A newly popularised photograph from the bombing of New York on 9/11/2001 has caught the attention of the media and the public. The image, taken by photographer Thomas Hoepker, has stirred up controversial opinions. Perfect example of the ambiguity of images: never take an image for granted.
Image by Thomas Hoepker/Magnum, 9 September 2001, Source: The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk
This is something about which you could only dream in the 1980s (and we did dream of it): being able to see how a human being changes through the years. Not that it was impossible, but it belonged to the realm of professional photography and required the resources, skill, and patience that very few could afford. Now that many have access to digital cameras and computers, it is possible, and less skill and patience is needed. Yet how many of us – just humans, and sociologists in particular, are taking advantage of the new tools?
Here are two lovely examples:
and
An estimated 50,000 university and college students and academics marched in Westminster yesterday. They were protesting against the raising of tuition fees to £9000 per student per year of study and the cutting of government funding for teaching in the arts and social sciences. Protestors marched down Whitehall, past parliament, before taking over Millback House, the Conservative party headquarters. Some made it to the roof of the building, being watched by thousands on the ground chanting and burning placards. The media are reporting that this is the largest student demonstration in a generation.
Nina Power has written a brilliant article in the Guardian today about the protests and media response. Read it here.
A woman walks into a toy shop and asks:
“Do you have a plush Pinko the Pink Panther? Can I have one in sky-blue, for a little boy, please?”
After you have unwrapped your presents, read this light-hearted article in the Sociological Images about the reinforcement of gender stereotypes through consumerism during festive seasons. We deliberately held this one back until it is already too late to buy any Christmas presents:
GENDER STEREOTYPED GIFT GUIDES.
The team at the Sociological Imagination wishes you a Merry Christmas!
As sociologists, we deal with a wide range of empirical and philosophical phenomena, but their scope, in universal terms, is quite narrow: locked somewhere between the individual human and the whole of humanity. With this in mind, the Idle Ethnographer admits to having a hard time justifying this particular post. Initially, I decided to post it just because it is amazing, fascinating, educational, and humbling. It is a visualisation of the universe and its physical scale.
But, being an Ethnographer, albeit Idle, I could not resist racking my brains for potential sociological uses. E.g., in the sociology of science, or that of Western European modernity. A symbolic analysis would reveal what is important enough to be given as an example in a scientific visualisation. The small and large objects are more impersonal, detached and ‘scientific’, while examples closer in size to humans only appear random, but their range is, in fact, highly socially conditioned (HIV virus, red blood cell, coffee bean, Rubic cube, silhouette or a male human being of average (Caucasian) height; Eiffel tower; USA map; length of a marathon). There are also a few hidden jokes: if you watch carefully, you’ll spot them. Or perhaps one can just watch it as a neat visual representation of the physical world in which we live. Or as a cosmology. Or a fairy tale. Or with the reverence of a tiny speck in the face of the universe. I leave this to your sociological imaginations.
Screenshot from the Scale of the Universe, scaleofuniverse.com
Click here to go to the Scale of the Universe website
A friend of mine recently struggled to customise a map showing the numbers of girls in different countries who use a particular website that she is studying. I wish I had discovered this tool earlier, she would have found it useful:
The sixth former entering university often has difficulty in adjusting to a new academic and social life…
… so this film, made by university of Warwick students back in the 1970s, served to prepare newcomers to university life (with a large pinch of salt). Back then, 8-year-old Warwick university was still in its infancy and far from the leading status and aspirations that it has today. Come to think of it, were there university rankings at all at that time? I am not sure. But there certainly was no Top Banana, Kazbah, Tesco, Costa, Warwick Arts Centre, or horrendous multi-storey car-parks. No one was talking of students as consumers, the ‘university experience’, or the ever-increasing string of unpaid internships that the luckiest students undergo on their way to the glories of permanent post-degree employment. There were the Beatles and the Stones and traditional lecturers. The campus was a fraction of its today’s size, with only a handful of buildings.
But some things haven’t changed. The Op Mobile No.10 was already there, as were some of the accomodation blocks (Rootes Halls, named after Lord Rootes, spelt with an “e”, and not in reference to a substantial part of the anatomy of a tree, as some of its residents are convinced. Thanks to inflation, its cost has increased 25-fold over the 41 years since the film was made.). Watch and see for yourself!
Continuing yesterday’s theme (which we picked at Brainpickings.org), here is another book which provides ample visual material for a historical analysis of femininity in the last century: Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). Read Brainpicking’s review (with pictures!) here.
'Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)', by Sue Macy
Venus with Biceps: a Pictorial History of Muscular Women by David L. Chapman and Patricia Vertinsky is an invaluable collection of rare images of athletic women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Maria Popova at Brainpickings has written a fantastic review which you can read here.
One of the archival images in 'Venus with Biceps' (image source: Brainpickings.com)
P.S. Thanks to this, we have also discovered Brainpickings: definitely an online space we’ll be watching!
