Class Syllabus

I.I will develop three main themes of theory, three unending tensions

• Getting physical work from continuing social organizations
• Disjunctions and uncertainties, physical and social, versus reproduction (work or social)
• Accounts of accomplishment and stories of valuation

The three will be seen to interweave:

• First, in a cycle through acceptable narrative explanation
• Second, on different levels -- micro, macro and soon;

So we work toward a theory of identity and control with its dialectic of de/coupling

II. We will draw on a variety of theoretical literatures in sociology, economics, and anthropology.

III. Our pragmatic will be applications to particular venues, cases, institutions.

One will be the evolution of the vast wine sector in Languedoc Roussilon as to production cooperatives, brokerages, consumption; others will be selected according to research topics some of you choose to write on.

IV. Some of you may wish to develop specification and operationalization rather than an empirical case.

This can be explicit modeling strategy

My Markets from Networks is an example, for late in the course - it appears Nov 26 from Princeton University Press.

1. I hope some of you will join me in working toward explicit modeling of narrative dynamics.
2. Instead you may attend to particular concepts: e.g.,
   • embedding vis a vis autonomy
   • history versus story
   • valuation vis a vis institutional spheres