In the last few years, I’ve become a little obsessed with speed. It seems this often leaves me coming across like an accelerationist. I occasionally flirt with the idea that I’m a slightly peculiar form of left-accelerationist, but it’s more for… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘acceleration’
The transformation of academic writing and the challenge of ephemera
What does social media mean for academic writing? Most answers to this question focus on how such platforms might constrain or enable the expression of complex ideas. For instance, we might encounter scepticism that one could express conceptual nuance in 140 characters… Read More ›
How can the social sciences keep up with socio-technical change?
At a recent symposium I saw Ben Williamson give an excellent lecture about the rapidly developing field of educational data science and how it is reshaping educational practice. Some of the material is summarised here for those interested. It was a really… Read More ›
On Social Acceleration
Earlier on this month, Hartmut Rosa gave a fascinating lecture at the LSE, marking the launch of this new book on the Sociology of Speed. It’s a great overview of his theory of acceleration, but it also included some things… Read More ›
The turn to end all turns
The upwards trajectory of publication poses an obvious problem for the aspiring academic. It is one familiar from other fields of cultural production. How to be heard above the din? If ever more publications are being produced each year, commanding ever… Read More ›
Some thoughts on fast and slow science in the accelerated academy
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how the social sciences are proving too slow in catching up to developments in digital technology. This means that engagements with new possibilities are often piecemeal and ad hoc, pushing the threshold of innovation in methods while… Read More ›
How waking up every day at 4.30am can change your life
This slightly disturbing TED talk speaks volumes about contemporary cultures of sleep: It’s spirituality for aspirant TED heads. This is a phrase used by Linsey McGoey in her No Such Thing as a Free Gift: amiable entrepreneurs and executives who congregate at… Read More ›
Harmut Rosa on Public Spaces
A really interesting interview by Harmut Rosa, whose groundbreaking work on acceleration has been developed in recent years into a theory of ‘resonance’:
The Accelerative Ethos of Steve Jobs
From the Commencement address Steve Jobs gave on June 12, 2005: When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It… Read More ›
Stuck in the mess of life: anticipation and disappointment
In recent papers Ruth Müller has offered what I think is the very important concept of anticipatory acceleration to make sense of how subjects, in this case post-doctoral researchers, wilfully participate in social acceleration. Drawing on the work of James Scott, she outlines… Read More ›
Register for the accelerated academy
Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague (Vila Lanna) Organised by the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and supported by the Strategy AV21. Register and get more information at http://accelerated.academy Powered by Eventbrite… Read More ›
How to shift sociological product: lessons from the career of tony giddens
Taking the lead from Peter Walsh’s laudible work on academic celebrity, here’s some lessons from the career of Tony Giddens which I inferred from this excellent review article Peter pointed me towards, coupled with my own reading of Giddens, who… Read More ›
The E-mail Charter
I came across this great initiative via Blair Matthews – it started with a blog post by Chris Anderson and Jane Wulf from TED that has since been added to by a wide range of contributors: 10 Rules to Reverse… Read More ›
Were universities ever quiet?
For the last few months I’ve been regularly coming into my department to work on Sundays. It’s quite a conducive environment for working on my soon to be completed book, as well as for catching up on ad hoc tasks. My desktop… Read More ›
Academic entrepreneurship and white privilege
An interesting story circulated recently which was widely seen as a particularly egregious instance of white privilege within the academy: On the evening of March 25, the hashtag #CadaanStudies (“cadaan” meaning “white” in Somali) emerged amongst Twitter timelines as a… 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 ›
The Pleasures of Acceleration
Acceleration is often framed as a problem. Things are speeding up. We never have enough time. We’re always falling behind. These will be familiar experiences to most. While the problem is more complex than may initially appear to be the… 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 ›
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 ›
Life in the accelerated academy: how it’s possible for Žižek to publish 55 books in 14 years
I’ve long been a little bit fascinated by Žižek. I find him utterly hypnotic to watch and have consumed countless YouTube lectures by him. I genuinely enjoy his journalistic output and have read a lot of it via the Guardian, London Review of Books… Read More ›
An existential analytics of speed
Integral to Harmut Rosa’s Social Acceleration (all references are to this book) is an understanding of cultural responses to acceleration and the role they play in intensifying the acceleration of the pace of life. This is not simply a matter of the valorisation… Read More ›
Call for contributions: 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 audit cultures preoccupied with digitally mediated measurement and quantification of… Read More ›
Social Acceleration
It is a common sentiment that life is getting faster. However is it accurate and, if so, what does it mean? To talk of life, or social life, speeding up necessitates some working definition of ‘social life’ and what it would… Read More ›
Call for contributions: 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 audit cultures preoccupied with digitally mediated measurement and quantification of… Read More ›
Social Acceleration and Musical Innovation
I just came across a lovely point in Harmut Rosa’s book about the relationship between social change and musical innovation. Certain forms of music come to be seen as emblematic of the age but, as that age changes so too does the sensibility… Read More ›
Hartmut Rosa on Social Acceleration and Time
This video interview is an excellent introduction to the work of Harmut Rosa on Social Acceleration. The music is a mistake given the low quality of the audio but it’s worth persisting with because the material is great. You can… Read More ›