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  • Discover Society Issue 9

    http://discoversociety.org ISSUE NINE: June 2014     Focus:   Sue Scott On the Truth in Sex: The Times they are a-Changin’, or Not   Articles: Ruth Holliday, David Bell, Meredith Jones & Olive Cheung Clinical Trails: Cosmetic Surgery Tourism Stephen Crossley “Joining the Dots”? The Role of Research in the ‘Troubled Families’ Agenda Naaz Rashid…

  • CFP: still queer / a postgraduate and early-career work-in-progress study day at Queer@King’s

    still queer / a postgraduate and early-career work-in-progress study day Queer@King’s / King’s College, London / Saturday 13 September 2014 Queer@King’s invites proposals for presentations to be given at a collaborative work-in-progress study day. We hope to foster a supportive environment in which new work and ideas can be discussed among peers, with the opportunity…

  • Slavoj Žižek (2014) “Why I Hate Snow and Office Hours”

  • CfP: What is intersectional about intersectionality now

    Call for Proposals “What is intersectional about intersectionality now?” Special Issue Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice Editors: Corinne L. Mason and Amanda D. Watson DEADLINE: June 30, 2014 Following the coining of the term “intersectionality” in Kimberle Crenshaw’s (1989) essay, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of…

  • Workshop on animal agency and selfhood

    I really wish I could make it to this: Animals and post-human futures research network (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/current/networks/animals/) Workshop exploring animal agency and selfhood 1.00 – 4.30 Tuesday June 10th IAS seminar room, Milburn House Leslie Irvine, Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder: ‘Bridging the species boundary: Understanding the human-animal connection’ Chris Pearson, History, Liverpool University: ‘Securing the…

  • All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann

    All There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann Leonard Cohen EYES: Medium HAIR: Medium WEIGHT: Medium HEIGHT: Medium DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:  None NUMBER OF FINGERS: Ten NUMBER OF TOES: Ten INTELLIGENCE: Medium What did you expect? Talons? Oversize incisors? Green saliva? Madness?

  • Music I find inexplicably conducive to writing (#1)

  • University complaints by students top 20,000

    More than 20,000 students complained to their universities last year, a Freedom of Information request by the BBC has shown. Responses from 120 universities across the UK revealed that total academic appeals and complaints were 10% higher in 2012-13 than in 2010-11. Universities Minister David Willetts welcomed the finding. He said it showed that students…

  • So someone actually made the perfect writing software….

    It’s called Ulysses III and it is an exquisite piece of software. It combines my favourite bits of Scrivener with iA Writer. I’ll write properly about it later in the week when I have more time. I’m too busy writing in Ulysses to blog. It’s an absolute pleasure to use: I feel the need to add that ‘perfect’…

  • The International Asexuality conference – 28 June 2014, Toronto

    This notice is directed at everyone – public, press, community members and our allies – with an interest in asexuality. If this is you, please read on!The International Asexuality conference is now only 4 weeks away. The conference is a WorldPride affiliate event and will be held at Ryerson University, Toronto on 28 June 2014 – the…

  • A Brief History of John Baldessari (narrated by Tom Waits)

    (HT Patter) Interesting that this was the work of the Catfish directors.

  • Apply now: Ninja Rockstar Content Associates needed A.S.A.P

    More jobs here if these ones don’t take your fancy: Are you a native full-stack visiongineer who lives to marketechplatishforms? Then come work with us as an in-house NEOLOGIZER and reimaginatorialize the verbalsphere! If you are a slang-slinger who is equahome in brandegy and advertorial, a total expert in brandtech and techvertoribrand, and a first-class synergymnast, then…

  • I just realised @soc_imagination is 4 years old tomorrow

    And one of the things that has surprised me is how global it has become. According to Google Analytics, it’s been accessed from 211 different countries in the past 4 years:

  • The sociology of Elliot Rodger

    I wrote an overly brief post recently about the Elliot Rodger case (in the process offending some guys who are nice, though not ‘nice guys’) – this article by Richard Seymour, prefixed with a trigger warning, deftly shows how there’s much more to this case than just one person’s contingent hatred and brutality: This is…

  • CfP: Youth Activism and Resistance Conference

    And to complete this clear out of things that were in my inbox that looked too interesting not to share: Youth activism and resistance conference, Friday 13th June 2014, University of Leicester, UK On Friday 13th of June the University of Leicester will be hosting one of the British Sociological Association’s Regional Postgraduate Events. The theme of this…

  • CfP: Theorising Personal Medical Devices: New Perspectives

    CALL FOR PAPERS Theorising Personal Medical Devices: New Perspectives 18th-19th September 2014 Post-doctoral Suite, 16 Mill Lane, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Fuelled by the accelerating pace of technological development and a general shift to personalised, patient-led medicine alongside the growing Quantified Self and Big Data movements, the emerging field of personal medical devices is one which…

  • Special Issue on ‘Gender, Sexuality and Political Economy

    This looks good: Link to the Journal Issue: http://link.springer.com/journal/10767/27/2/page/1 List of Contents: 1) Susie Jacobs and Christian Klesse: lntroduction: Special Issue on “Gender, Sexuality and Political Economy” (pp 129-152) 2) Floya Anthias:  The Intersections of Class, Gender, Sexuality and ‘Race’: The Political Economy of Gendered Violence (pp 153-171) 3) Susie Jacobs: Gender, Land and Sexuality: Exploring Connections (pp 173-190) 4) Encarnación…

  • Coming across old projects you completely forgot about

    But that never went anywhere….

  • Alan Watts on Empiricism

    Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he…

  • Why Google’s driverless cars baffle me

    This sort of thing happens all the time when I use Google Docs: So why would I ever get in a self-driving car with no steering wheel?

  • “With every racist pointed finger, I hear the goose steps getting closer”

    It’s probably 12 years since I first heard this song. It’s been on my mind today as I’ve been thinking about recent events in Europe. It’s one of those songs that indexes my unfolding life, as I recurrently come back to it and find something slightly new each time. The depressing thought I had earlier…

  • The rise of think tanks

    This podcast discussion is very interesting. I don’t think I’d ever heard leading figures from the think tank world reflect so openly about how they see their work. Any adequate sociology of think tanks has to be able to account for these self-understandings: The role of think tanks in shaping public policy dates back nearly…

  • The seedy(ish) world of content marketing

    I’m getting more and more of these. How much of the content of blogs is ‘inserted’ in this way?

  • Concurrences in Postcolonial Research conference, Kalmar, Sweden, 20-23 August 2015

    Call for panels and papers Concurrences in postcolonial research – perspectives, methodologies, engagements Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden, 20-23 August 2015 In recent years, postcolonial research has set out to challenge dominating statements of the past and present. This is where the concept of concurrences comes in, which is a guiding term for this conference. It is…

  • Nigel Farage vs. Tony Blair

    Oh Tony, if only you’d used your powers for good rather than for evil.

  • So @soc_imagination is supposedly the 4th most popular Economics blog in the UK

    It feels a little wrong that it’s ranking above Simon Wren-Lewis on eBuzzing. The methodology is a little opaque and I’m wondering if the reason for this high ranking is my ‘proactive’ scheduling of the @soc_imagination twitter feed: Blog ranking based on the score calculated by Ebuzzing which considers various numerous parameters including the number…

  • Valuing electronic music

    Valuing Electronic Music Upstairs at The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, London N1 9JB 6 June 2014 4.30-10pm Admission free Valuing Electronic Music is an ongoing study of electronic music and the people who value it, carried out by Daniel Allington (Open University), Anna Jordanous (King’s College, London), and Byron Dueck(Open University). Our work explores how the value of electronic music transcends…

  • Margaret Archer interviewed in Times Higher Education

    See the full interview here: What has changed most in higher education in the past 10 years? Bureaucratic incursion, expressed through the regulation of funding, reward and recognition for departments and individuals, via performance indicators and sanctions. Their consequences are completely negative: collegiality becomes competition; informal esteem becomes a formal hierarchy; concern for students becomes…

  • Why do people blame their iPads for the fact they can’t concentrate in meetings?

