Modernity and Globalisation

Objectives

a) Knowledge and understanding of changes in social structures, mentalities and lifestyles triggered by modernity and the historical, economic and social processes that caused them;
b) Knowledge and understanding of the origin and the concept of globalization, the different types of globalization and its impact on social, economic and cultural development in the contemporary world;
c) Knowledge and understanding of the process of globalization, in the long term, including the construction of the inseparable relationship of modernity with the gradual implementation of globalization;
d) The ability to discuss and analyze the origins, characteristics and impacts of modernity and globalization from the available studies and empirical materials;
e) Develop advanced skills in the work of critical reading of texts and problematization in relation to social contexts to be analyzed;
f) Develop the ability to question the contemporary world, and engage in discussions on this.

General characterization

Code

711081021

Credits

6

Responsible teacher

Available soon

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

None.

Bibliography

Berger, P.L. & Huntington, S.P. (eds) (2002). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world.
Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Eisenstadt S.N. (2007). Múltiplas modernidades. Lisboa: Livros Horizonte.
Wagner, P. (2008). Modernity as experience and interpretation. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Huntington, S.P. (2006). O choque das civilizações e a mudança na ordem mundial. Lisboa: Gradiva.
Ritzer, G. & Atalay, Z. (2010). Readings in globalization: Key concepts and major debates. Londres: Wiley-Blackwell.

Teaching method

1. Lectures (50%).
2. Practical classes (50%): analysis and discussion by the students of sociologically relevant issues; presentation and discussion of texts by teh students, in order to create skills enabling a critical reading of texts.

Evaluation method

Continuous evaluation of students´ participation in classroom exercises and debates (15%). One written essay (30%). Oral presentation of the essay (5%). One written test in class on the whole syllabus (50%).

Subject matter

1.Modernity: fundamental problems, the theoretical contributions
2.Modernity as a western project:
A Historical perspective: capitalism and industrialism
2.1. Rationality and Westernization
2.2. Secularization, progress and science as ideology:
A Historical perspective: the city and new lifestyles
3. Critique of Modernity:
Romanticism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism
4. Construction of the modern state:
War and territorially, coercion and capital:
Despotic power and infrastructural power
5. The end of modernity or another modernity?
6. Multiple modernities:
Modernities vs. Westernization
7. Globalization: contributions to a definition:
Globalization: one or more?
8. Nation states, transnational corporations and global networks:
Decline of the nation-state?
9. Values, models of society and lifestyles:
Homogenization, differentiation and glocalization:
The thesis of Macdonaldization and global capitalism
10. Globalization and social inequalities
10.1 Integration and exclusion in global society.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: