Blog

markcarrigan.net/

Profile

markcarrigan.net/author/street

Homepage

markcarrigan.net/

  • From passion to profit: exploitation under neoliberalism, or, how seriously should we take latte art?

    Since I first encountered the notion of a calling, I’ve found it a difficult category to expunge from my thought. It appeals to me greatly on a personal level: it points to the higher dimension to human experience which I believe tends to be ‘flattened out’ in the culture of liberal democracies. It helps us attend to…

  • Are academics very well-educated journalists who write badly but will work for free?

    A few years ago I wrote a short article about the relationship between academic blogging and journalism which received a pretty positive reaction online. My suggestion was that academic blogging increasingly constitutes a ‘third space’ between the academy and journalism which facilitates translation between the two institutional spheres. It becomes easier for journalists to find…

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #3

    Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism is a masterful contribution to the acceleration literature. In fact Judy Wajcman’s new book rivals Harmut Rosa’s Social Acceleration as the best thing I’ve read on the topic. It’s an accessible overview of a multifaceted literature which uses a well thought-out layout to walk the reader…

  • Routines and Reflexivity – TOMORROW @SocioWarwick

    Alistair Mutch (Nottingham Trent University) March 10th 17.00-18.30, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Much of the debate occasioned by the development of ideas about reflexivity and morphogenesis has turned on the status of habit. Whilst recognising the importance of this debate, this seminar takes an alternative tack. Returning to Bhaskar’s formulation of ‘position-practices’, it reviews recent work on organizational routines. Developing a…

  • The businessman and the fisherman

    From Paul Dolan’s Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life, though it’s also included in the introduction to the English language version of Harmut Rosa’s Social Acceleration: There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a…

  • Routines and Reflexivity – March 10th @SocioWarwick

    Alistair Mutch (Nottingham Trent University) March 10th 17.00-18.30, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Much of the debate occasioned by the development of ideas about reflexivity and morphogenesis has turned on the status of habit. Whilst recognising the importance of this debate, this seminar takes an alternative tack. Returning to Bhaskar’s formulation of ‘position-practices’, it reviews recent work on organizational routines. Developing a…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing #12

  • This looks great: ‘Weber/Simmel antagonisms’ conference

    Not great enough to travel 6 hours and pay £75 for but pretty great nonetheless: Weber/ Simmel antagonisms Staged dialogues University of Edinburgh 10/11 December 2015 A conference organized by the Max Weber Group of the British Sociological Association  & Sociology Edinburgh Call for outlines Much has been said about the strong oppositions between Simmel…

  • CfP: Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life, 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague

    Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life, 2nd-4th December 2015, Prague 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…

  • Routines and Reflexivity – March 10th @SocioWarwick

    Alistair Mutch (Nottingham Trent University) March 10th 17.00-18.30, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Much of the debate occasioned by the development of ideas about reflexivity and morphogenesis has turned on the status of habit. Whilst recognising the importance of this debate, this seminar takes an alternative tack. Returning to Bhaskar’s formulation of ‘position-practices’, it reviews recent work on organizational routines. Developing a…

  • Academia and Identity – When Research meets Activism

    FINAL CALL FOR REGISTRATION – Workshop “Academia and Identity – When Research meets Activism”   Please note that attendance of the workshop is free, but registration is required in order to provide catering. Please register your attendance by sending an e-mail toValerie.Decraene@ees.kuleuven.be or marion.wasserbauer@uantwerpen.be before Friday 6th of March.     We cordially invite to the workshop “Academia and Identity…

  • Call for an Internet Social Forum

    Call for an Internet Social Forum The Internet belongs to all people – Let’s occupy it More and more, the Internet is the place where we meet up with our friends, get information, organise work, store our pictures and texts, do our banking, see videos, buy tickets and get public services. As we use the…

  • Inner resources:  the roles of reflexivity, self-awareness and emotional responses in the work of the academic researcher.

