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  • negative solidarity is here to stay: the ‘greedy’ tube workers

    As I too often find myself doing in these situations, I’ve been browsing hashtags and newspaper comments about the tube strike. The most obvious recurring theme concerns the putative comfort of the striking tube workers: how do they justify striking when they’re already so well off? In actuality, salaries of tube workers range between £24,000…

  • reflections on preparing to finish a book

    The final stages of Social Media for Academics are giving me flashbacks to the end of my PhD. I’ve drunk so much coffee that I can barely sit down, I have Forces of Victory on repeat and I’m alternating between thinking the nearly finished work is brilliant and concluding that it’s utterly shit. Over the weekend, I…

  • things I’ve been reading recently #11

    The Everything Store by Brad Stone Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting In a Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger To Save Everything Click Here by Evgeny Morozov The Googlization of Everything by Siva Vaidhyanathan Graphic novels: The rest of Ex Machina. It’s brilliant. 

  • social media and academic freedom

    An overview of the things that I’ve been reading this morning. I’ve been focusing on this today because I think this section of the book is a little weak, despite it being one of the most important and interesting issues I cover. A useful essay reflecting on the David Guth case, in which a professor’s…

  • music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#19)

    And I cannot help but hold on to a handful of times when what was spoken was a revolution in itself, and what we were doing was the only thing that mattered And how good it felt to kill the memory of nights spent holding your shirt for the smell I heard you used to…

  • the best of bezos: the vitriolic putdowns of the amazon ceo

    From The Everything Story by Brad Stone: “I don’t know if you guys don’t have high standards or if you just don’t know what you’re doing” “If that’s our plan, I don’t like our plan” “Are you lazy or just incompetent?” “Does it surprise you that you don’t know the answer to that question?” “Why are you…

  • the question no one seems willing to answer about university branding

    From SymOmega here: Our previous but now-outdated motto was “Achieve International Excellence” which is pretty clunky but at least the intent is clear. Even earlier we had a much more succinct motto with which surely no-one can disagree  – “Seek Wisdom” – and to which I think we should return, if we really think a…

  • using big data to transform the classroom from the 19th century to the 21st

    Bookmarking this so I can come back to it later. If I pursue this thread, Social Media For Academics is never going to get finished: Reflecting their student populations, universities have long been bastions of oodles of consumer technology. We are awash in mobile phones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and the like. If one combines mobile consumer…

  • the ethos of openness

    We have to be critical of ‘openness’ as a concept. But nonetheless I think there’s a reality to openness as an ethos that we shouldn’t forget. This is my favourite articulation of it: When my daughter was born, I became keenly aware of how much stock we mammals put into the copies we make of ourselves (yes,…

  • music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#18)

    Within ten minutes of putting the album on, I was struck by the overwhelming sense of Social Media for Academics being on the verge of completion. Thanks Radiohead, I needed that.

  • music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#17)

  • the pleasures of knowing where you stand 

    From page 75 of Brad Stone’s excellent book The Everything Store: In early 1998, Bezos was closely involved with a department called Personalization and Community, which was geared toward helping customers discover books, music, and movies they might find interesting. That May, he surveyed what was then Amazon’s Hot 100 bestseller list and had an…

  • when people falsely impute research to you

    This is just weird. I can only assume that the EastLovesWest company hires underpaid freelancers to produce content for their blog, who have in turn typed keywords into Google and written an article without ever clicking on any of the links: It seems likely to me that this will become a more common occurrence with…

  • blogging your fieldwork

    Pat Thompson has written a fascinating post reflecting on her use of blogging to record field notes during an ethnographic project at the Tate summer school. She stresses the ethical challenges of such an activity – particularly the need to negotiate consent with participants, including around photos, as well as the need for a framework…

  • social media and solidarity in higher education

    There’s a great article on the THE, in which Caroline Magennis reflects on the success of the conversation she started recently about being an academic from a less privileged background: What are the challenges of being an academic from a less privileged background? Questions of ‘fitting in’ but also practical issues? — Caroline Magennis (@DrMagennis) July 19,…

