 52:39 Access: YouTube Summary: In this lecture, Robert Jensen, author of The Heart of Whiteness, argues that the U.S. is a white supremacist society, both ideologically and materially. He begins with a passage from W.E.B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk where Du Bois reflects on being asked by whites how it feels to be a problem. Jensen turns this question around and argues that the problem of racism is the problem of whites. He asks instead, "For those of us who are white, how does it feel to be a problem?" This video is useful for supplementing discussions related to racism and particularly white privilege, and the clip might work well in tandem with an interview Tim Wise recently gave on the Tavis Smiley show. The actual lecture is about 28 minutes, and the remaining 24 minutes is a discussion with Jensen's students. Submitted By: Kendra Barber Tags: discourse/language, religion, theory, bourdieu, culture, habitus, subculture, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 2:49 Access: YouTube Summary: Pierre Bourdieu popularized the sociological concept of habitus, but unfortunately Bourdieu is not the most accessible social theorist. One can use this humorous video and the examples it depicts to explain the concept to students. The clip satirizes an evangelical habitus and begins with the narrator asking rhetorically, "Ever been a part of a conversation with other Christians and you have no clue what they are saying?" To learn how to converse with Christians, all one needs to do, we are told, is buy the instructional tape series, "How to Speak Christianese." As habitus is a set or system of dispositions, including those pertaining to speech and language, the clip's depiction of Christians as sharing common idioms that must be learned works well as a means of illustrating how people occupy fairly distinct habitus. The clip can further serve as a means of illustrating how, depending on one's habitus, one might be predisposed to articulate the world in a particular way. Students can be encouraged to come up with their own examples of habitus. They can be asked to reflect on the advantages someone might have who is able to operate with ease within a particular habitus. Finally, students can even be asked to consider how likely it is for a person to truly inhabit a habitus after merely listening to a book on tape. Submitted By: Kendra Barber Tags: class, inequality, theory, cultural capital, child-rearing, concerted cultivation, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2009 Length: 10:00 Access: YouTube Summary: Wife Swap is a popular television show in which the wives/mothers of two families switch households, usually creating conflict in the clash between two very different families and their backgrounds/experiences. In this clip (an excerpt from season 5, episode 11), a mother from a blue-collar family (with 4 boys) who love to have fun (mainly through paintball) switches place with a mother from a professional, international family (with 2 children) that emphasizes health consciousness, environmental consciousness, education, and cultural awareness. It is a good accompaniment to discussions about social class and Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of types of cultural capital. Also good for demonstrating the child-rearing strategies (“concerted cultivation” and “accomplishment of natural growth”) found in Annette Lareau’s work in Unequal Childhoods. Submitted By: Anya Galli Bill Clinton describes global society in functionalist terms Tags: durkheim, theory, globalization, interdependence, structural functionalism, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 3:25 Access: YouTube Summary: Durkheim saw society as functioning like an organism with many inter-dependent parts, and he often referred to biological organisms as a metaphor for the functioning of society. This is demonstrated here with Bill Clinton's interview on Larry King Live, where Clinton defines global society by its "interdependence" and our commonalities. He even links human society to our similarity in DNA: "we don't have time to obsess about our differences any more...genetically we are all about 99.9% the same...from a political and social point of view that doesn't amount to a hill of beans." Note that the entire clip is 4:50, but the relevant section on interdependence ends at 3:25. Submitted By: Margaret Austin Smith Tags: goffman, theory, identity, institutionalization, resocialization, total institution, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1994 Length: 3:00 Access: YouTube Summary: In this clip is from Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" Brooks Hatlen, the prison librarian and one of the oldest inmates at Shawshank, reacts violently upon learning that he has been approved for release by the parole board. Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding subsequently engages in a discussion of what it means to be institutionalized. Drawing from this clip, students can be asked to discuss the characteristics of total institutions and how this leads to the concept of institutionalization as a dysfunction. Note that this clip can be successfully used in tandem with two additional clips. The first short clip, which is from "Full Metal Jacket" (here), depicts Marine recruits getting their heads shaved as a symbolic act meant to strip them of their former identities. In the second clip, also from "Full Metal Jacket" (here), the recruits' drill sergeant debases the recruits thereby further stripping them of their former identities. Submitted By: James Noon |
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