Sociology Assignment on Nature, Culture and the Self

Due date: To be submitted on Sakai any time between November 22nd and 11:55 pm on November 25th Answer 5 out of the following 6 questions. Each answer will be marked out of 8, for a total possible mark of  40. This mark will be then divided by 2 for your mark out of 20. Write in coherent sentences, not in point form. Each answer should be roughly 150 – 200 words in length although a bit shorter or longer is fine, as long as the quality of writing and analysis remains good. Be sure to clearly demonstrate your understanding of the course readings, making specific reference to them wherever possible. Be sure to provide concrete examples that help to illustrate the points you are making.  

1) Referring to Sears and Cairns (chp. 6) and Omi / Winant, explain and illustrate the complicated distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. 
2) Drawing upon Sears and Cairns (chp. 5), explain what “breaching experiments” and “bracketing” are, and discuss what they help to contribute to our sociological understanding.  
3) Drawing upon Lawler, explain and illustrate Goffman’s “dramaturgical” model of the self. 
4) Explain and illustrate Sears and Cairns’ claim (in Chapter 7) that time, while seeming like a purely natural system, “is deeply rooted in our social relations”.  
5) Explain and illustrate how Rimke and Brock use Foucault’s ideas to analyse the ‘psychocentric’ tendencies of contemporary culture. 
6) Drawing upon Sears and Cairns (chp 8) and the Campbell/Manning reading, explain their different positions on the issues of “bias” and “neutrality” in sociological theory and research.  
 
This assignment will be scanned for signs of plagiarism, so be sure to properly acknowledge your sources When summarizing the ideas of others, be sure to cite or paraphrase correctly and do not simply directly reproduce the wording or examples from the readings, videos, PowerPoint slides, forum posts, Google search results, secondary sources, etc. Course readings can be cited simply and informally without a formal bibliographical entry – eg. (Sears and Cairns, p. 43) or (Lawler, p. 103).  As long as you make an effort to acknowledge borrowing from the course readings where appropriate, you do not need to have an entry for them in your reference list. 

External sources are not required and may even be a bad idea if they lead to possible plagiarism. If you do consult external materials, be sure to cite and paraphrase properly. Here is a link to the latest edition of the APA style guide that you can use for citing external sources: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_for
mat.html Lectures and PowerPoint Slides must also be properly cited if you are drawing directly upon them to construct 
your own ideas or examples. Here is a quick online guide to help you with this: https://www.beyondphdcoaching.com/apa-style/how-to-cite-a-lecture-apa/ NB: the ‘LMS’ system at Brock currently is SAKAI.