  • the coming copyright wars on twitter

    This is a very interesting trend, though one I suspect could lead in some unfortunate directions: Ever been the victim of plagiarism on Twitter—or, dare we say, the shameful purveyor of it? The social network seems to be putting an end to those pirated tweets by cracking down on users who steal jokes to inflate their…

  • using snapchat in higher education

    I’ve struggled to see how Snapchat could be used within higher education. I could imagine why academics might end up using it in an entirely personal capacity, but I found it difficult to imagine how it could be used by them professionally. So it was really interesting to read this interview with Newcastle University’s Social Media…

  • how to evaluate your web page for accessibility

    This is an extremely useful post on ProfHacker, with links to many resources. It’s also reassuring to read “this can often seem like an overwhelming topic to beginners” because I wasn’t sure if I was the only one who felt that way.

  • what would a curricula for Networked Scholarship look like?

    That’s the intriguing question which George Veletsianos addresses in this post. He suggest an approach centred around issues and tools: Networked scholarship curricula will need to balance a focus on tools and issues. The teaching of tools could instill future scholars with the abilities to use networked technologies productively. For instance, networked scholars might employ the services…

  • Closing an open letter

    Around a year and a half ago, I got very upset with the British Sociological Association when I couldn’t afford to attend a conference for which I’d given a great deal of free labour. I was a month away from handing in my then still very much unfinished PhD thesis, I’d started two new jobs (one…

  • #TwitterGate: the ethics of live tweeting

    Some useful resources: A storify of the hashtag If you don’t have social media, you are no one: How social media enriches conferences for some but risks isolating other The Academic Twitterazzi An idea is a dangerous thing to quarantine Tweeting out loud: ethics, knowledge and social media in academe Some live tweeting policies and…

  • the creepy treehouse problem

    In their enthusiasm for the pedagogical uses to which social media can be put, academics sometimes don’t stop to question whether students actually want to interact with them on social media. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the creepy treehouse problem’: requiring students to interact with you on what they perceive as a private platform, or…

  • imagining post-capitalism and techno-fascism

    Last week Paul Mason posted a provocative Guardian essay suggesting that the end of capitalism has begun. It’s a precursor to his upcoming book PostCapitalism: A Guide To Our Future which is released in a few days time. I’m looking forward to the book, not least of all because it’s an optimistic counterpoint to the gloomy thought…

  • the politics of noise in historical perspective

    I blogged last week about the micro-politics of noise. I didn’t put a great deal of thought into the use of the qualifier ‘micro’: I recognised a legal framework within which noise is regulated (or not), a structural context which shapes working routines, technological changes which create capacities and tendencies towards noise generation and a…

  • the antinomies of blairism

    Earlier today Tony Blair gave a speech in which he finally took the gloves off. As someone with a growing interest in theorising post-democracy, I found it oddly intriguing. To anyone acquainted with the writing Anthony Giddens was spewing out in the 1990s, it was familiar stuff. Despite the fact his politics would long since have placed him…

  • but on the day I die, I’ll say at least I fucking tried, that’s the only eulogy I need

  • things I’ve been reading recently #10

    Blogging – Jill Rettberg The Internet Is Not The Answer – Andrew Keen [astonishingly he had a whole team of research assistants for this yet used few, if any, sources which weren’t from the internet] Homeland – Cory Doctorow Status Update – Alice Marwick [brilliant!] Graphic Novels:  Ex Machina [best thing Brian Vaughan has ever written]…

  • I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, that’s all, I don’t even think of you that often.

