The fact we’ve just moved to a new server, it’s almost five years since we started the site and an impending deadline have left me contemplating future plans for SI. I recently closed my personal blog in order to focus… Read More ›
Higher Education 
#FreshersToFinals: Understanding LGBT people’s perspectives on higher education
#FreshersToFinals: Understanding LGBT people’s perspectives on higher education Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* (LGBT) young people are increasingly visible in policy and practice, often in relation to homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. However, this can result in misunderstandings and/or over-simplification… Read More ›
3rd British Sociological Association Early Career Theorists Symposium
3rd British Sociological Association Early Career Theorists Symposium Friday May 292015 Professor Stuart Hall Building room 326, Goldsmiths College Organised by Francisco Calafate-Fario (Goldsmiths) and Silvia Pasquetti (Cambridge) Supported by Goldsmiths’ Department of Sociology Attendance is free but places are… Read More ›
The drip-by-drip erosion of our liberties in an age of austerity
Towards the end of her memoir/manifesto, the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas offers an articulate warning about the “drip-by-drip erosion of our liberties”: There is little risk of anyone seizing power, declaring martial law or suspending the constitution in Britain;… Read More ›
A world without foundations: Politics, society and history in post-foundationalist thought
International Conference —————————————————————————————————— A world without foundations: Politics, society and history in post-foundationalist thought September 23 & 24, 2015 Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile Keynote speakers: Oliver Marchart (Academy of Arts Düsseldorf, Germany) Martín Plot (CalArts, EE.UU.) —————————————————————————————————— In… Read More ›
The Fallacy of Misplaced Modesty: Why Academics Don’t Become Intellectuals
The fact that you have a Ph.D. — let alone that you teach at a good university — doesn’t make you an intellectual. Being an intellectual means, at the very least, that you can convey ideas in multiple media, thereby… Read More ›
Heating up the floor to see who can keep hopping the longest
This expression by Will Davies has stuck with me since I read it a few months ago. Teaching is a disturbing example of the process Will is alluding to: ratcheting up demands on staff to the point where many are… Read More ›
Using social media to improve the student experience: creating a departmental back channel for undergraduates
A few years ago when I was running the Twitter feed for the Sociology department at Warwick, I noticed how readily first year undergraduates tweeted practical questions to the account during their first few weeks of the first term. Students… Read More ›
Five important works of realist social theory being published in 2015
To Flourish or Destruct: A Personalist Theory of Human Goods, Motivations, Failure, and Evil Generative Mechanisms Transforming the Social Order (Social Morphogenesis) The Relational Subject Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach A realist philosophy of social science
Who is this describing?
From this article (don’t read it yet though!): “barely capable of distinguishing themselves from the consuming desire to work at all times” “neurotic people who deploy a series of practices that coincide quite neatly with the requirements of the neoliberal,… Read More ›
Justice in the Neo-Liberal Academy
Over the past few weeks I have been having a series of interesting exchanges with a young Canadian philosopher (who works outside of academia), Adam Riggio, who has been responding chapter-by-chapter to my latest book, Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in… Read More ›
From passion to profit: exploitation under neoliberalism, or, how seriously should we take latte art?
Since I first encountered the notion of a calling, I’ve found it a difficult category to expunge from my thought. It appeals to me greatly on a personal level: it points to the higher dimension to human experience which I believe tends… Read More ›
Are academics very well-educated journalists who write badly but will work for free?
A few years ago I wrote a short article about the relationship between academic blogging and journalism which received a pretty positive reaction online. My suggestion was that academic blogging increasingly constitutes a ‘third space’ between the academy and journalism… Read More ›
Cruel optimism in #highered
This powerful essay by Maria Warner in the LRB echoes what I was trying to say recently about the perils of passion: A university is a place where ideas are meant to be freely explored, where independence of thought and the… Read More ›
The difficulty of organising events in a digital age, or, ‘y u register but no turn up?’