    CONFERENCE AT BIRKBECK COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   Inner resources:  the roles of reflexivity, self-awareness and emotional responses in the work of the academic researcher.   Friday, April 17th, 2015   Conference: 9.30am-5.00pm.  Film Screening: 6.00pm-8.00pm   The Keynes Library, Birkbeck, University of London, 43, Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD.     Can feeling useless open up possibilities?  …

  • Routines and Reflexivity – March 10th @SocioWarwick

    Alistair Mutch (Nottingham Trent University) March 10th 17.00-18.30, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Much of the debate occasioned by the development of ideas about reflexivity and morphogenesis has turned on the status of habit. Whilst recognising the importance of this debate, this seminar takes an alternative tack. Returning to Bhaskar’s formulation of ‘position-practices’, it reviews recent work on organizational routines. Developing a…

  • Selling psychopathy in late modernity

    A few weeks ago, I was browsing the bookshop in Kings Cross while waiting for the Eurostar and came across this disturbing book: Given I was on my way to a much needed holiday, I didn’t buy the book at the time, intrigued though I was by it. I just went on Amazon to finally purchase…

  • Routines and Reflexivity – March 10th @SocioWarwick

    Alistair Mutch (Nottingham Trent University) March 10th 17.00-18.30, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Much of the debate occasioned by the development of ideas about reflexivity and morphogenesis has turned on the status of habit. Whilst recognising the importance of this debate, this seminar takes an alternative tack. Returning to Bhaskar’s formulation of ‘position-practices’, it reviews recent work on organizational routines. Developing a…

  • How to turn a wallet full of cards into a book

    That’s the challenge I’ve set myself for the next three months. The remaining sections of Social Media for Academics exist in embryonic form within this wallet. Each of the cards has an idea or theme written on it, functioning as a prompt for what I’m guessing will be 300-1000 words of writing. As well as pulling together…

  • The sociological imagination of Ava DuVernay

    The latest issue of the BFI’s Sight & Sound has an illuminating interview with Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, in which she describes her sensibility and approach to directing. The film itself resists a tendency towards hagiography, instead focusing upon Martin Luther King as a ‘leader of leaders’, continually seeking to explore the social and cultural…

  • Can relational reflexivity be fractured? (cc @weaver_beth)

    This is a question I’ve been pondering after an interesting discussion last night. Fractured reflexivity is the tendency of a person’s deliberation to intensify distress rather than leading to a course of action. The process of trying to work out what to do generates anxiety rather than helping them come to a conclusion. Exactly how…

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #2

    Following on from this post: I wasn’t enormously impressed by Malign Velocities. I had assumed it was a book about social acceleration but was surprised to find it’s actually about accelerationism. To be fair, it’s quite clear about this in the blurb, it’s just that I failed to read the blurb properly. Its concern was far…

  • Interesting research project worth supporting: Social Media in the First-Year Experience

    This just got posted on the Social Media Discuss list which I allegedly administer: Dear Colleagues, I am conducting research throughout selected Irish and European colleges on Social Media in the First-Year Student Experience, as part of ITT Dublin’s Teaching and Learning Fellowship. As part of this research, I wish to survey staff (lecturers, academic…

  • How to use @Artefact_Cards for academic writing

    I finally received my Artefact Cards last week and I love them. They were a pain to get hold of due to a spectacularly inept delivery company but Artefact soon rectified this when I e-mailed them to complain. They’re probably only likely to appeal to those with a real stationary problem but if you too…

  • An eclectic account of lay morality and charitable giving in the UK – TOMORROW @SocioWarwick

    Balihar Sanghera (Kent) Tuesday, February 17th 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper examines how charitable giving is an outcome of different interacting elements of lay morality. Charitable giving reflects people’s capacity for fellow-feeling (or sympathy), moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. An eclectic…

  • The Lure of Minimalism

    What is ‘lifestyle minimalism’? To a certain extent it depends upon whom you ask. It’s often talked about as a ‘tool’ to live a simpler and more meaningful life. It’s often framed in terms of reducing ‘stuff’ through sometimes extremely rigid regimes of limiting ownership to a certain number of objects. It’s correspondingly hostile to ‘clutter’…

  • The Pleasures of Speed

  • 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 case, with little quantitative time squeeze actually registering, it nonetheless leaves us with a sense of late modernity…

  • An eclectic account of lay morality and charitable giving in the UK – Feb 17th @SocioWarwick

    Balihar Sanghera (Kent) Tuesday, February 17th 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper examines how charitable giving is an outcome of different interacting elements of lay morality. Charitable giving reflects people’s capacity for fellow-feeling (or sympathy), moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. An eclectic…

  • Misdirection as technique of governance, or, “it’s student activists attacking freedom of speech, not the state!”

    Earlier today I read a Guardian article on the ‘crisis around debate’ at UK universities. It was a well written article with a valid argument that made some interesting points and to a certain extent some of these concerns had occurred to me in recent years. I’ve long been a proponent of no platform and it’s an…

  • Productivity

    Coffee Meditate for focus What do I want to achieve today? Do, Delete, Discard Inbox zero! (fleetingly) Remind self of priorities Meeting Get ahead on e-mail (how did people cope without iPhones?) Meeting Insufficient steps walked Resolve to do better tomorrow Reflect on day: what did I learn? Scan horizon Meditate for sleep Adjust sleep…

  • “Excuse me, I’m lost…”

    “Excuse me, I’m lost…” “Who are you? Why would you come to me?” Here we are (“up here at night”) (yeah!) I’m tied down in the dark in my mind baby, come on, come on and i know girl i know you want to trust you and going and going the night you feel alive…

  • What constitutes a civilisational collapse?

    What constitutes collapse? This is the important question which Phil BC asks in response to my post on the sociology of civilisational collapse. If I mean the notion as anything other than a fleeting speculative thought* then conceptual clarification is essential. I said in the original post that I understand collapse to be the loss of an…

  • An eclectic account of lay morality and charitable giving in the UK – Feb 17th @SocioWarwick

    Balihar Sanghera (Kent) Tuesday, February 17th 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper examines how charitable giving is an outcome of different interacting elements of lay morality. Charitable giving reflects people’s capacity for fellow-feeling (or sympathy), moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. An eclectic…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#11)

  • 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 buried, interred behind a superficial frenzy of ‘newness’, of perpetual movement” and he explores it…

  • Coping with Acceleration

    I wrote yesterday 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 out the important. While the urgent/important dichotomy is a feature of the ‘productivity culture’ I’m…

  • 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 of neoliberal ideology which I understand to be an argument about how subjective disavowal goes hand-in-hand with objective complicity: we maintain a critical distance from a system while…

  • David Cameron as neoliberal prophet

    I just heard these prophetic words from David Cameron on the radio: if you’re not good or outstanding, you have to change. If you can’t do it yourself, you have to let experts come in and help you He was talking about schools. But have you ever encountered a purer statement of neoliberal ideology? In practice…

  • CfP: Thinking Beyond Capitalism, Belgrade, June 24-26, 2015

    A very interesting looking conference being organised by someone I know from asexuality studies: International Conference Thinking Beyond Capitalism, Belgrade, June 24-26, 2015 Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory How is it at all possible to make sound statements about contemporary capitalism? How does one adequately diagnose the current state of the economy? Clearly there…

  • The Relational ‘We’ in Personal Morphogenesis – TOMORROW @SocioWarwick

    Beth Weaver (Strathclyde) Tuesday, February 3rd 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper discusses my empirical application of a relational realist analytic framework to illuminate the role of social groups or collectives, as social relations, in shaping and affecting outcomes for individuals and for groups. Using the morphogenetic sequence…

  • The Fetishisation of Intelligence Under Neoliberalism

    An interesting exchange on Twitter last year about how intelligence is represented in film and TV has stayed with me since it occurred. Watching Hannibal with a friend who was a big fan of it, I found myself obsessed by the quasi-supernatural form which Will Graham’s intelligence takes in the show, allowing him to see…