  • the cognitive costs of escaping the filter bubble

    Yesterday saw the news that ‘Infidelity site’ Ashley Madison had been hacked, with the attackers claiming 37 million records had been stolen. The site is an online forum for infidelity, a dating site explicitly designed to facilitate affairs, something which potentially provoked the ire of the hackers. Or it could be the fact that users are…

  • The @_ISRF @DigitalSocSci and @BigDataSoc Essay Competition

    An exciting new project I’ve helped launch: a collaboration between the ISRF’s Digital Social Science Forum and the journal Big Data & Society. See here for full details: The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of CHF 1,000 for the best essay on the topic…

  • the synchronised society

    I went to see an excellent exhibition about children’s television yesterday afternoon, intended to explore “how the magical programmes of our childhood have created memories and nostalgia in adults and children alike”. The possibility of such explanation presupposes some degree of collectivity. The exhibition was ambiguous at points but there was a clear undercurrent of…

  • the war on radicalisation and where it might lead

    In this chilling interview, Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of Nato and one time favourite of Michael Moore for the Democratic Presidential nomination, rather aggressively floats the idea of interning those who are disloyal to the United States for the duration of the ‘war on terror’: If we look at this in terms…

  • and the evilest of nine’s guaranteed to shoot crooked

  • freedom from self-imposed metrified tyranny: some thoughts on the moral psychology of self-tracking

    A couple of years ago I purchased a Nike Fuel Band, partly out of a curiosity driven by my nascent interest in self-tracking and partly out of a desire to rationalise not going to the gym. If I was planning to conduct research on self-tracking practices then it seemed important to me to actually try…

  • memes are born free, but everywhere they are in chains

    From To Save Everything, Click Here by Evgeny Morozov: Contrary to what most Internet cheerleaders think, virality is hardly ever self- generated and self- sustaining. Memes are born free, but everywhere they are in chains— those of PR agencies and freelancing solo artists. Both have perfectly adapted to this new digital world and found ways…

  • surviving life in the accelerated academy: prospects and problems for digital scholarship

    It’s been ages since I last wrote an abstract and immediately found myself thinking “wow, I can’t wait to write this paper”: Surviving Life in the Accelerated Academy: The Potential and Pitfalls of Digital Scholarship  In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the stress and anxiety of academic life. This developing discourse has an ambivalent…

  • fitter, happier, more productive

    I came across a reference to this earlier today and was struck by how ahead of its time it was. It’s so much more resonant in a world of activity trackers, life hacking and executive mindfulness than it was originally.

  • social engineers have never had so many options at their disposal

    From To Save Everything, Click Here by Evgeny Morozov. For a talk about dystopias I’m doing next month, I’m trying to consider the implications of this technology at the level of social ontology. What does it mean to see sinister possibilities inherent in ‘innovations’ like this? Is there anything we can say in the abstract…

  • the micro-politics of noise and the challenge of being-with-others

    Sometimes the noise other people make bothers me. I mean really pisses me off. The kind of irritation which makes it impossible to ignore the noise, leaving your attention locked in and your perceptual field narrowed until there is only you and that noise. On those occasions where I talk myself out of it, I…

  • I should’ve found a way out, so everyone can find a way out

    I guess I am a scout So I should find a way out So everyone can find a way out They keep us in To pull us out I’m rising up Wish I was sinking down And it’s not like There was warning We were happy And it’s not like There was mourning In the…

  • Relational Flourishing

    It’s very easy for the idea of human flourishing to become individualistic. If it’s being advocated as an alternative to subjective well-being, its status as an opposition encourages what Andrew Sayer calls a PoMo flip: a problematic conceptual structure is retained while dichotomies are reversed. In this case, ‘well-being’ as a subjective fact about the…

  • Normal service has been resumed: I will never trying closing my personal blog again

    Around two months ago I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I no longer had time to maintain two blogs. I won’t go into the reasons here, but the case seemed pretty unanswerable. So I closed down this blog and decided I would focus on Sociological Imagination. Since then I’ve felt the quality of my…

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #9

    The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro The Children Act – Ian McEwan Meatball Sundae – Seth Godin (slightly embarrassed to admit this) The Psychopath Test – Jon Ronson It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens – dana boyd Seeing Ourselves Through Technology – Jill Rettberg Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free –…

  • Towards a Digital Social Ontology: Free Day Symposium in London on July 8th

    The Social Ontology of Digital Data & Digital Technology Wednesday, July 8, 2015 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM This innovative symposium 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…

  • Are you a PhD student or early career researcher interested in social ontology?

