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 ›
Archive for April 2015
#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 ›
CfP: The Politics of Data (Science)
The Politics of Data (Science) This special issue of Discover Society will explore the political implications of ‘big data’ and the systems of expertise emerging around it, including though not limited to Data Science. In doing so it will aim… Read More ›
Call for papers: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life (deadline May 1st! All 5 keynotes now confirmed)
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 imperatives reflecting broader socio-economic and technological developments. The unprecedented proliferation of… Read More ›
The dead zones of the imagination in higher education
In his recent book on bureaucracy, David Graeber often turns to higher education to furnish examples of the broader tendency he describes. I thought this was a particularly vivid passage worth reproducing: The explosion of paperwork, in turn, is a… Read More ›
An introduction to Design Fiction for Sociologists, May 13th at Goldsmiths
Design fiction is a term first coined by Julian Bleecker and popularized by SF author Bruce Sterling, who describes it as “the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change.” and that it “attacks the status quo and… Read More ›
(Re)situating Queer Theory on the Critical Left
(Re)situating Queer Theory on the Critical Left A Morning Seminar at Warwick University, 10.30am – 1pm, Friday 22 May 2015 Ramphal Building, Room R0.3-4 This seminar aims to explore and debate two influential recent attempts to (re)situate queer theory within… Read More ›
Call for papers: Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference
Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference June 23rd, University of Warwick, 10am – 4pm Social ontology is integral to the study of society. It is impossible to inquire into the social world without some understanding, at least tacitly, concerning the… Read More ›
Workshop: Investigating the Internal Conversation
I’m organising this workshop at Warwick in June for anyone using Margaret Archer’s work on reflexivity in empirical research. She’ll be there all day & will discuss the development of this work as well as answering questions about it. There… Read More ›
The Social Ontology of Digital Data & Digital Technology, July 8th in London
This innovative conference brings together leading figures from a variety of fields which address issues of digital technology and digital data. We’ve invited speakers with a range of intellectual perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds who engage with questions relating to digital… 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 ›
Overcoming your modernist training for constant improvement, advancement, development and accumulation
Overcoming your modernist training for constant improvement, advancement, development and accumulation. That’s what the social psychologist Kenneth Gergen advocates in the new introduction to his famous work The Saturated Self, as quoted by Harmut Rosa in Social Acceleration: I am… Read More ›
CfP: The Politics of Data (Science)
The Politics of Data (Science) This special issue of Discover Society will explore the political implications of ‘big data’ and the systems of expertise emerging around it, including though not limited to Data Science. In doing so it will aim… 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 Long Game of Creativity
(via Open Culture)
A scientist discovers ethnography
This is a fascinatingly open reflection upon discovering ethnography for the first time and how it challenges one’s training in the ‘scientific method’: In summary, this experience has been a fascinating one – a new world for me. I have… Read More ›
Call for papers: Queer Methods
WSQ, Call for Papers: Special Issue QUEER METHODS Guest Editors: Amin Ghaziani, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia Matt Brim, Associate Professor of Queer Studies, College of Staten Island, CUNY Queer Studies is experiencing a methodological renaissance. In… Read More ›
The Journal of Academic Videos
What a brilliant idea! See more here: Audiovisual Thinking is a leading journal of academic videos about audiovisuality, communication and media. The journal is a pioneering forum where academics and educators can articulate, conceptualize and disseminate their research about audiovisuality… Read More ›
Geek Revenue: The Cultural Industries in the Age of Digital Piracy
Geek Revenue: The Cultural Industries in the Age of Digital Piracy from Simon Lindgren on Vimeo. This video essay uses classical cultural theory as well as current internet research to address the relationship between the cultural industries and the increasingly… 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 ›
Bruno Latour: The Whole is Always Smaller than the Parts
Bruno Latour – The Whole is Always Smaller than the Parts -What Digital Media do to Social Theory from MOMA on Vimeo. The digital availability of profiles deeply modifies the definition of what it an individual agent and, reciprocally, what… Read More ›
Workshop: Investigating the Internal Conversation
I’m organising this workshop at Warwick in June for anyone using Margaret Archer’s work on reflexivity in empirical research. She’ll be there all day & will discuss the development of this work as well as answering questions about it. There… Read More ›
24 podcasts and videocasts with Richard Sennett
Found on his website here: “The Edge: Borders and Boundaries”, Cambridge University Click here to view the lecture on YouTube. Lessingtage 2015 Click here to view the lecture on YouTube (beginning at minute 25). On the Open City at Stockholmia’s… 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 ›
What would British fascism look like?
I recently stumbled across this old* Huffington Post article by James Bloodworth, editor of Left Foot Forward, speculating about what a British fascism would look like. I don’t think it’s actually very good but it’s a fascinating question to ponder…. Read More ›
Call for papers: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life (deadline May 1st! All 5 keynotes now confirmed)
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 imperatives reflecting broader socio-economic and technological developments. The unprecedented proliferation of… Read More ›
An introduction to Design Fiction for Sociologists, May 13th at Goldsmiths
Design fiction is a term first coined by Julian Bleecker and popularized by SF author Bruce Sterling, who describes it as “the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change.” and that it “attacks the status quo and… Read More ›
That time we went on a pub crawl with Karl Marx
I can’t recall encountering any other fragment of writing which brings a historical figure to life for me as vividly as this does: One evening, Edgar Bauer, acquainted with Marx from their Berlin time and then not yet his personal… Read More ›
Call for papers: Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference
Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference June 23rd, University of Warwick, 10am – 4pm Social ontology is integral to the study of society. It is impossible to inquire into the social world without some understanding, at least tacitly, concerning the… Read More ›