  • Things I’ve been reading recently #1

    At the end of 2014 I tried to choose the favourite books I’d read during the year. I discovered two things. Firstly, it was a real struggle to remember what I had actually read. Secondly, I had started and failed to finish far more books than I had completed. So this year I’m planning to do…

  • The Relational ‘We’ in Personal Morphogenesis – February 3rd @SocioWarwick

    Beth Weaver (Strathclyde) Tuesday, February 3rd 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper discusses my empirical application of a relational realist analytic framework to illuminate the role of social groups or collectives, as social relations, in shaping and affecting outcomes for individuals and for groups. Using the morphogenetic sequence…

  • An eclectic account of lay morality and charitable giving in the UK – Feb 17th @SocioWarwick

    Balihar Sanghera (Kent) Tuesday, February 17th 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.04 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper examines how charitable giving is an outcome of different interacting elements of lay morality. Charitable giving reflects people’s capacity for fellow-feeling (or sympathy), moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. An eclectic…

  • Productivity culture, cognitive triage and the pseudo-commensurability of the to-do list

    For a couple of years I’ve been striving to empty my e-mail inbox on a daily basis. It doesn’t particularly bother me if I don’t succeed and I often don’t. I go through phases of doing this daily and then, for whatever reason, fall out of the routine. I’ve rarely had to spend more than a…

  • The Relational ‘We’ in Personal Morphogenesis – February 3rd @SocioWarwick

    Beth Weaver (Strathclyde) Tuesday, February 3rd 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper discusses my empirical application of a relational realist analytic framework to illuminate the role of social groups or collectives, as social relations, in shaping and affecting outcomes for individuals and for groups. Using the morphogenetic sequence…

  • CfP ‘Emotional Methodologies’ BSA Postgraduate Conference

    An interesting looking event being organised by Joseph De-Lappe and others: Call for Papers BSA Postgraduate Conference: ‘Emotional Methodologies’ 19 May 2015   University of Leicester  The conference ‘Emotional Methodologies’ will explore methods for researching emotionally-charged data and reflections on researchers’ responses to them, focusing on two themes: • The methodological consequences of the affective turn…

  • Is it weird that I want to go one of these fake conferences to see what happens at them?

    I assume these are the conference equivalents of predatory open access publishers. But what actually happens at them? I have an idea for a piece of exploratory travel writing which was initially a joke but I’m now considering trying to pitch to the Chronicle of Higher Education or Times Higher Education: Social Science and Humenities Research…

  • The Ethical Economy, w/ Adam Arvidsson – Middlesex University, 17 February 2015

    Wish I could make this: Research Seminar – The Ethical Economy Collaborative ethics, promotional cultures and digital media Guest Speaker: Prof. Adam Arvidsson (University of Milan) Tuesday 17th February (h. 17 – Middlesex University, Room C107) The event will explore the different aspects around the new ‘collaborative economy’ that is emerging out of the crisis…

  • Happiness Symposium 4th June 2015 Leicester – Call for Papers

    This looks interesting: Call for Papers Is well-being the most appropriate measure of the state of post-crisis societies in the West? Can different tools that assess it provide useful and meaningful information about societal prosperity which can be used by the policy makers? What sociology can add to the discussion about appropriate indicators of human…

  • Prosumption, appropriation and the ontology of economic form – TOMORROW @SocioWarwick

    Dave Elder-Vass (Loughborough) Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Prosumption – the unpaid performance of productive work by ‘consumers’ who thus help commercial businesses to generate a profit – is perhaps the most studied of the many hybrid forms of economic practice that have proliferated in…

  • Centre for Social Ontology Seminars: Spring Term 2015 (@SocioWarwick)