    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 entities which make up that world and their properties and powers. However social ontology remains…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to write (#16)

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #8

    Difficult Men: Behind The Scenes of a Creative Revolution by Brett Martin That Option No Longer Exists: Britain 1974-76 by John Medhurst Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson Boomerang: The Biggest Bust by Michael Lewis Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years by Sue Townsend Graphic Novels: Southern Basterds Volume 2

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#15)

    I’ve had this on repeat for days now. One of those rare albums that gets better the more you listen to it:

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #7

    It’s been a while since I last did one of these: The Happiness Industry by William Davies – superb and I’m interviewing him about it next week A Decent Ride by Irvine Welsh – far from his best but immensely readable nonetheless Warwick University LTD by E.P. Thompson and others – I chose an eerily…

  • 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 to bridge the gap between the methodological discourse surrounding data science and the political discourse…

  • 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 suggests clear ways in which life might become different.” Design fiction isn’t science fiction, it’s…

  • Dear England

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSjAI3KMS2I Whoa, give me the words, give me the words That tell me nothing Dear England, Whoa, give me the words, give me the words That tell me nothing They say God save the queen, Britannia rules the waves, Britannia’s in my genes But Britannia called us slaves Britannia made the borders Cause Britannia’s forces…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to write (#14)

  • 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 to bridge the gap between the methodological discourse surrounding data science and the political discourse…

  • 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 suggests clear ways in which life might become different.” Design fiction isn’t science fiction, it’s…

  • Call for papers: Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference (deadline TOMORROW)

    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 entities which make up that world and their properties and powers. However social ontology remains…

  • Call for papers: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life (deadline TOMORROW!)

    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 audit cultures preoccupied with digitally mediated measurement and quantification of scholarship and the consolidation of…

  • Conlon Nancarrow

  • Consultancy

    I’m interested in how social media can help us overcome the limitations of conventional academic publishing and contribute towards a more public social science. It seems obvious to me that social media offer us new-found capacities to “throw grains of sand into the well-oiled machinery of resigned complicities” and I’m enthusiastic to explore how this…

  • Using social media to destroy academic jargon

    Thanks to Nick Kaufman for this great example of how social media can be used to overcome the limits imposed by academic jargon. It took me a minute to get the hang of what they’re trying to do with this project but I really like it. It’s produced by the MIT Community Innovators Lab.

  • How to live tweet effectively at academic conferences

    This useful post on the Pickle Jar blog offers some pointers about effective live tweeting. I agree it’s important to remember that most (?) people reading your live tweets won’t be in the room with you and thus will be confused by any features of the context you take for granted in your tweets. In…

  • Cory Doctorow’s Philosophy of Blogging

  • The International Origins of Social and Political Theory

    This looks like it’ll be very interesting: The International Origins of Social and Political Theory What is the relationship between history and theory? Much of the time, theory is held to stand outside history. Theoretical systems are applied to, rather than drawn from, historical events. Structural functionalism in sociology, neorealism and neoliberalism in International Relations,…

  • Non-conventional academic career paths

    Over the next few months, I’m planning a series of podcasts with academics who have pursued non-conventional career paths. This is a remarkably clunky term: what does ‘non-conventional’ mean? The difficulty I’m having defining my terms is precisely why I think it’s so important to explore this topic. In essence, I’m planning to talk to…

  • Is the murky world of internet marketing making me paranoid?

    Is the murky world of internet marketing making me paranoid? Or does anyone else share my scepticism about this e-mail? I’ve edited out the name in case I’m wrong but the enclosed web address & twitter feed has no content on it. Good day Mark! I hope this email finds you well. My name is…

  • How connected is your university to the arms trade?

