Justice, Genes & Welfare: Are Intergenerational Relationships Toxic? A joint BSA Families and Relationship Study Group and Youth Study Group Event Keyworth Centre, London South Bank University Thursday 28 November 2013 Intergenerational relations increasingly seem to be called into question… Read More ›
Archive for October 2013
The Politics of Zombies
A few months ago I wrote about the use of zombies to represent crowds in films like World War Z. My basic point being that zombies are a shorthand for portraying the irrationalism of mass assemblies which threaten the social order. Leaving… Read More ›
The Case Against Open Access
I think the argument made here by John Holmwood is very important. My instinct is to support open access, though I think the scale of its ramifications are sometimes overestimated, however there has often seemed to be a degree of inattentiveness to… Read More ›
The Future of Scholarly Publishing
What does the future hold for scholarly publishing? Most would agree that the present system is unsustainable yet there remains little consensus on what could and should replace it. Patrick Dunleavy at the LSE Impact Blog makes a compelling case… Read More ›
Our Most Popular Posts This Week
The Sociological Imagination Revisited The Sociology of Gossip Charles Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination and why we fail to match it today Please keep up, Sociology The Sociology of Hipsters The world as you’ve never seen it before 35 reasons why… Read More ›
How Twitter is Ruining America
It’s far from an original sentiment to claim that social media is having a corrosive effect on the fabric of social life. But this article from the Atlantic makes an intriguing argument about the impact of Twitter on the social… Read More ›
What would a Sociable Sociology look like?
In this podcast Les Back talks to Charlynne Bryan about her experience of taking part in the project Les undertook with Shamser Sinha which explored the possibility of a more ‘sociable sociology’. This project experimented with treating participants as co-authors… Read More ›
Vibrant Matter: A Feeling for Things
One of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in recent months was Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett. While I’m still a little sceptical about some of the claims made in the book, it nonetheless had what I assumed was one of its… Read More ›
Please keep up, Sociology
How can we have a real ‘global dialogue’ in a sociological discipline that is becoming increasingly censorious and elitist? In each major publication or event we wheel out the same theorists to regurgitate the same ideas. Textbooks and monographs are… Read More ›
Some quick thoughts on the sociology of craft
Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake. Craftsmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labour; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist; parenting improves… Read More ›
The New Social-ism
The New Social-ism What is valuable, visible & knowable in the emerging social economy? A one-day conference hosted by Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies 10am-6pm, 11th December 2013 Room MS.03, University of Warwick Appeals to the ‘social’ today are everywhere: ‘social enterprise’, ‘social media’, ‘social… Read More ›
The Norms of Public Intellectualism
Paul Krugman recently published an insightful post on his blog reflecting on the conditions in which intellectuals operate in a digital age. In what seems to be an oblique response to his recent spat with Niall Ferguson, he suggests that academics… Read More ›
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology renews the collaboration between Sophie Fiennes and Slavoj Žižek in a film examining ideology in contemporary capitalism. It articulates itself through engagements with a whole sequence of films, interspersing original clips with striking recreations starring Žižek so… Read More ›
The Dangers of Academic Digital Media Use
One of our most popular posts last month was the Dangers of Academic Blogging. Though we’re hugely enthusiastic about academic blogging, it’s clear that this is an important conversation for the the emerging academic blogosphere. However the dangers are not… Read More ›
Inside the Mind of the Republican Party
For those such as myself who have been increasingly baffled by events in the US in recent weeks, this analysis of findings from six focus groups with political partisans within the Republican party makes for interesting reading. The full report… Read More ›
Paul Krugman, Niall Ferguson and the norms of public intellectualism in a digital age
The academic blogosphere had been getting a bit boring ever since the Chomsky and Zizek spat came to an end. Fortunately, Niall Ferguson decided a couple of days ago that it was time to take his longstanding feud with Paul Krugman to… Read More ›
Social Science and the Politics of Public Engagement
Social Science and the Politics of Public Engagement Tuesday, January 28, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM Open University Camden Centre, 1 – 11 Hawley Crescent, Camden Town, London In recent years new technology has begun to facilitate ever… Read More ›
Why Things Matter to People
Underlying this book is a simple proposition: things matter to people. As well as the thought and interaction which have been traditional objects of the human sciences, we also evaluate – our relation to the world is one of concern. Andrew Sayer’s book is concerned with drawing… Read More ›
How is wealth distributed in Britain today?
