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Sociology of Knowledge

Code: 101131
Credits: 6
2026/2027
Degree programme Type Course
Sociology OP 4

Contact lecturer

Name :
Esperanza Bielsa Mialet
Email :
esperanza.bielsa@uab.cat

Teaching staff

Esperanza Bielsa Mialet
Maria del Mar Griera Llonch

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

There is none.

Objectives

The aim of this module is to examine knowledge from a sociological perspective. Throughout the course, we will address questions such as the following: What counts as knowledge in our society? What role do institutions such as universities play in the production of knowledge? How are intellectuals defined and approached? Whom do we regard as experts? What role does translation play in the production and dissemination of knowledge? What are the main challenges that pressing contemporary issues such as the climate emergency, non-human animals, and artificial intelligence pose to disciplinary knowledge?

The course provides a theoretical and methodological toolkit for critically analysing how knowledge is defined, produced, and disseminated in different contexts, as well as the role it plays in the so-called knowledge society. At the same time, it highlights the central importance of epistemological reflection for the practice of sociological research itself. To this end, we will combine classic readings in the sociology of knowledge with more recent contributions on the translation of knowledge, the climate emergency, and the effects of artificial intelligence on knowledge.


Learning outcomes

  1. Students must be capable of assessing the quality of their own work.
  2. Effectively communicating the basic analysis of social phenomena in an elementary level of English.
  3. Students must be capable of managing their own time, planning their own study, managing the relationship with their tutor or adviser, as well as setting and meeting deadlines for a work project.
  4. Searching for documentary sources starting from concepts.
  5. Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  6. Developing self-learning strategies.
  7. Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  8. Generating innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  9. Defining the sociological concepts that interpret the cultural phenomena.
  10. Comparing the different theoretical approaches about culture.
  11. Explaining the social interpretations of culture according to these approaches.
  12. Expressing the debates regarding these approaches, that refer to culture.
  13. Relating the debates regarding these approaches, that refer to culture, with the historical context in which they emerged.
  14. Defining the underlying social phenomena of cultural policies and conflicts.
  15. Comparing the reading of cultural phenomena from several ideologies of the social reality of Spain and Catalonia.

Contents

The module is organised into the following thematic parts:

1. Knowledge and the sociology of knowledge

2. Intellectuals and experts

3. Universities in a context of neoliberal globalisation

4. Production and dissemination of knowledge: issues of translation

5. New challenges for the sociology of knowledge: the climate emergency, non-human animals, artificial intelligence

Learning activities and methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Lectures 39 1.56
Debates in class and preparation of the essay 15 0.6
Reading and commentary of the texts 71.5 2.86

The module combines lectures and seminars with presentations and discussions of the compulsory readings. In addition, students will complete an in-class essay based on a selected question.


Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title Weight Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Seminar diary 15 10 0.4 7, 10
Final Exam 50 2.5 0.1 9, 10, 13, 14
Essay 20 2 0.08 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15
In-class presentation 15 10 0.4 5, 7, 9

The module will be assessed as follows:

  1. Seminar presentation on one of the course readings. Individual assignment. 15% of the final grade.
  2. Seminar diary based on the student discussions of the required readings. Individual assignment. 15% of the final grade.
  3. In-class essay. Individual assignment. 20% of the final grade.
  4. Written examination. Individual assessment. 50% of the final grade.

To obtain a final grade, students must achieve a minimum mark of 3/10 in each assessment component.

The following conditions also apply:

a) Given the nature of the course and its assessment methods, regular attendance at class sessions is essential.

b) The successful running of the course depends on students delivering their seminar presentation on the assigned date and submitting the corresponding written paper.

c) A grade of "Not Assessed" indicates that the student has not been assessed in one or more of the four assessment components listed above.

d) As there is no longer a second examination period within the same academic year, students who obtain a final mark of 3.5/10 or higher but below 5/10 will be entitled to sit a resit examination in order to pass the course (with a maximum attainable grade of 5/10). The resit examination will take place a few days after the publication of the final grades.


