Utopistics: Alternatives of Social Development

Utopistike: alternative družbenega razvoja

Course credits:

6.00 ECTS / 45 (15 hours of lectures, 30 hours of exercises, 0 hours of seminars, 0 hours other forms of work)

Course holder:

prof. dr. Tanja Rener

Lecturers:

• Asst. Prof. Nina Perger
• Tch. Asst. Dr. Klemen Ploštajner

Type:

Required

Language:

Slovenian

Semester:

Second semester

Study degree

2. level

Course execution:

• Postgraduate Programme of Sociology

Short content

The course stimulates students to analytically and critically analyse historical alternatives of social development. Conceptually it is based on world-systems analysis by I. Wallerstein and colleagues and on the concept of real utopias by. E.O. Wright. The course reflects sociological dimensions of the structural crisis and limitations of capitalism as a world-system (de-ruralisation of the world, ecological crisis, redistribution crisis and anti-systemic movements). The course offers a theoretical basis for analysis of globalisation and its consequences, it analyses relationships between modernisation and globalisation and the concept of development and its forms (especially human development and ways of its measurement). The course is especially oriented into the presentation and analysis of alternatives of social development. The focus is put on the presentation and critical reflection of concepts such as de-growth, universal basic income, non-market forms of social exchange, universalism and cosmopolitanism. The course introduces and analyses anti-systemic movements from the second half of the 20th century onward and other forms of new social and political practices.