Sociotechnocanonicon

The Sociotechnocanonicon Great Books Discussion Series allows members of the CDSC to build their familiarity with some of the classic works which are foundational to the collective's research program.

The discussions are open to all, and facilitated by senior members of CDSC in order to introduce the broader context of the work. Meetings are held in person and aired over Jitsi for remote participation. Themes we often try to cover including collective action, social movements, participatory-democracy, networks, sociomateriality, sociotechnical systems, and cooperation.

This page covers the Summer 2022 version of the reading group. Links to previous years are at the bottom of the page.

2024 Call for Suggestions!

Books

Already planned: [2024-05-24 at 1:00pm PDT; 3:00pm CDT; 4:00pm EDT] The Ordinal Society by Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy. Organized by Nate.

The Curious Culture of Economic Theory by Ran Spiegler — This is an economist's reflections on the professional culture of economic theory, should be fun to read about how economics develop their theories, and reflect generally on social sciences. -- from Yibin

Papers

As some of our group members suggested, we may want to have some sessions for reading selected great papers together! Here you are welcome to leave recommended papers' references that you think are potentially of interest for our group. Common topics may emerge when there are multiple recommendations so that we can organize a topical reading session!

2023 Details

[2023-07-03] The Dispossessed (Ursula K. LeGuin)
[2023-07-17] Trust in Numbers by Theodore M. Porter
[2023-07-31] Foundations of Social Theory by James Coleman selections: pages 1-54, 65-71, 91-108, 119-321 (selections are inspired by this syllabus from Paul DiMiaggio)

Not required but maybe interesting to read would be these other pieces suggested by DiMaggio:

- Symposium on Coleman. 1992. Theory and Society 21: 263-83 (1992).

- Symposium on Coleman. 1990. Contemporary Sociology 19: 783-88.

- Frank, Robert H. 1992. “Melding Sociology and Economics: James Coleman’s Foundations of Social Theory. Journal of Economic Literature 30: 147-70.

- Macy, Michael and Andreas Flache. 1995. “Beyond Rationality in Models of Choice.” Annual Rev. of Sociology 21: 73-92.

- Hechter, Michael and S. Kanazawa. 1997. “Sociological Rational Choice Theory.” Annual Rev. of Sociology 23: 191-214.

[2023-08-14] Foundations of Social Theory (part 2)
[2023-08-28] Behind the Screen by Sarah T. Roberts

2023 Suggestions

Foundations of Social Theory by James Coleman — This is the shipyard that produced Coleman's boat! Haomin wants to read it. Description: "Combining principles of individual rational choice with a sociological conception of collective action, James Coleman recasts social theory in a bold new way. The result is a landmark in sociological theory, capable of describing both stability and change in social systems." —mako ๛ 02:22, 26 April 2023 (CEST)

I read this for generals, would read again with a group. Kaylea (talk) 02:35, 26 April 2023 (CEST)

+1s mdb

Behind the Screen by Sarah T. Roberts — This is an ethnographic study on how content moderation is conducted on the Internet. It is quite of interest because oftentimes how content moderation is done is quite like a "black box", while this study opens it for us and provides insights on the governance of online communities. — from Yibin

Trust in Numbers by Theodore M. Porter — This is a history of quantification in social institutions and social science. I'm planning on reading this with McKane in August and if others are interested we can do it for STC. I'm interested in this for understanding the practice, role, and limitations of quantitative social science. — from Nate

It was fun to kick things off with some fiction last time 'round. Maybe we can do that again! Kaylea (talk) 21:01, 22 May 2023 (CEST)
- The Disposessed (Ursula K. LeGuin) (soft agreement on this from CDSC meeting -mdb)
- Infomocracy (Malka Older)
- Ancillary Sword (Ann Leckie)

2022 Details

We will be meeting after the Monday softblock. Meetings will be 13:00 ET / 12:00 CT / 10:00 PT.

Notes: https://etherpad.communitydata.science/p/sociotechnocanonicon_2022

Meeting Dates

06/27 - Exhilation by Ted Chiang
07/04 - No meeting
07/11 - The Sciences of the Artificial (1-4)
07/18 - The Sciences of the Artificial (5-8)
07/25 - The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media (Intro-4)
08/01 - The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media (5-9). The methodological appendix is worth reading imo (-- Nate)
08/08 - Dividing the Waters (1-8)
08/15 - Dividing the Waters (8-15)
08/22 - The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations