…it seems that theory modules are being squeezed out of UK sociology degrees because students find them boring…Is part of the problem to do with how we teach theory?
…Theory is not an abstract exercise but an attempt to deal with real and urgent problems. It is also dangerous. The trite narrative of ‘dead white men’ misses the risks that they took to challenge accepted ways of thinking and the social order that they sustained. These men often put their lives and liberty on the line. They were not the comfortable and entitled figures that we sometimes see today. It is easy to be a critical theorist from a tenured chair at an R1 university. In the 17th century, criticism might well mean exile, a prison sentence or public mutilation, if not execution.students find them boring…Is part of the problem to do with how we teach theory?…