These are in Manchester Piccadilly at the moment. Anyone know how widespread this campaign is?
Month: June 2016
And I got half a mind to let it all burn up in this fire I’ve had burning through my veins since I first learned to cry I’d watch this whole night come down and never miss her again I never felt right and never fit in walkin’ in my own skin Walkin’ in my […]
From No Such Thing as a Free Gift, by Linsey McGoey, loc 2771: The tendency for political objectives to drive economic decisions –which are then propagated as purely technical policies geared at improving economic growth –is a well-known operating principle within the IMF. The late economist Jacques Polak, a former IMF director of research and […]
Watching this is enough to make me temporarily rethink my long standing hostility to ‘global brain’ speculation. It’s remarkable what beautiful order can arise in a purely aggregative way and it’s something I’ve tended not to recognise in my theorising of collectivity.
Trans/Gender-Nonconforming College Students Project Abbie Goldberg, a Professor of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester MA, is conducting a survey oftrans/gender-nonconforming college students (including recent graduates) regarding their perspectives and experiences on a range of topics, including trans advocacy and needed supports/services on college campuses.Students with non-binary gender identities are particularly encouraged to participate, as […]
A fascinating snippet from No Such Thing as a Free Gift, by Linsey McGoey, loc 932: The Ford Motor Company established its own Sociological Department, employing an initial team of fifty and then a total of 160 ‘investigators’ tasked with circulating in the community and paying impromptu visits to the homes of Ford’s workers, each of […]
A question I’ve been asking myself since I reluctantly started using Uber a few months ago: what makes the sharing economy go round? ‘Uberness‘ does: Uber rides require some “Uberness” from both the client and riders. We’re commited to making sure to work with quality drivers and do our best to keep your rides as […]
At the end of last week, I attended a really thought provoking workshop at Bath university on Digital Qualitative Research. It was organised by Phil Brooker and Dina Vasileiou, both based at Bath, inviting a really interestingly diverse range of people (theorists, qualitative researchers, commercial social researchers, computer scientists, HCI researchers and software developers) to discuss […]
One of the anxieties I’ve regularly encountered about social media for academics is that it might lead to a devaluing of academic culture. What if I were to tell you that the spectre haunting the imagination of academics is the TED talK? There’s a lovely expression used by Linsey McGoey in her No Such Thing as a […]
A fascinating observation in No Such Thing as a Free Gift, by Linsey McGoey, loc 785. I wonder if the digital elites who interest me see their wealth in similar terms? It was a Janus-faced ideology; one side of Carnegie was extraordinarily generous, expending time and vast financial sums on goals such as military disarmament […]
Notes for my talk in Leeds tomorrow. It is increasingly hard to move without encountering the idea that social media is something of value for academics. The reasons offered are probably quite familiar by now. It helps ensure your research is visible, both inside and outside the academy. Many of us might be sceptical of […]
From No Such Thing as a Free Gift, by Linsey McGoey, Loc 492: The William J. Clinton Foundation dispensed money to numerous causes, with a focus on global health and economic development. Band’s idea was something new. He saw the need for an annual event, similar to Davos, which could bring powerful elites into contact […]
I had no idea how rapidly this was growing. From No Such Thing as a Free Gift, by Linsey McGoey, loc 282: Nearly half of the 85,000 private foundations in the United States alone were created in the past fifteen years. About 5,000 more philanthropic foundations are set up each year. There are questions that […]
I’ve been fascinated in recent months by the relationship between hip hop and tech. In some cases quite explicitly, senior figures in technology find cultural inspiration for the approach they take to management in contemporary hip hop. I’m interested in the notion of ‘business for punks’ for the same reason. In essence, I thought this […]
I’ve been fascinated in recent months by the relationship between hip hop and tech. In some cases quite explicitly, senior figures in technology find cultural inspiration for the approach they take to management in contemporary hip hop. I’m interested in the notion of ‘business for punks’ for the same reason. In essence, I thought this […]
From Common Wealth, by Jeffrey Sachs, pg 327-328. Quoted in Jefffey Sachs, by Japhey Wilson, loc 1457: There are now around 950 billionaires in the world, with an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion. That’s an amazing $900 billion in just one year. Even after all the yachts, mansions, and luxury living that money can […]
A few thoughts, prompted by the dispiriting act of choosing cosmopolitan austerity over nationalistic austerity in the UK referendum: Our perception of transformative possibilities is culturally constructed. Certain ranges of possibility are foregrounded and others backgrounded. Our sense of viability is the most cognitive dimension to this, informed by implicit and explicit ontological assumptions about […]
An interesting opportunity, though personally the language of ‘assistant’ and one year would put me off a little bit: *Apologies for crossposting* Dear Colleagues, Since its launch in August 2014, the Twitter account for Sociology has become a popular and important means of promoting the journal to a wide academic and non-academic audience. Social media […]
Absolutely fascinating article about one of the intellectual currents driving #Brexit (HT @Suoman): So, today I want to write about an element in the Brexit campaign that fascinates me. It’s what I would call its strand of hyper-capitalism – a kind of start-up patriotism, encapsulated in the phrase they drum through their speeches: “Take back […]
I saw a great talk yesterday, at the ESRC’s North West DTC, from Teela Sanders and Ruth Patrick about how to make an impact with doctoral research. I particularly liked this slide near the end, in which they suggested an incredibly diverse range of ways in which doctoral researchers (and others) could take action based on their […]
