SOCIAL THEORIES AND GLOBALIZATION

This is one of the complementary courses within the "Japan" curriculum of the master degree programme in "Lingue, economie e istituzioni dell'Asia e dell'Africa Mediterranea". The course explains social theory from the following two perspectives. (i) Area and discipline studies, and (ii) Research design and research methods. The aim is to acquire flexible and versatile approaches and skills in problem-solving based on specific research and analysis methods.

Knowledge and understanding:
- Know and understand the essentials of social theories.

Apply knowledge and understanding:
- Use social theories to globalize research imagination.

Judgement:
- Exercise judgement in a comprehensive and multidimensional way.

Communication:
- Write a research proposal using knowledge of area studies and research design.

I recommend that students possess an intermediate level of Japanese (Level N3 JLPT) to integrate and deepen the issues presented during the course. Moreover, Students should have basic knowledge of the history and contemporary Japanese and Asian society or have received credits in SOCIETÀ CONTEMPORANEE DELL'ASIA ORIENTALE.

The schedule of classes is as follows:

① Social Theory and Research Design
② Area Studies and Disciplines
③ The Rise of ‘globalisation’
④ Area Studies in the Global Era
⑤ Topic, Theme, and Research Question(s)
⑥ Previous Studies and Data
⑦ Hypothesis and Valuables
⑧ Sampling
⑨: Research Methods (1)
⑩： Research Methods (2)
⑪: Research Methods (3)
⑫： Concepts (1)
⑬： Concepts (2)
⑭： Writing and Research (1)
⑮： Writing and Research (2)

Chang, Ha-Joon, 2014, Economics: The User's Guide, Pelican.
Conrad, Sebastian, 2016, What is Global History?, Princeton University Press.
Kiechel, Walter, 2010, The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World, Harvard Business Review Press.
Ryan, Alan, 2013, On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present, Penguin Books.
Massey, Doreen, 2005, For Space, SAGE Publications.
Marcus, George E. E. and Michael M. J. Fischer, 1999, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences, University of Chicago Press.
Hunt, Lynn, 2014, Writing History in the Global Era, W. W. Norton & Company.
Peter Burke, 2019, What is Cultural History?, Polity.
Plummer, Ken, 2021, Sociology: The Basics, Routledge.
Graeber, David and David Wengrow, 2021, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Appadurai, Arjun, 1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press.
Graeber, David, 2007, There Never Was a West: Or, Democracy Emerges From the Spaces In Between, From the collection "Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire" by AK Press.
Latour, Bruno, 2007, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, OUP Oxford.
Ong, Aihwa, 2006, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Duke University Press.
Sassen, Saskia, 2014, Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, The Belknap Press of Harvard Unversity Press.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, 2015, The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins, Princeton University Press.

Hammond, Michael and Jerry Wellington, 2020,  Research Methods: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides), Routledge.
Morin, Jean-Frederic, Christian Olsson, and Ece Ozlem Atikcan ed., 2021, Research Methods in the Social Sciences: An A-z of Key Concepts, Oxford University Press.


Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J., 2013, Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research, SAGE Publications.
Booth,  Wayne C. , Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup and William T. FitzGerald, 2016, The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition, Fourth Edition, the University of Chicago Press.
Chaubey, Varanya, 2018, The little book of research writing : the structural challenge of communicating knowledge + a method to meet it, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Creswell, John W., 2021, A Concise Introduction to Mixed Methods Research, ‎ SAGE Publications.
Creswell, John W., and Vicki L. Plano Clark, 2017, Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research, SAGE Publications.

Kottmann, Nora and Cornelia Reiher (eds.), 2020, Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, Nomos.
Mullaney, Thomas S., and Christopher Rea, 2022,, Where Research Begins Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You and the,World, Univ of Chicago Press.
Punch, Keith F, 2013, Introduction to Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, SAGE Publications Ltd. 
Silvia, Paul J., 2019, How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, 2nd ed, American Psychological Association.
Wadsworth, Yoland, 2020, Do It Yourself Social Research: The bestselling practical guide to doing social research projects, Routledge.

To complete this course, students must pass the following two assignments. The exam programme is the same for non-frequent students.
1) Pass the computer exam on ‘Social Theory’ (pass at 18/30, 50%).
2) Submit a research plan for your Tesi magistrale (50%). The research plan should include the following points: 1) what topics and themes you are interested in regarding Japan, 2) previous research, 3) what question you want to answer (research question), and 4) what methods you will use to collect data (research methods). The report should be written in English or Japanese. If it is in English, it should be around 1500 words; if it is in Japanese, it should be around 3000 characters.

Frontal lessons in Japanese.

All materials of the lessons and further readings will be available on the moodle platform dedicated to the course.

All course materials will be available on the moodle platform dedicated to the course.

Students who have obtained credits in East Asian History may also take this couse.

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This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development