Fine Print

These first few paragraphs, in italics, contain information particular to the peculiar circumstances of the spring 2021 semester. After these italicized sections, you’ll find all the usual syllabus fine print about course objectives, policies, procedures, etc.

I will change any part of this syllabus at any time as necessary, as we continue to adjust to the challenges of the COVID pandemic.

First, some University-mandated syllabus verbiage, complements of the Provost’s office:

Campus Health, Wellness, and Safety

  • Reminder about the 12 Health and Safety Guidelines at Texas State, including those to wear a face covering, practice physical distancing, perform a self-assessment before coming to campus, stay home when sick, get tested for COVID-19, and report any positive COVID-19 test to Bobcat Trace as soon as possible.  Please note the university recently added two new guidelines to the original ten guidelines.
  • Importance of the Bobcat Pledge, including the shared responsibility to practice healthy behaviors and follow the health and safety guidelines, which shows respect for others and helps prevent the spread of COVID-19 on campus and in the surrounding community.
  • Link to the Student Roadmap for more information on students’ return to campus.

Statement on Civility and Compliance in the Classroom

Civility in the classroom is very important for the educational process and it is everyone’s responsibility.  If you have questions about appropriate behavior in a particular class, please address them with your instructor first.  Disciplinary procedures may be implemented for refusing to follow an instructor’s directive, refusing to leave the classroom, not following the university’s requirement to wear a cloth face covering, not complying with social distancing or sneeze and cough etiquette, and refusing to implement other health and safety measures as required by the university.  Additionally, the instructor, in consultation with the department chair/school director, may refer the student to the Office of the Dean of Students for further disciplinary review.  Such reviews may result in consequences ranging from warnings to sanctions from the university.  For more information regarding conduct in the classroom, please review the following policies at AA/PPS 02.03.02, Section 03: Courteous and Civil Learning Environment, and Code of Student Conduct, number II, Responsibilities of Students, Section 02.02: Conduct Prohibited.

Emergency Management
 
In the event of an emergency, faculty, students, and staff should monitor the Safety and Emergency Communications web page.  This page will be updated with the latest information available to the university, in addition to providing links to information concerning safety resources and emergency procedures.  Faculty, students, and staff are encouraged to sign up for the TXState Alert system.

Next, some further pandemic times information from your instructor.

Face-to-Face class

This class meets in person on campus every Tuesday Thursday, and because it is a small class in a big room, all of us can attend every class period. And indeed, students are expected to attend all class meetings. Class participation is a graded element in this course. Having said all that, here are a couple of exception. First, students with particular COVID-related concerns or conditions may be permitted to attend synchronously via Zoom. Talk to me if that is relevant to you. Second, all of us will Zoom the first two weeks. See next paragraph!

Zoom

Some portion of our spring 2021 class meetings and all office hours will be conducted via Zoom. Right now, we are scheduled to meet via Zoom only for the first two weeks of class. If COVID conditions worsen, the university may have us move additional weeks to Zoom.
Zoom is a free, university-supported program. If you haven’t done so already, download the Zoom client to your desktop or phone right away!
For tips on using Zoom, see https://doit.txstate.edu/services/online-meetings.

Canvas

The classroom management software we’ll be using is Canvas. Perhaps most of you have seen Canvas used in other courses by now, but maybe not. It’s more or less like Texas State’s old TRACS. Canvas works best with the Chrome or Firefox browsers; I strongly recommend you use one of those when you’re accessing Canvas.

It is your responsibility to set the notifications within Canvas so that you receive all notices from me and about this course. If you miss something because “Canvas didn’t tell you,” that’s on you.

Alright, now on to the usual syllabus stuff!

Reading

The required book for this seminar is:
Jacoby, Susan. 2018. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-525-43652-2.

There are additional required readings available on this class website.

Email, not Voicemail

I am happy to meet with you in office hours, or at another time if my office hours don’t work for you. I also check email regularly. Do not leave voice mail for me on my office phone. I do not check voice mail.

Grading

siege analysis  40
book analysis 100
news action plan 100
hoaxsters paper 100
participation 100
“one more thing” essay   60
500

Your participation grade will reflect the quality of your contributions to our discussions in seminar. Students should arrive for each class meeting ready to discuss readings and current events. Any absence will negatively affect your participation grade, but just showing up every time and declining to contribute meaningfully will result in a poor participation grade, too.

The assignments are described in detail here.