    How connected is your university to the arms trade? This is a question which I was obsessed with seven years ago when I co-founded the anti-arms trade campaign at Warwick. However it’s largely slipped away as something to concern myself with. Receiving this e-mail from Campaign Against The Arms Trade reminded me of how important…

  • The Potential of Video Essays for Scholarly Communication

    This isn’t academic per se but I can easily imagine how a similar format could be used: The Journal of Academic Videos is obviously leading the way here.

  • Legally navigating academic blogging and social media – next Wednesday

    Desperately trying to move a meeting forward slightly so that I can make this: This month at the Social Scholar seminar we will be joined by Dr Judith Townend who will be looking at social media and legal concerns. For full details check out our Event Page and register your interest to attend. Title: Legally navigating academic blogging…

  • Two UCU member sacked for allegedly leaking information about the V-C to the press

    Well this is worrying: Two members of staff have been sacked by the University of Bolton for allegedly leaking information about the vice-chancellor to the press, the University and College Union has said. Damien Markey, a senior lecturer in visual effects for film and television and secretary of the Bolton branch of the UCU, was…

  • The Responsibilities of Academics

    Do you have people working for you? How do you conceive of the relationship? Are they junior colleagues for whom you provide steering in an otherwise basically collective project? Or are they subordinates for whom you provide direction and oversight as a line manager? How aware are you of their pay and conditions? How aware…

  • The Future’s Not What it Used To Be

  • Data Big and Small: Past, Present and Future

    I’m sad I’ll be missing this (though happy to be in Berlin) – hope lots of other people make it: Warwick University Festival of Social Sciences Data Big and Small: Past, Present and Future This event is jointly hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Warwick Q-Step Centre. 11 May 2015 – 16:00…

  • Who are you to wave your finger?

  • The challenges to creativity in higher education

    The RSA surveyed their fellows in higher education about challenges to creativity within the sector. Though I’d certainly like more information (n=???) the responses they received paint an increasingly familiar picture of how the accelerated academy corrodes the impulse towards creativity of those working within it: Structure: The biggest barriers seemed to be structural, with…

  • Register in the next week if you want to ensure a place – Workshop @SocioWarwick: 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 will also be a few speakers (including myself, talking about my PhD, which I so…

  • “so I only stop to tell her that I love her at the red lights”

  • Algorithmic Blacklisting: Big Data & Industrial Conflict

    Earlier today I started reading Blacklisted, an account of the extensive blacklisting in the construction industry that was exposed by an investigation by the Information Commissioner. For those unfamiliar with the case: In 2009, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) exposed details of a large-scale surveillance operation run by a company called The Consulting Association.  This…

  • The Chronopolitics of Academic Conferences

    It’s possible to trace out an awful lot of interest about contemporary higher education from this seemingly peripheral phenomenon: No-shows are a common feature at conferences nowadays, but nearly every panel I went to was missing someone and most of them canceled at the last minute and could not be replaced in time. Several of…

  • Call for Papers: Doing Time in the Sociology of Education

    A great call for papers: Guest Editors: Professor Bob Lingard, University of Queensland & Dr Greg Thompson, Murdoch University Call for Papers: Doing Time in the Sociology of Education The Guides, the Wardens of our faculties, And Stewards of our labour, watchful men And skilful in the usury of time, Sages, who in the prescience…

  • The limitations of academic talk

    This discussion of the intellectual trajectory of Cornel West includes an illuminating reflection upon the limitations of academic talk. It’s a useful counterpoint to my own enthusiasm for improvisation in academic life. There is a time and a place for it but it’s something which will prove profoundly limiting if we don’t regularly move beyond…

  • Thatcher Fucked The Kids

    Whatever happened to childhood? We’re all scared of the kids in our neighborhood; They’re not small, charming and harmless, They’re a violent bunch of bastard little s***s. And anyone who looks younger than me Makes me check for my wallet, my phone and my keys, And I’m tired of being tired out Always being on…

  • Distracted People and Fragile Movements: a relational realist theory of social movement in a digital age