I’ve often seen events advertised, thought ‘that looks interesting’ and booked a place, giving little thought to how I’ll actually get there on a specific day. It’s an expressive action, with booking a place being more a matter of wanting… Read More ›
Collective Cleanliness: Meta-Discursive Study of Academic Tearoom Culture
Read the full paper here. Courtesy of Jennifer Upchurch.
Weber/ Simmel antagonisms: Staged dialogues
Weber/ Simmel antagonisms Staged dialogues University of Edinburgh 10/11 December 2015 A conference organized by the Max Weber Group of the British Sociological Association & Sociology Edinburgh Call for outlines Much has been said about the strong oppositions between Simmel… Read More ›
Three Modes of Academic Success, none of them quite autonomous
Early career academics periodically ask me what it takes to be successful – as if I would know! Nevertheless, I do have some general observations on the topic based on what seems to work. Unfortunately, the three strategies listed below… Read More ›
Regulating Intimacy: A Research Symposium
Regulating Intimacy: A Research Symposium “Intimate Labors and the Labors of Intimacy” Indiana University, Bloomington September 26, 2015 http://regulatingintimacy.wordpress.com/ Paper submission deadline: May 8, 2015 Regulating Intimacy is an interdisciplinary research symposium held annually at Indiana University. We seek to… Read More ›
Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life, 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague
Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life, 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague Call for papers: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life There is little doubt that science and knowledge production are presently undergoing dramatic and multi-layered transformations accompanied by new… Read More ›
The Tyranny of the Forced Smile
An interesting article in the New York Times discusses the mandated enthusiasm which increasingly characterises labour. This can be seen most emphatically in service jobs (e.g. the training required by Pret A Manger and its subsequent monitoring) but it’s also a feature… Read More ›
Considering becoming an indy scholar? 5 tips to get you started…
By Floor Basten You’re approaching the end of your PhD. While considering your alternatives for work, why not flirt with entrepreneurship? In 2003, almost a year after I left the university, as a postdoc, I decided to start my own… Read More ›
“Apparently, he comes with a rider these days”
By Kip Jones Narrative Practitioner Conference, Keele University, 2009. I asked audience members to bring objects with them. In the photo, they are exchanging them with someone they do not know. I remember quite well a major national disciplinary group’s… Read More ›
CfP: Web Science 2015
Call for Papers & Posters (text version) The Web Science conference welcomes participation from all disciplines including, but not limited to, art, computer and information sciences, communication, economics, humanities, informatics, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology, in pursuit… Read More ›
Understanding academia through food
Is it a meme? Is it a research project? Does it matter? We aim to understand academia through food. Do you have a picture of an academic event or function where food is provided? Who was there and what was… Read More ›
Higher Education and The Temporal Conditions for Critique
I’m aware that I probably come across like I hate Slavoj Zizek but there are many aspects of his work which I really like. My favourite is his account ofneoliberal ideology which I understand to be an argument about how subjective disavowal… Read More ›
Coping with Acceleration
I wrote recently about cognitive triage in higher education and its ramifications for personal reflexivity. My claim is that an inflation of situational demands leads subjects to prioritise the urgent, moving immediately from one necessity to another, in a way which crowds… Read More ›
Applying for postdocs – what are your tips?
This Guardian Higher Education articles offers 18 tips for applying for postdoc jobs. There’s some really useful advice supplied for each one, which you can read in full here: Get advice from your PhD supervisor Start building your networks early… Read More ›
Ghosts of Sociologists Past in the Accelerated Academy
I’m currently reading Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher. It’s an interesting book which explores a condition in which “life continues, but time has somehow stopped”. His claim is that this “stasis has been… Read More ›
Making Sense of the Crisis: Is the financial crisis cascading into a democratic crisis in Europe?
The lecture will take place in the Sir Charles Wilson lecture theatre, from 17.00 to 18:30 on Tuesday March 24th. The lectures are free to attend and open to all so please feel free to forward word of this to… Read More ›