    This is a line of thought I seem to encounter ever more frequently, perhaps reflecting how integrated into everyday life these mobile technologies are becoming: I am deeply attached to my ipad and have it with me almost constantly. I check my email obsessively and tend to all the alerts and messages generated by the…

  • The Anthropology of Hipsters (and what it reveals about Anthropology)

    Thanks to Benjamin Geer who sent me this link, following an interesting discussion we had about Bourdieu and the sociology of hipsters last week. It’s on the Savage Minds blog which I don’t read anywhere near as often as I should: Anthropologists as Scholarly Hipsters, Part I: What is a Hipster? Anthropologists as Scholarly Hipsters, Part II:…

  • “You work your day doing something you’re not proud of, and you decompress at night with television and whisky”

    the industrial economy seduced us into believing is that the deal was simple: You work your day doing something you’re not proud of, and you decompress at night with television and whisky, and on weekends you can go for a run. Right? Do that forever, and forty years from now you’re dead — that’s the…

  • The violent rage of the ‘nice guy’

    The gunman committed his killing spree just hours after posting a chilling video online in which he spelled out his murderous plans for “retribution” because of rebuffs by female students at college. Lamenting that he was still a virgin at 22, he declared, “I will kill every single blonde *** I see”, and blamed women…

  • The breaking of intellectual superstars

    I’ve blogged a few times recently about Thomas Piketty and the making of intellectual superstars. I find his elevation to “rock star” status fascinating, not least of all the deeply performative nature of this silly epithet, revealing as it does many interesting trends about the status of intellectuals in contemporary circumstances. The case has become even more fascinating with…

  • “Stop closing down the debate!”: some thoughts on racism, free speech and UKIP

    I’m currently listening to BBC Any Questions and, perhaps predictably, it’s filled with UKIP supporters following their success this week. Its astonishingly depressing stuff. But one recurrent feature has been the notion that politicians have continually suppressed free debate on immigration by “playing the race card” until Nigel came to their rescue and allowed the “silent majority” to…

  • What is it like to be a telephone fundraiser?

    A few weeks ago I blogged about the professionalisation of charities. Leon Ward just sent me this article he wrote about his own experiences as a telephone fundraiser. It’s definitely worth reading in full here. I found his description of the training given by call centre operators particularly interesting: During my training I was particularly shocked…

  • Queer Futures – new research project

    This looks like a very important & worthwhile project: Queer Futures is a national study exploring the self-harm and suicidal feelings of young LGBTQ peopleLancaster University is leading a £300,000 study aimed at reducing self-harm and suicide among young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or questioning.International research has shown that LGBTQ adolescents and…

  • How does someone come to identify as asexual?

    Via Oozing Ink I love this. Though it does make me sad to see how something it took me 8000 words to express in academic language can basically be conveyed so much more powerfully in 6 images.

  • George Galloway: “I don’t want your fucking vote”

    Via Political Scrapbook

  • The slow death of originality? Thoughts on the self-plagiarisation of Slavoj Žižek

    There’s an interesting article by Žižek on the Guardian website. It’s a little too pop-sociological for my tastes but it’s nonetheless an engaging read. However the first paragraph of the article is lifted verbatim from his The Year of Dreaming Dangerously: During a recent visit to California, I attended a party at a professor’s house with a Slovene…