    ​​Centre for Social Ontology Seminars: Spring Term 2015 January 27th: Dave Elder-Vass (Loughborough University) R1.15 Prosumption, appropriation and the ontology of economic form February 3rd: Beth Weaver (University of Strathclyde) R1.15 The Relational ‘We’ in Social Morphogenesis February 17th: Balihar Sanghera (University of Kent) R1.04 Lay ethics, distortions and charitable giving March 10th: Alistair Mutch…

  • Prosumption, appropriation and the ontology of economic form – January 27th @SocioWarwick

    Dave Elder-Vass (Loughborough) Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Prosumption – the unpaid performance of productive work by ‘consumers’ who thus help commercial businesses to generate a profit – is perhaps the most studied of the many hybrid forms of economic practice that have proliferated in…

  • Some things about the acceleration of higher education which I would like to understand more than I do

    Increasingly I think about this issue in terms of a distinction between the rate of publication and the rate of knowledge production. My hunch is that the acceleration of the former goes hand-in-hand with a deceleration of the latter. I have all sorts of speculative ideas about the causality if I’m correct but I’d like to actually try and substantiate…

  • Prosumption, appropriation and the ontology of economic form – January 27th @SocioWarwick

    Dave Elder-Vass (Loughborough) Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick Prosumption – the unpaid performance of productive work by ‘consumers’ who thus help commercial businesses to generate a profit – is perhaps the most studied of the many hybrid forms of economic practice that have proliferated in…

  • The Relational ‘We’ in Personal Morphogenesis – February 3rd @SocioWarwick

    Beth Weaver (Strathclyde) Tuesday, February 3rd 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, R1.15 Ramphal Building, University of Warwick This paper discusses my empirical application of a relational realist analytic framework to illuminate the role of social groups or collectives, as social relations, in shaping and affecting outcomes for individuals and for groups. Using the morphogenetic sequence…

  • 2015 Call for Papers about Asexuality

    2015 Call for Papers about Asexuality Asexuality Studies Interest Group National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) November 12-15, 2015, Milwaukee, Wisconsin The NWSA Asexuality Studies Interest Group welcomes papers for the 2015 NWSA annual conference. These asexuality-related themes are orientated towards the full NWSA 2015 CFP which can be found here: http://www.nwsa.org/Files/2015/NWSA%202015%20CFP_Final.pdf If you are interested…

  • Howard Becker and Margaret Archer share a critique of Bourdieu

    They just express it in a very different way: “Bourdieu’ s big idea was the champs, field, and mine was monde, world—what’s the difference?” Becker asks rhetorically. “Bourdieu’s idea of field is kind of mystical. It’s a metaphor from physics. I always imagined it as a zero-sum game being played in a box. The box is full…

  • Thanks @OvoEnergy, what a lovely surprise: I’ve used a years worth of gas in 3 months & you want your money

    I was surprised to find that Ovo have had me in ‘billing suspension’ for months without telling me. So even though I was diligently giving them monthly meter readings, these weren’t being processed and my direct debit payment (£92 per month) was beginning to build up into a surplus. When querying this, I discover that…

  • The role of reflexivity in explaining rather than describing technological diffusion

    Talking about explaining rather than describing the diffusion of a technology doesn’t imply that the former is important and the latter isn’t. Not least of all because we need to describe the diffusion of a technology before we can explain that pattern. But it’s the explanatory question which interests me far more than the descriptive one: why has…

  • How to be an academic and deal with stupid & hostile interviewers

  • What is Digital Sociology?

    What is Digital Sociology? I really like that Deborah suggested this title for her lecture tomorrow night because it’s a question which fascinates me. Obviously this is in part a matter of terminological novelty, with ‘digital sociology’ obviously supplementing parallel projects of ‘digital humanities’, ‘digital geography’ and ‘digital anthropology’  in ways that are nonetheless difficult…

  • Tony Lawson: 90%+ of economics taught in Western world is based on mathematical modelling that is useless

  • What will post-democracy look like?

