The Public Sphere (10 credits) Dr. Pat O'Mahony
Content: Habermas’s foundational account of the structural transformation of the public sphere and its later reception; historical accounts of the evolution of the public sphere; Habermas’s later work on deliberation, discourse ethics and the public sphere; the public sphere and liberal-representative elitism; radical alternative accounts of the public spheres; the cognitive pragmatic turn as a new foundation for theorizing and applying the concept sociologically

Delivery: Four x one day intensive seminars. Dates: January 27th 2009 ; February 3rd 2009; February 10th, 2009; February 17th 2009.

Contemporary Ireland: Life Politics, Social Relations and New Social Movements.
(10 credits) Dr. Linda Connolly
Description: This course explores the notion of a changing Ireland in specific social and cultural arenas and by outlining different ways of understanding and theorising aspects of Irish society. In particular, the seminars in this course move beyond the prevailing economic/structural reading of the Celtic Tiger and look in detail at key aspects of ‘change’ as it has been experienced in the private as well as the public sphere in four substantive areas: family life; gender relations; sexualities/the transformation of intimacy; immigration, racism and cultural diversity.

Delivery: This seminar series will run over six weeks, 9.30am – 1pm on each date. This will mirror the seminar series delivered by Dr. Martin Geoghegan (see below) which will run on the same dates from 2-5.30pm, facilitating attendance at both: Wednesday, 7th January, Wednesday, 28th January ; Wednesday, 11th February; Wednesday, 25th February; Wednesday, 11th March; Wednesday, 25th March, 2009.

Civil society: concepts, case studies and theories – postmodern politics, welfare and citizenship.
(10 credits) Dr. Martin Geoghegan
Description: This course has three core intellectual objectives: (1) to explore the myriad conceptual uses that civil society has been put to throughout history. (2) The exploration of the re-emergence of the concept in the late twentieth century, including the “velvet” revolutions of the late 1980s (3) the “seepage” of the concept into western social thought and political action in the 1990s: from the neo-conservatism of Kristol, to the neo-liberalism of Fukuyama and Putnam; from the communitarianism of Etzioni and Dahrendorf, to the pluralism of Young and the civic republicanism of Barber; and from the post-Marxism of Habermas, Melucci, Offe et al, to the neo-Gramscianism of Hardt and Negri.

Delivery: This seminar series will run over six weeks, 2pm – 5.30pm on each date. This will mirror the seminar series delivered by Dr. Linda Connolly (see above) which will run on the same dates from 9.30am-1pm, facilitating attendance at both. Dates as given above for Dr. Connolly’s seminar series.

Methods and Policy (10 credits) Delivered by staff Dept of Government
Module Objective: To introduce students to core competencies in public policy analysis and programme evaluation.
Module Content: Meanings of analysis, research and evaluation; historical and political considerations surrounding analysis and evaluation; the stakeholder concept, the contrast between practical and scientific approaches; the role of theory in guiding analysis and evaluation.
Learning Outcomes: Ability to evaluate public policy programmes using a variety of analytical approaches.
Delivery: Spring 2009 – three day workshops (dates TBC).

Sociology of the Mass Media (10 credits) Dr. Ciaran McCullagh
Description: The mass media, especially television and increasingly the internet, can lay justifiable claim to considered as the central institution in modern society. For many of us the reality of wars, elections, scandals and David Beckham is what we see on television. We “know” particular things happen because we see them on television. This in turn means that if someone can control what gets into the media they potentially have huge power in society. Thus mass communication and political and social power are inextricably linked in contemporary society. The aim of this seminar is to explore the nature of these links and to identify and locate how power and influence operates through the mass media.

Delivery: Fortnightly one off seminars beginning Jan 27th 2009.

Credit-weighted Summer Schools to which the PhD (Social Science) is partnered in semester 2:

THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL (TAPSS) (10 credits)
UCC School of Sociology and Philosophy
TAPSS is an intensive course in theories, concepts and ideas designed for the needs of postgraduate students & researchers, especially doctoral candidates, in the Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, in Sociology, Philosophy, History, Anthropology, Politics, Languages, Arts, Literature and Classics, from universities throughout Ireland, Europe and North America who are developing theoretical and interpretive paradigms for their research. See: www.tapss.ie

IPA Summer School in International Political Anthropology (10 credits)
The International Political Anthropology Summer School is an intensive course in theories, concepts and ideas designed for the needs of postgraduate students & researchers, especially doctoral candidates, in the Social Sciences & Humanities, in Anthropology, Politics, Sociology, Philosophy, History and Classics, from universities throughout Europe and North America who are developing theoretical and interpretive paradigms for their research.
See: www.ipa3.com