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(Graduate students register for 270). We usually take it for granted that people around us follow social rules, norms, and conventions. But how are social order and stable social existence possible? And under what conditions does social change become possible? When we follow the rules or mobilize for new ones, do we act as free-willing individuals or do we merely respond to social structures that we have no control over? This class will discuss the insights from classical sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel) on these and other fundamental social questions. We will discuss other macro-level issues like the emergence of capitalism, the relationship between social structure and politics, and the social sources of religion and political ideology. In doing so, we will analyze how these thinkers are still relevant to understanding contemporary social transformations as well as how the world has changed since these thinkers wrote.