    As anyone who reads my blog regularly might have noticed, I’m a fan of Colin Crouch’s notion of post-democracy. I’ve interviewed him about it a couple of times: once in 2010 and again in 2013. Whereas he’d initially offered the notion to illuminate a potential trajectory, in the sense that we risk becoming post-democratic, we more latterly see a social…

  • Angry Johnny & the Radio (at the blood bank)

    I’ve heard Gaslight Anthem cover this Bon Iver song more than once but have never been able to find a video of it. At last! The cover starts at 3 minutes in and it fits gloriously into Angry Johnny & the Radio. I’ve put the combined lyrics below, with Bon Iver’s in bold. Don’t think twice…

  • W.G. Runciman @SocioWarwick on January 22nd

    The Social Theory Centre at Warwick is pleased to announce two events happening on Thursday 22nd January 2015 with W.G. Runciman (Trinity College, Cambridge; ex-President of the British Academy):Why So Little, Why So Much?: Change in English Society Since the Time of Defoe A workshop with W.G. Runciman based on his recently published book Very Different, But…

  • Two digital sociology events @sociowarwick on January 13th

    What is Digital Sociology? An evening lecture by Deborah Lupton with Mark Carrigan and Emma Uprichard responding. It will take place in S0.21 from 5pm to 7pm. This is in the Social Sciences Building on the University of Warwick campus. It would be helpful if you could register using Eventbrite. Sociological Perspectives on Digital Health: An…

  • In frustration at the wilfull destruction of the @wordpress user interface…

    I’ve given up on using the web interface and have started using software. This is a test post from Blogo. I quite like it but it will take a while to get used to blogging without directly using wordpress.  

  • CfP: Causal Inference and Mechanism-Based Explanation: Friends or Foes?

    Theme: “Causal Inference and Mechanism-Based Explanation: Friends or Foes?” Analytical sociology is a general approach to explaining the social world. It is concerned with phenomena such as social network structures, patterns of segregation, collectively shared and diffused cultural ideas, and common ways of (inter-)acting in a society. The mode of explanation is to specify in…

  • Reframing Media/Cultural Studies in the Age of Global Crisis

    Reframing Media/Cultural Studies in the Age of Global Crisis Univ of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute 19-20 June 2015 Call http://www.westminster.ac.uk/camri/events/reframing-mediacultural-studies-in-the-age-of-global-crisis Conference organised by the Communication and Media Research Institute, CAMRI, University of Westminster in association with Fluminense Federal University, Brazil In an age of ongoing global protest, an economy in crisis and systems…

  • Sara Ahmed @SocioWarwick: “Brick Walls: On Racism and Other Hard Histories”

    You are warmly invited to attend the first Warwick Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration Network Public Lecture Brick Walls: On Racism and Other Hard Histories Professor Sara Ahmed, Goldsmiths, University of London Wednesday 20th May 5pm-6.30pm Room S0.11, Social Sciences Building, University of Warwick The event will be followed by a drinks reception This is…

  • Call for Papers – International Social Theory Consortium 2015

    INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL THEORY CONSORTIUM 2015 http://socialtheory.org/upcoming-conference.html 14th Annual Conference of the International Social Theory Consortium Cambridge, UK, June 18-19, 2015 RECONSTRUCTING SOCIAL THEORY, HISTORY AND PRACTICE CALL FOR PAPERS With regard to developments in social theory, the past 30 years can be characterized as an Age of Deconstruction. Inspired by post-structuralism, post-modernism, critical theory, and…

  • Two digital sociology events @sociowarwick on Jan 13th

    Along with Sam Martin, I’m organising two digital sociology events on January 13th as part of Deborah Lupton’s visit to the UK. What is Digital Sociology? An evening lecture by Deborah Lupton with me and Emma Uprichard responding. It will take place in S0.21 from 5pm to 7pm. This is in the Social Sciences Building on…

  • “It fucks with your honor and it teases your head”

    Well, I met you at the blood bank We were looking at the bags Wondering if any of the colors Matched any of the names we knew on the tags You said, see look that’s yours Stacked on top with your brother’s See how the resemble one another Even in their plastic little covers And…