    I’m on the verge of finishing my first article for this project. Once it’s done, I’ll put this on hold until Social Media for Academics is finished. But from the summer onwards, this will be my main project. Here’s the abstract I’ve submitted for  a number of conferences later this year: Distracted People and Fragile…

  • No to outsourcing of academic staff! Public meeting by @warwickucu on Wednesday

    Circulated via e-mail at Warwick but posted here for any Warwick people reading who may have missed the announcement: No to outsourcing of academic staff! Public meeting. Wednesday 22nd April, 5-6.30 PM, H.148 (Humanities Building). Open to all UCU members and non-members, permanent and casualised staff. Join us to find out about Teach Higher, a dangerous…

  • Call for Papers – Scold’s to Trolls; Social and Legal Responses to Visible and Audible Women

    The social ontology of trolling paper I’ve been pondering recently probably wouldn’t work for this but I plan to attend nonetheless: Scold’s to Trolls; Social and Legal Responses to Visible and Audible Women A one-day symposium: September 15th 2015 Organised by the Centre for Law and Society at Lancaster University Law School Keynote Speaker: Professor…

  • CFP – Global Cultures of Contestation

    This looks excellent. I’m tempted to submit a proposal but I did this recently for the social movements symposium in Denmark and I probably couldn’t afford to travel to both: Subject: CFP – Global Cultures of Contestation University of Amsterdam, October 15 & 16, 2015 From the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North…

  • Call for papers: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life (deadline May 1st!)

    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 audit cultures preoccupied with digitally mediated measurement and quantification of scholarship and the consolidation of…

  • 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 suggests clear ways in which life might become different.” Design fiction isn’t science fiction, it’s…

  • Call for papers: Centre for Social Ontology PhD/ECR Conference (deadline May 1st!)

    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 entities which make up that world and their properties and powers. However social ontology remains…

  • The Avoidance of the Intellectual

    Wonderful quote by Edward Said featured on Corey Robin’s blog: Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do…

  • Sociological questions about the coming era of data-driven privatised policing

    This insightful article paints a worrying picture of the growth of data-driven policing. The technical challenge of “building nuance” into data systems “is far harder than it seems” and has important practical implications for how interventions operate on the basis of digital data. What I hadn’t previously realised was how readily investigators are using social…

  • Why you should @readcube to manage your library of papers

    I know the Zotero connector did something similar but I can’t get over how neatly this works in ReadCube. The pop up bar at the bottom appears whenever you open a PDF on the website of a participating publisher. To do my current literature review, I’m going through this process on my laptop and then…

  • David Cameron Serenaded By Ukulele Player Singing ‘F**k Off Back To Eton’

    Anyone else waiting for a potential Gillian Duffy moment from Cameron?

  • Social Science Funding in the US potentially on the verge of being cut in half

    Well this is profoundly worrying. Even if it doesn’t come to fruition, it risks moving the Overton window in a direction that imperils the social sciences as a whole. What interests me though is the existing grant economy as tragedy of the commons this will further intensify. If the overall supply of funding shrinks, it’s…

  • “all the things I believed with all my heart when I was young are just coasters for beers & clean surfaces for drugs”

  • The Two Tier Future of Employment in UK Higher Education

    Please note the update at the end which I added a few hours after posting this. From discussion of TeachHigher at the last meeting of the University of Warwick’s Board of Graduate Studies: That ‘TeachHigher’ would eventually become the sole method of recruiting temporary academic staff within the University, noting its flexibility to meet both…

  • The Chronopolitics of Academic Civility

    I noticed an unfamiliar precondition placed at the end of this interesting call for papers on Story’s Place In Our Lives: Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this…

  • Biography and/as Experiment Fiction

    This looks really interesting. If I had less on in June, I’d be tempted to submit a paper for this in order to try and develop some of my thoughts on design fiction and sociological writing: Biography and/as Experimental Fiction 5 June 2015 Goldsmiths, University of London Richard Hoggart Building, Room 137 This one-day conference…