Single assessment

Students opting for the single-assessment option will be assessed by means of a written examination at the end of the course. They will be required to answer all six exam questions (whereas students following the continuous assessment route are required to answer only two of the six questions). This examination accounts for 100% of the final grade.

The same resit policy as for continuous assessment will apply.


Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using the work of others as if it were your own. All written work must be your own work. Whenever you make use of books, articles, internet pages or any other material, you must make this clear by the appropriate use of references and, where a passage is cited word by word, by the use of quotation marks. Plagiarism is a serious offence and is regarded in the same light as cheating on examinations. Plagiarism will result in a mark of 0 for the essay and failing the module.

Bibliography

Knowledge and the sociology of knowledge

Adolf, M. and Stehr, N. (2017) Knowledge. Second edition. London and New York: Routledge.

Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. London: Penguin.

Bloor, D. (1998) Knowledge and Social Imagery. Second edition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Collyer, F. (2025) Research Handbook on the Sociology of Knowledge. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Elias, N. (1971) ‘Sociology of Knowledge: New Perspectives Part One’, Sociology, (2), pp. 149–168.

Elias, N. (1971) ‘Sociology of Knowledge: New Perspectives Part Two’, Sociology, 5, pp. 355–370.

Mannheim, K. (1936) [1929] Ideology and Utopia. Translated by L. Wirth and E. Shils. London: Routledge.

Walsh, P. (2026) The Reality of Knowledge. London and New York: Routledge.

Intellectuals

Bauman, Z. (1991) Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity.

Benjamin, W. (1999) ‘The Author as Producer’, in M.W. Jennings, H. Eiland, and G. Smith (eds), R. Livingston (tran.) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Belknap Press, pp. 768–782.

Bourdieu, P. (1989) ‘The Corporatism of the Universal: The Role of Intellectuals in the Modern World’, Telos, 1989(81), pp. 99–110. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3817/0989081099.

Collins, R. (1998) The Sociology of Philosophies. Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press.

Kurzman, Charles, and Lynn Owens. “The Sociology of Intellectuals.” Annual review of sociology 28.1 (2002): 63–90.

Said, E.W. (1996) Representations of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage Books.

Experts

Bauman, Z. (1987) Legislators and Interpreters. Cambridge: Polity.

Collins, H. and Evans, R. (2007) Rethinking Expertise. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Eyal, G. (2019) The Crisis of Expertise. Cambridge: Polity

Eyal, Gil, and Larissa Buchholz. “From the Sociology of Intellectuals to the Sociology of Interventions.” Annual review of sociology 36.1 (2010): 117–137.

Stehr, N. and Grundmann, R. (2011) Experts. London and New York: Routledge.

Turner, S.P. (2014) The Politics of Expertise. London and New York: Routledge.

The university

Collini, S. (2022) What are Universities For? London: Penguin.

Collini, S. (2017) Speaking of Universities. London: Verso.

Connell, R. (2019) The Good University. London: Zed.

Derrida, J. (2002) La Universidad sin condición. Madrid: Trotta.

Fleming, P. (2021) Dark Academia. How Universities Die. London: Pluto Press.

Kant, I. (2020) [1798] El conflicto de las facultades. Madrid: Alianza editorial.

Mbembe, A. (2016) ‘Decolonizing the university: New directions’, Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 15:1, pp. 29-45.

Sousa Santos, B. de (2007) ‘La universidad en el siglo XXI. Para una reforma democrática y emancipadora de la universidad’, Umbrales 15, pp. 13-70.

Academic translation

Bielsa, E. (2023) ‘Translating academia. Implications for knowledge production in the social sciences and the humanities’, Social Science Information, 62(4), pp. 427–439.

Bielsa, E. (2024) ‘Translating ‘Understanding’/ Understanding translation: A reflexive approach’, The Sociological Review, 72(4).

Bielsa, E. et al. (2024) ‘Recommendations on the translation of academic texts in the social sciences and the humanities’, Social Science Information, 63(3), pp. 285–297. doi:10.1177/05390184241261509.