  • Two digital sociology events @sociowarwick on Jan 13th

    Along with Sam Martin, I’m organising two digital sociology events on January 13th as part of Deborah Lupton’s visit to the UK. What is Digital Sociology? An evening lecture by Deborah Lupton with me and Emma Uprichard responding. It will take place in S0.21 from 5pm to 7pm. This is in the Social Sciences Building on…

  • Social media and ambient intimacy

    There’s a pervasive tendency to see social media as something detrimental to the quality of human relationships. The precise formulation tends to vary but in practice it amounts to a claim that ‘real’ and ‘meaningful’ (i.e. relationships sustained through face-to-face communication) are being replaced with ‘virtual’ and ‘superficial’ ones (i.e. relationships sustained through digitally mediated…

  • Subtraction stories and social change

    The closest thing I have to an historiographical principle is to always be suspicious of what Charles Taylor calls ‘subtraction stories’. While he uses the concept to refer to congratulatory stories of rational emancipation in which human beings have gradually dispensed with myths and illusions that served to limit them, it can equally be applied to…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#10)

  • The most popular posts on my blog in 2014

    Looking for an Evernote alternative? Centrallo might be what you’re looking for Why I am quitting the British Sociological Association (must admit I considered deleting this) The sociology of ‘hipsters’ How not to use twitter as an academic The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality Qualitative self-tracking and the Qualified Self The Muppets explain Phenomenology (via…

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#9)

  • Zeus vs. Thor

    (via Org Theory, weirdly enough)

  • CfP Risk technologies session at forthcoming Sociology of Risk mid-term

    I’m very tempted to submit something for this – in spite of my continued lack of conference travel funding & the number of international trips I’m already committed to next year. Edit to add: problem solved – I only just noticed that the deadline is today… Relating with the Digital, Relating to the Future: Bringing Risk to Life Session…

  • Symposium for Early Career Theorists (SECT), Ottawa, Canada, June 2014

    The Social Theory Research Cluster invites paper proposals for its first Symposium for Early Career Theorists. SECT is a special one-day group of sessions at the Canadian Sociological Association that spotlights the work of emerging social theorists at a relatively early stage in their careers (PhD Candidates who are ABD status and those who are…

  • The cultural representation of our inner life

  • At the risk of sounding obsessive: Žižek is now releasing new books monthly

    Unlike my previous post, I wasn’t actually looking for this. I just noticed it when browsing the recent philosophy releases on Amazon: August 2014: The Most Sublime Hysteric: Hegel with Lacan September 2014: Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj (with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova) October 2014: Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism November 2014: Trouble in…

  • Some thoughts on sociological blogging

    The potential value and dangers of sociological blogging arise because of an environment in which the demands of audit culture incentivise the production of ‘unread’ and ‘unloved’ publications which are too often written to be counted rather than to be read. The risk is that sociological blogging gets drawn into the pernicious logic of these metrics…

  • The value of blogging for part-time PhD students

    One of the more elusive benefits of blogging has been the implications for my professional identity. As a part-time PhD student, without funding but committed to an academic career trajectory (albeit at times waveringly), I found myself engaged in a diverse array of short term roles within the academy. Some of these had clear relevance…

  • Some thoughts on sociological writing

    The denial of what Ben Agger calls ‘authoriality’ in sociological texts helps explain why concerns about the character of sociological writing have figured so prominently in recurrent anxieties about the status and future of the discipline. Its suppression involves a certain kind of self-presentation for sociology, as individual sociologists frame their work in a way…

  • My 25 favourite books (and graphic novels) of 2014

    How We Are – Vincent Deary The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P – Adelie Waldman The Circle – Dave Eggers Locke & Key (vol 1 to vol 5) – Joe Hill The Importance of Disappointment – Ian Craib The Massive (vol 1 to vol 4) – Brian Wood Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt – Chris…