  • Next Critical Sexology Seminar – 30th May – “Sex Critical Approaches to Pornography”

    http://www.criticalsexology.org.uk 30 May 2014 | Sex Critical Approaches to Pornography A guest-organized session convened by Prof. Feona Attwood & Dr Helen Hester, Middlesex University. Venue: The Boardroom, 2nd Floor, College Building, Hendon Campus, Middlesex University (Map here: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/Assets/Hendon_Campus_Pocketmap.pdf) From 2pm. (The seminar will take the form of four 10-minute-long discussion papers followed by responses and debate. This session…

  • Akello Stone on Visual Sociology

    Via @CreateSociology @CreateSociology @CreateSociology @CreateSociology @CreateSociology

  • Valuing Electronic Music

    Valuing Electronic Music Upstairs at The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, London N1 9JB 6 June 2014 4.30-10pm Admission free Valuing Electronic Music is an ongoing study of electronic music and the people who value it, carried out by Daniel Allington (Open University), Anna Jordanous (King’s College, London), and Byron Dueck (Open University). Our work explores…

  • The six challenges social media poses for social researchers

    There’s a great post by Kandy Woodfield on the NSMNSS blog. Do read the full post – it’s a panoramic yet concise overview of the current terrain. I’ve listed the challenges below for my own notes rather than as a substitute for reading the original post. The methodological challenge: “we have yet to fully address the fact that a high…

  • The Impact Agenda and the Good (Academic) Life

    This was the rather unlikely connection suggested in Jonathan Wolff’s Guardian article yesterday. I have massive respect for Wolff, who taught me as an undergraduate and is the only lecturer who has ever consistently held my attention, which left me taking this article more seriously than I otherwise might have. To be fair, he’s not talking about…

  • No, @tvlicensing, I still don’t own a TV. Would you please leave me alone?

    My annual letter from TV licensing says “naturally, we don’t want to contact you unnecessarily”. So why do they send me an annual letter? Every year TV licensing requests that those who do not own a TV “re-confirm” this. They require you to register as not owning a TV. Does anyone else find this as absurd…

  • Buzzfeed and the “the acceleration of the temporal rhythm of late capitalist visual culture”

    The quote in this title isn’t from a critique of Buzzfeed written by a contemporary critical theorist loftily bemoaning everything this site is coming to represent. It’s from a paper written by the founder of Buzzfeed when he was a critical theorist loftily bemoaning the cultural logic of late capitalism: Buzzfeed has achieved an outrageous amount of success in…

  • Warwick University Ltd Conference (not this Friday but soon)

    Great looking conference at Warwick this friday which is free & open to all: Warwick University Ltd

  • Racism and Digital Communication and Stories of Cosmopolitan Belonging: 2 events at @SocioWarwick 11th June

    Two excellent looking events organised by people in my department: Workshop on Race, Racism and Digital Communications, 10.30-1pm, Gillian Rose Room (R3.25), Ramphal Building, University of Warwick [with the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, Warwick] Discussion featuring Alana Lentin, Sanjay Sharma, Kirsten Forkert and Nathaniel Tkacz on transformation of race through digital communication networks, ambient racism and…

  • Call for Artwork RGS-IBG 2014: Geographies of Co-Production in the Arts

    Geographies of Co-Production in the Arts: Artists, Communities and the CityExhibition: Call for ArtworkAnnual International Conference, London, 26-29 August 2014Royal Geographical Society (RGS) with Institute of British Geographers (IBG)1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2ARCurators and convenors: Dr Saskia Warren (University of Birmingham) & Dr Martin Zebracki (University of Leeds)This exhibition at the largest annual Geography conference…

  • Academics using kickstarter

    I was intrigued to see this great project by Emma Jackson and a collaborator on Kickstarter. It’s fantastic that it seems to have been so successful for them. Is this likely to become more widespread? I find this quite exciting in some respects but also quite worrying, in so far as that it could easily be…

  • Power in a World of Becoming, Process, Entanglement & Attachment – Programme Announced – June 2-3 (please circulate)