Course Objectives and Instructional Methodologies

I am particularly interested in structuring the course and its assignments in a way that will challenge students, regardless of their own political biases, to consider their own habits of thinking about the “other side.” Nobody has a monopoly on bone headedness. The data show that partisans of all stripes often think about politics and the culture at large in simplistic, emotionally satisfying ways. Partisans of all stripes routinely minimize careful research and deliberation. (For example, those on the political left are sympathetic to one set of conspiracy theories that do not withstand careful scrutiny, while those on the right are sympathetic to another set of such conspiracy theories.)

As a political sociologist by training, I draw extensively on the literature from sociology, political science, and, for this topic, psychology. So the course will be interdisciplinary. Moreover, the assignments and obligations of this course will require students to read carefully, and to articulate their own positions (and others’) fairly and with precision. The assignments will require a mindful, creative approach to making sense of anti-intellectualism, and to the conditions that promote or discourage it.

I will lecture for about one-fourth of the time most days. Most of the balance of class time will go to structured classroom discussions of ideas from lectures and especially to analysis of the assigned readings. We will also spend some class time considering current events that are relevant to class. For example, we will analyze current campaign ads and score them for anti-intellectualism. Campaigning for the U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections of 2020 will be in high gear during the spring 2020 semester. Indeed, the list of presidential hopefuls will probably not yet have been winnowed, and we are likely to see lively Republican and Democratic single-party televised as both parties work toward naming their nominees at their respective national conventions. We will take full advantage and use the campaign season as a kind of case study, watching for moments of greater or lesser anti-intellectualism in candidates’ campaign messages, media coverage of the season, partisan attacks that persist or die quickly in interesting ways, and so forth.

Make ups, Late Papers

Assignments turned in late (after the deadline in Canvas) will lose 50 percent of the total point value per day late. For a paper with a 12:00 p.m. deadline, the first 50 percent is deducted at one nanosecond past noon, while the clock still reads 12:00. The other 50 percent are lost 24 hours later. Make ups will be allowed only with a note from a doctor of funeral home, and must be turned in no later than one week after the student’s return.

Students with Disabilities

Per the Office of Disability Services: “If you are a student with a disability who will require an accommodation(s) to participate in this course, please contact me as soon as possible. You will be asked to provide documentation from the Office of Disability Services. Failure to contact me in a timely manner may delay your accommodations.”

Electronic Devices

Messing with your phone in class is an expression of contempt for the rest of us. Do not use your phone during class. You risk being asked to leave if you break this rule. Laptops are permitted in the front half of the room, but should be used for note taking only. Because of the discussion format of this class and issues of privacy, politics, and creating an atmosphere conducive to open discussion, I do not allow recording the class without explicit permission.

Spring 2021: do not post or share our Zoom meetings or Canvas discussions or Ensemble videos or anything like that outside of our class and its virtual environments without my permission.

Texas State University Academic Integrity Policy

(Here follows my edited version of language generated by committee for use in the Dept. of Sociology.) As members of the university community, students are expected to be aware of and abide by university policies regarding academic honesty. By the same token, members of the faculty within the university community are expected to enforce those policies. Members of the Department of Sociology operate on the assumption that each student has thoroughly reviewed the university policies regarding academic honesty and that the policies will be followed. Accordingly, members of the Department of Sociology will enforce all policies related to academic honesty.

Academic dishonesty includes the following: cheating, plagiarism, collusion and/or abuse of resource materials. Each term or phrase is defined in some detail in the official links below. Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:

  • downloading or buying a research paper
  • cutting and pasting information from several sources to create a paper
  • leaving out quotation marks around quoted material, placing quotation marks around some but not all copied information
  • leaving out quotation marks around copied information but adding a citation implying that the information is the student’s summary of the source
  • leaving out quotation marks for more than three consecutive words taken directly from a source
  • providing a reference/bibliograghy page but leaving out the reference citation in the body of the paper
  • faking a citation
  • unintentionally using words or ideas or quotes without citing them in the body of the paper and on the reference/bibliograghy page (http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm)

Ignorance of what constitutes plagiarism or having plagiarized in the past without having been penalized does not excuse such acts in the Department of Sociology. Any student charged with plagiarism may appeal in writing in accordance with Texas State University policy. University policy statements relevant to academic integrity are available via these links:

Texas State Code of Conduct

Honor Code

Academic Honesty, UPPS No. 07.10.01