  • Treating ideas with seriousness: @DLittle30 on social media and scholarship

    I recently interviewed Daniel Little, author of Understanding Society, as part of the research feeding into Social Media for Academics. Here are some extracts from an extremely thought provoking conversation:

  • Next Critsex Seminar – Feminist Encounters with Evolutionary Psychology – 30th January 2015

    Critical Sexology Seminar Feminist Encounters with Evolutionary Psychology  Guest-Organized by Rachel O’Neill, King’s College London.    ​Friday 30 January 2015, 2-6pm Room G.80, Franklin-Wilkins Building King’s College London (Waterloo Campus) ​ Prof. Deborah Cameron, University of Oxford: “Evolution, language and the battle of the sexes: A feminist linguist encounters evolutionary psychology” Dr. Celia Roberts, Lancaster University: “Evolution, early puberty and the half-lives of…

  • Sexual Cultures 2: Academia Meets Activism

    Sexuality activists/academics – do consider submitting to this and please pass it on. Due to the huge interest in the Sexual Cultures 2: Academia Meets Activism conference, we have extended the Call for Papers to 15 January 2015.  Please circulate widely and forward to individuals/networks who might be interested. Sexual Cultures 2: Academia Meets Activism April 8-10…

  • 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 and the New Statesman. I find his short books immensely readable and his longer books…

  • What an amazing instrument: the mridangam

    I heard one being played for the first time on Friday and now I’m slightly obsessed. Recordings of it don’t do justice to how mesmeric it is:

  • The gaps in which being human happens

    I’m currently reading Vincent Deary’s How We Are. It’s the first book in a planned trilogy exploring how people change. For the last few months I’ve had a vague idea that at some point I’d like to develop themes from my PhD into a book for a wider audience. My project sought to develop a framework for studying the…

  • There was no ‘I’ to do it, because the ‘I’ was the result

    From How We Are (How to Live Trilogy 1) by Vincent Deary (loc 247) – a beautiful and strange book: Our first memories are of things out there, worldly happenings taking place in a world of circumstance, to this ‘I’ here, to this little self. Our real beginnings are veiled in darkness. Below the coherent order…

  • Call for papers: Causal Inference and Mechanism-Based Explanation: Friends or Foes?

    At some point I’d love to make it to one of the Analytical Sociology conferences: INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF ANALYTICAL SOCIOLOGISTS We are happy to announce the call for papers for the 8th Analytical Sociology Conference – June 12 and 13, 2015 in Cambridge, MA. Theme: “Causal Inference and Mechanism-Based Explanation: Friends or Foes?” Organizers: Mary…

  • Call for papers: Internet of You: Data Big and Small

    This looks really interesting – if I wasn’t drowning under the weight of existing writing commitments, I’d love to try and write something for the final topic suggestion: Call for papers for special issue of IEEE Internet Computing – http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/iccfp6 Internet of You: Data Big and Small Final submissions due:  1 March 2015 Publication issue: …

  • An Agenda for Digital Sociology

    I see Digital Sociology as an open-ended integrative project, concerned to assemble the disparate strands of sociological engagement with digital technology within a more or less shared intellectual space: not in the sense of striving for unanimity but rather to ensure that disagreements at least tend to play out in terms which make the basis…

  • CfP: Feminist Early Career Academics

    This looks good: Please see below and attached a call for papers for an edited book entitled ‘Feminist Beginnings: Being an Early Career Feminist Academic in a Changing Academy’, to be edited by Dr Rachel Thwaites and Dr Amy Godoy-Pressland. Please circulate around your networks. In a fast-changing higher education academy, where marketisation is increasingly…

  • ‘Rank and Yank’ in Higher Education

    From What about Me?: the struggle for identity in a market-based society by Paul Verhaeghe: Enron, an American multinational, introduced this practice at the end of the previous century, dubbing it the ‘Rank and Yank appraisal system’. The individual performances of its staff members were continually monitored and contrasted. On the basis of the results, one-fifth…