    Apt 2014: Power in a World of Becoming, Process, Entanglement & Attachment June 2-3, University of Warwick (Ramphal)   ‘In ever era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it’ (Walter Benjamin)   Plenary Speakers: Louise Amoore (Durham); Christian Borch (CBS, Copehagen); Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck);…

  • 31 things the current UK government have privatised or want to privatise

    child protection services the probation service the royal mail emergency calls to the fire service the land registry the NHS blood service Eurostar large swathes of the school system significant policing functions the motorway network the met office ordnance survey companies house student loans the behavioural insights team Remploy the NHS forests Lloyds the courts…

  • CIA’s ‘Facebook’ Program Dramatically Cut Agency’s Costs

  • The details of the Fourth Cultural Political Economy Workshop

    Originally posted on Bob Jessop: ? Cultural Political Economy Research Centre (CPERC) Lancaster University The Fourth Annual Cultural Political Economy Workshop Sponsored by Sociology Department Theme: Cultural Political Economy of Finance, Debt and Crisis Date: 22 May 2014 (Thursday) Place: Charles Carter A18, Lancaster University Time: 9:30-5:00 ? The details of the Fourth Cultural Political…

  • Unintentionally hilarious university recruitment videos

    (HT Sarah Burton) I’d forgotten how stunning the LSU one is. Are there others……? Via Joe Webb: Though this is surely intentionally funny – or am I being naive?

  • Academic Conferences: “Disability in Translation” and “Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane”

  • Fast capitalism and peer review

    The public debate concerning ‘scare stories’ about statins is an interesting case study for the politics of peer review. It’s an important reminder that these seemingly technical issues of scholarly communication can have important public consequences. The case seems to be framed in the media as calling into question the ‘gold standard’ of peer review. Is…

  • In Praise of Brevity

    The relative brevity of blogging vis-à-vis other modes of publication is often understood as reflecting the putative superficiality of the former. However there are virtues to brevity which are too little appreciated. Chris Dillow had a lovely (and brief) post on his blog about this a few months ago: 1. Longform writing is narcissistic. It presumes…

  • Floria Charity harassed by police and couple fined $746 for feeding homeless people

    More info here: Chico and Debbie Jimenez, a husband and wife team, aren’t handing out food in the Florida heat every Wednesday because of a court order or for a paycheck. They do it because they believe helping the poor is their religious duty. The pair run a Christian outreach group, Spreading the Word Without Saying…

  • DIY Citizenship – A Symposium: Critical Making, Activism & Design

    Reminder – DIY Citizenship – Critical Making, Activism & DesignA one-day symposium and book launch examining do-it-yourself citizenshipin making, activism and design.Wednesday 28th May, 10am – 6pmHosted by UWE Bristol’s Digital Cultures Research Centre at thePervasive Media Studio, Watershed, BristolTo mark the UK launch of DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and SocialMedia (MIT Press), a day…

  • The Performativity of Social Movements (CC @TGJBrock)

    What does it mean to talk about the performativity of social movements? The obvious answer is to look to the aspect of performance inherent in the mobilisation of contemporary social movements. In this sense protests and demonstrations can be seen as drawing upon established repertoires of activity, orientated towards an audience, which depend upon certain meanings and also reproduce these…

  • CfP: How capitalism survives? A Marxist-Feminist perspective

    How capitalism survives? A Marxist-Feminist perspective Call for Papers within the framework of the 11th Historical Materialism Annual Conference ‘How Capitalism Survives’ – 6-9 November 2014 – Vernon Square, Central LondonThe Historical Materialism annual conference in London has emerged as a pivotal site for critical, engaged, constructive, and provocative scholarship and activism internationally. This is…

  • CfP: BSA Activism in Sociology Forum

    BSA Activism in Sociology Forum welcomes new contributions from both established and early career researchers as well as sociologists outside of academia to share their hands-on activist experiences or reflections. Contributors are welcome to produce a new piece built around, but not limited to, the themes below or to respond to any future published pieces…