Guardian’s animated infographic reveals the extent of monetary inequality in Britain in 2013. See it and compare your own ideals, perceptions and the reality.
Why Sociologists and Technologists Should Talk
An interesting article from ZDNet (HT Jean-Loup Richet) made a case for why all technologists should become technology sociologists. It contends that the question of how and why technology will be used tends to be occluded by the continual focus of technologists on the properties of… Read More ›
Deadline TOMORROW – CfP BSA 2014
BSA Annual Conference 2014: Changing Society Call for Papers Theory Stream Submissions This stream welcomes abstracts on any aspect of theory as well as abstracts for the following Study Groups: · Bourdieu · Historical and Comparative Sociology · Realism and Social Research · Weber The Realism and Social Research group would also like to invite abstracts under the theme “What is Realism for?” The group is particularly interested in papers that consider any of the following issues: The relevance of realist theory to substantive social, economic and political issues. The practical implications of methodologically operationalising different forms of realist thought. Those from other schools of thought who wish to engage critically in a dialogue with realist theory. How to submit All abstracts and proposals for other events can be submitted online at: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/bsa‐annual‐ conference/submissions.aspx The deadline for submission of abstracts is 18th October 2013. For further information contact the Theory stream coordinators: Gurminder K Bhambra E: Tom Brock E: Alternatively, contact the BSA Events Team E:
Narrowly escaping the academic life
This really struck a chord with me given my continued ambivalence about a career in academia: With my new eyes I re-survey the life around me. Most particularly I become frightened to realize how close I came to letting myself… Read More ›
Money, Power and Opportunity in the Late Modern City, or, isn’t it a shame J G Ballard isn’t around to see this?
This documentary by Alex Gibney, director of the Corporation amongst others, takes as its starting point the disjuncture between Park Avenue Manhattan and the other Park Avenue over the river in the Bronx. The former is home to some of the wealthiest people in the… Read More ›
Crafting a postgraduate module: Digital by-product data and the social sciences
Over the last two or three weeks I’ve been working on my postgraduate module ‘Digital by-product data and the social sciences’. The module ran for the first time last year and I’ve been trying to develop the content a bit… Read More ›
Gone and busted, done and dusted? Notes towards a moral and political grammar of ‘civil dawn’
What happened? While preparing the fourth instalment of the Sociologists of Crisis on the issue of suicide, life via death took over and in the face of a tragic event, I had to get my editorial, moral, political and sociological… Read More ›
The Coming Collapse of UK #HigherEd?
An extremely worrying article in the Guardian paints a depressing picture of the impending consequences for UK higher education if the current trajectory of ‘reform’ continues: Another pressure point is the falling applications from indebted English graduates to study for… Read More ›
Infographics, House Prices and Neo-Positivism
This infographic from Neal Hudson (HT Liberal Conspiracy) shows the dramatic rise in English House Prices relative to earnings since 1997. Of course there are important methodological questions which can be asked about an infographic like this and, though I think these… Read More ›
Absent From The Academy: the absence of Black Professors in UK #HigherEd
Absent From The Academy from A Narrative Media on Vimeo. (HT Gurminder K Bhambra)
Our Most Popular Posts in the Last 12 Months
Charles Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination and why we fail to match it today 35 reasons why you should blog about your research Why Slavoj Zizek is a Waste of Space for the Social Scientifically Literate Left ‘You either die a… Read More ›