S Roberts's List: Social Theoretical Philosophical

This site is also available through the CU Web's electronic databases. Social Theory offers an extensive selection of documents that explore the complexities and interpret the nature of social behavior and organization. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. The current release features more than 90,000 pages of content by such major theorists as Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Ulrich Beck, Howard Becker, Nancy Chodorow, Émile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Robert Merton, and Talcott Parsons.

Summary: Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is a framework and systematic way to consider the infrastructure surrounding technological achievements. Assigns agency to both human and non-human actors (e.g. artifacts)

Originator: Michel Callon (1991) and Bruno Latour (1992); John Law; others.

Key Terms: actor, network, generalized symmetry, equal agency