Reading Questions, Week 1

Eric Selbin: "Revolution in the Real World: Bringing Agency Back in"

1. What is the structuralist perspective of revolution? What does Selbin (and others) mean when he refers to "structure"? (124)

2. What is the problem with structural approaches to revolution?

3. What is the importance of "places, dates and heroes"?

4. What is Selbin's argument? (bottom of page 125, our page 2)

5. Where are the roles of "individuals discernible" in revolutions? (126)

6.  What do you think Selbin means when he says, "it is evident that modern revolutionaries have to some degree imitated the "classic" revolutions of France, Russia, Mexico, and China"? (126)

7. What are some problems that appear when invoking "culture" in relation to revolution?

8.  In what ways are revolutions centered around individual actors (agents)? (129)

9. What is "intentionality" and how does it operate in relation to collective memory?

10. What is popular political culture? How is often referred to? How does Selbin want us to think about it?

Mary Ann Tétreault,"Women and Revolution: A Framework for Analysis"

1. Who was Samuel Huntington and what was his definition of revolution? How does he differentiate between Eastern and Western Revolutions? (3, 6)

2. What do you make of Tétreault's claim that "unless a revolution can topple an old regime within a very short period of time, its ultimate triumph depends upon successful appeals to women and families to supply resources to nourish it" ? (4)

3.  Why is the concept / definition of revolution problematic?

4. Who is Theda Skoçpol and how did her theories break away from earlier ideas of revolution? (7)

5. What is a "gender class"?

6. In what ways do structural conditions affect human action / activity? (10)

7. What are the differences between and who are the primary prononents of the analysts "who think that the structure of the family is not connected to the structure of the social order, and those who believe it is" (11-14)

8.  Why does she talk about the bourgeois family and "privatization"?

9. What three sets of issues must be addressed in dealing with women, revolution and liberation? (19-20)

10.  In what ways does feminism force scholars to rethink the concept of revolution? (22)