We live in a time of immense flux that seems difficult
to chart, or even, comprehend. There is much talk about a transition from
Modernity to Postmodernity. Today's buzzwords include the Information Age,
the Digital Age, and Globalization. Still others speak about a shift from
Fordism to Post-Fordism? But what do these mean? What do they tell us
about the changes that swirl about us. How do these concepts help us make
sense of the downsizing and outsourcing which have destabilized our work
lives, or of the rising inequality that threatens civil society. Institutions
such as the nuclear family, which once seemed so stable that many thought
of them as eternal, have eroded rapidly in recent years. But why? Because
of changing labor markets? Because of shifting conceptions of gender? Because
of growing individualism and the decline of community? Because of the rampant
commodification of everyday life?
Where once the subject of social change was driven by a
faith in "progress" -- progress toward democracy, progress toward
social justice, progress toward civility, progress toward control over the
environment -- there are many today who have given up on "progress"
as the measure of change. Likewise there are those who have given up on
the Enlightenment-inspired notion that we can we direct or manage change
rationally. Certainly, an overarching theme of "postmodern" discourse
is that the age of grand metanarratives has come to an end. In a world where
less attention is given to unified or shared narratives of identity and
change, it is not surprising that much of what we encounter is marked by
fragmentation, or pluralism, depending on how you want to conceptualize
it.
This course has been predicated on the notion that we have not
arrived at the end of history; that we must try to take account our times
in the context of massive historical shifts and contradictions. Some commentators
would have us believe that the forces of change today are so vast that we
can only try to experience them, but we are not yet ready to concede that
these forces defy understanding.
This Web page represents an experiment by our Social Change
class to see if we could represent certain aspects of social and cultural
change in new ways afforded by this medium -- too see if we could give added
dimensionality to our efforts to represent some of the thorny issues of
change that we have taken up. Though this project was initially structured
by the syllabus readings, the students have been free to translate these
issues into their own topics and projects. We have worked, often without
a stable blueprint, at trying to weave together a hyperlinked and interconnected
analysis. At the risk of reducing these projects to pithy title headings,
the student inquiries included here have centered on some common topics:
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This web site assembled by Mark Thompson and fellow students in Sociology-Anthropology Social Change 314, Spring 1996
Comments may also be sent to Bob Goldman
Updated: 14-JUN-96
Expires: 01-JUN-98