  • CfP: Researching Sex and Intimacy in Contemporary Life: An interdisciplinary Symposium

    Call for papers  Researching Sex and Intimacy in Contemporary Life: An interdisciplinary Symposium July 18th 2014 Hosted by the School of Law, Politics and Sociology and supported by Researcher-led Initiative funding,  University of Sussex With confirmed speakers Dr Meg Barker, Open University: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/main/staff/people-profile.php?name=Meg_Barker Professor Andrea Cornwall, University of Sussex: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/92604 This symposium aims to bring together researchers across…

  • Looking for an Evernote alternative? Centrallo might be what you’re looking for

    I wrote a couple of weeks ago about why I think Evernote is overrated. Since then I’ve been looking for alternatives and I think I’ve finally found one. Centrallo is an initially slightly confusing hybrid between a Getting Things Done orientated task manager and an outliner application. I was initially a bit baffled by it but…

  • Asexuality in Television and Film: Explicit Mentions (a reference post)

    Originally posted on NEXT STEP: CAKE: First, a quick explanation: This list is specifically of explicit, canonical mentions of asexuality in film or television; anything with an explicit mention of the word “asexual” is included, whether it’s a good example of actual asexuality or not. Instances of possible asexuality that are hinted at but not…

  • “Why do I never listen to me?”: Internal Monologues and TV Comedy

    I wrote a few months ago about the representation of interiority in film and television. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had about the internal conversation after six years researching it. While some sociologists are deeply sceptical of the concept, it nonetheless always seems striking to me how intuitively people grasp what it…

  • Daniel Miller on Becoming Human

  • Elizabeth Warren for President

  • Sociology as a brand

    Sociology is a damaged brand, associated with a particular kind of politics and with particular sorts of social interventions. These remain controversial. But a damaged brand is still a brand. People who are attracted to these causes are not put off by the fact that sociologists have a narrow range of political preferences, a range…

  • Podcasts: Digital Sociology at #BritSoc14

    These are the podcasts from the Digital Sociology plenary at the BSA conference. Thanks to Huw Davies for recording and editing these (as well as the digital public sociology podcasts).  

  • CfP: The media’s evolving role in sex education

    Sex Education journal — Special Issue The media’s evolving role in sex education Entertainment media have long been identified as having a key role to play in education about sex and relationships. All too often in studies of sexual learning the media have been assessed for their potentially negative effects on young people. For example,…

  • CfP: Big Data in Political Science

    SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED: CALL FOR ARTICLES NEW DEADLINE: MAY 15, 2014 RSF: THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION JOURNAL OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES CONFERENCE ON BIG DATA IN POLITICAL ECONOMY The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences invites submissions for its upcoming issue on “big data in political economy.” The aim of the issue and conference is…

  • Everyday Encounters with Violence: Critical Feminist Perspectives

    2015 Feminist and Women¹s Studies Association (FWSA)ConferenceEveryday Encounters with Violence: Critical FeministPerspectives9th ­ 11th September 2015School of Geography, University ofLeedsThis three-day conference aims to create an inclusive and supportivespace for scholars at all career levels to come together in a supportiveenvironment to engage in critical feminist perspectives on violence. We drawupon a wide definition of…

  • The professionalisation of charities

    I just received a phone call from a very pleasant woman from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Except she wasn’t from the WWF, she was from GoGen: “a specialist charity fundraising team” who are “engaged by some of the UK’s best- loved charities to maintain and develop relationships with their current and potential supporters”.…

  • The sociology of ‘hipsters’

    Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society. But after punk…

  • Henry Miller on The Artist and individuality, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche

  • When writing is hard

    I’ve spent the last week struggling to finish a book chapter which I had assumed I could sit down and complete in an afternoon’s work. I’d forgotten how frustrating writing can be. In fact I can’t remember the last time I found something this difficult to write. I’d forgotten how weirdly gruelling it can feel, as…

  • CfP: Profiling Digital Sociologists

    A couple of years ago I started a project which I subsequently forgot all about. I’ve now remembered about the Digital Sociologist audio profiles I was putting together and I’d quite like to finish them. Would you like to be profiled? The audio is really simple to record. Get in touch if you want to…

  • I’d forgotten how much I love watching Parkour….