Cussel, M., Bielsa, E. and Bestué, C. (2023) ‘Politics of translation: Assimilation and reflexivity in the transformation of academic texts’, Social Science Information, 62(4), pp. 465–488. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184231220853.

Montgomery, S.L. (2000) Science in Translation. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Ortega y Gasset, J. (1964) ‘Miseria y esplendor de la traducción’, Obras Completas. Vol 5. Sexta edic. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, pp. 431–452.

Sapiro, G., Santoro, M. and Baert, P. (eds) (2020) Ideas on the Move in the Social Sciences and the Humanities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wallerstein, I. (1981) ‘Concepts in the Social Sciences: Problems of Translation’, in Rose, M.G. (ed.) Translation Spectrum. Essays in Theory and Practice. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 88–98.

Knowledge translation

Bachmann-Medick, D. (2016) Cultural Turns. Translated by A. Blauhut. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Engebretsen, E., Fraas Henrichsen, G. and Ødemark, J. (2020) ‘Towards a translational medical humanities: Introducing the cultural crossings of care’, Medical Humanities, 46(2), p. E2. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2019-011751.

Callon, M. (1984) ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of Saint-Brieuc Bay’, The Sociological Review, 32(1), pp. 196–233. Available at: https://doi.org/10.22394/0869-5377-2017-2-49-90.

Callon, M. and Latour, B. (1981) ‘Unscrewing the big Leviathan: how actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so’, in K. Knorr-Cetina and A.V. Cicourel (eds) Advances in Social Theory and Methodology. London: Routledge, pp. 277–303.

Ødemark, J., Reslokken, A. N. Lillehagen, I. and Engebretsen, E. (2024) The Sociology of Translation and the Politics of Sustainability. New York and London: Routledge.

Knowledge and the climate emergency

Beck, U. (2016) The Metamorphosis of the World. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bielsa, E. (2026) ‘Translation and the Climate Emergency: A New Sociological Imagination’, The Sociological Review, 74(1), pp. 24-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261241305878

Bielsa, E. (2023) A Translational Sociology. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Politics and Society. London and New York: Routledge.

Bielsa, E. (2025) ‘Towards a Translational Sociology’, a S. Tyulenev and W. Luo (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sociology. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 196–210.

Mathur, N. (2017) ‘The Task of the Climate Translator’, Economic & Political Weekly, LII(31), pp. 77–84.

Tsing, A.L. (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Knowledge and non-human animals

Bielsa, E. (2026). The language of animals: Towards a translational sociology of human–animal relations. Dialogues in Sociology.https://doi.org/10.1177/29768667251414332

Carter B, Charles N (2018) The animal challenge to sociology. European Journal of Social Theory 21(1): 79–97.

Despret, V. (2016) What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions? Translated by B. Buchanan. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Fraser, H. i Taylor, N. (2016) Neoliberalization, Universities and the Public Intellectual. Species, Gender and Class and the Production of Knowledge. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Koop-Monteiro Y (2023) Including animals in sociology. Current Sociology 71(6): 1141–1158.

Haraway, D.J. (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

Haraway, D.J. (2008) When Species Meet. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Haraway, D.J. (2016) Staying with the Trouble. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Lorenz, K. (2017) Hablaba con las bestias, los peces y los pájaros. Traducció de R. Margalef. Barcelona: Tusquets.

Artificial intelligence and human knowledge

Collins, H. (2018) Artifictional Intelligence: Against Humanity’s Surrender to Computers. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Collins, H. (2025) ‘Why artificial intelligence needs sociology of knowledge: parts I and II’, AI & Society, 40(3), pp. 1249–1263. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01954-8.

Innerarity, D. (2025) Una teoría crítica de la inteligencia artificial. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.

Liu, Z. (2021) ‘Sociological perspectives on artificial intelligence: A typological reading’, Sociology Compass, 15(e12851), pp. 1–13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12851.



Software

There is no specific one.

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE

Type of teaching Group Language Semester Shift
(TE) Theory 51 Catalan first semester afternoon
(PAUL) Classroom practices 51 Catalan first semester afternoon