  • Morphogenesis and realist meta-theory: @dlittle30 reviews Margaret Archer’s Social Morphogenesis

    The philosopher Daniel Little has written about Margaret’s Archer recent book Social Morphogenesis on his blog: Margaret Archer’s contribution to critical realism has been an important part of the recent progress of the field, and her theory of morphogenesis is key to this progress. Her recent volume, Social Morphogenesis, represents a rigorous and serious step forward in the…

  • Paul Krugman discusses Piketty with Bill Moyers

    I love the line “this isn’t a book about Gordon Gecko, it’s a book about Gordon Gecko’s son or daughter”.

  • Paul Krugman Makes Rand Paul’s Head Explode With Facts In ‘Big Government’ Debate

  • I give it a few months before Piketty shows up in web memes…

    Second, Piketty and fellow French economist and University of California, Berkeley, inequality researcher Emmanuel Saez are arguably the most important public intellectuals in the world today. Their research is driving the economic agenda pushed by Washington Democrats and promoted by the mainstream media. The soft Marxism in Capital, if unchallenged, will spread among the clerisy and…

  • The Piketty Panic and the Making of Intellectual Superstars

    I wrote last week about the rapidly emerging discourse of Piketty having won the argument. I’m somewhat suspicious of it, largely because I read enough postmodernism at an impressionable time in my life to believe that people don’t win arguments in this way. Having said this, I’m actually reading the book now and it is clearly something…

  • Digital sociology and the coming crisis of qualitative research

    This is a deliberately provocative title. But an interesting post by patter reminded me of a theme that has been on my mind for a couple of years. Pat’s post concerns the implications of the increased ‘findability’ of qualitative researchers for their practice: Once you know where someone works, a lot more detail comes within reach. Because of…

  • Become a contributor to The Asexual Agenda!

    Originally posted on The Asexual Agenda: The Asexual Agenda is a blog written by ace-spectrum people, for ace-spectrum people, covering topics at a higher level than what you find in the mainstream news. We talk about experiences, identity politics, intersectionality, academic research, asexual activism, and anything else you like. Several of our bloggers are stepping…

  • Has anyone else’s wordpress spam filter stopped working?

    There’s loads of this stuff every single day and it’s starting to get irritating:

  • Call for contributors: relaunch asexualitystudies.org as a group blog

    I’ve been thinking recently about trying to relaunch asexualitystudies.org (which is now asexualitystudies.wordpress.com because the domain lapsed) as a group blog. As I see it the site would serve four purposes: Collating news about asexuality research Curating asexuality related resources  Providing a network spacing for asexuality researchers Providing a forum for people to write shorter…

  • Jeremy Rifkin: “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”

  • Orphans

    Goodbye circus wheelMay you rest along the sea I have given you the fire of my youth And the triumph o’er my enemiesGoodbye fair weather home, and your faithless factoriesI have given you the blood and the truthfrom the wounds they laid onto meAnd whatever they left, well, I kept it for my own heartAnd the lonesome…

  • And I hate these things but I always attend

    And I hate these things but I always attend, a little sip of something to take off the edge. And I make my way through the ghosts in the room, trying to crack a smile. And who you supposed to be? You look like heaven tonight And me I’m a tomb, a corpse in a…

  • Spitting like a dragon with a similar demeanour

  • A Eulogy for Twitter

    Initially this article irritated me immensely. As clichés go, “it’s not as good as it used to be” is one I find peculiarly obnoxious, at least when it relates to the internet. But I think it actually makes some very interesting points: Those fictions have proven foolish, one-by-one. The service is filled with spam accounts: The…