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Queer @ King’s: Programme of Events
Queer @ King’s, Autumn 2013 Friday 15 November, Screening, 5.30pm, King’s College Strand Campus, Room S-2.18 Ruins: A Chronicle of an HIV Witch-Hunt, Zoe Mavroudi A documentary about a shocking case of HIV criminalization in Greece, Ruins tells the story of the persecution of HIV-positive women who were detained by the Hellenic Police, forcibly tested, charged…
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The Quantified Self and Taylorization 2.0
There’s a provocative post on Nick Carr’s blog in which he discusses the potential expansion of self-tracking technology as a mechanism of quantified control: But, as management researcher H. James Wilson reports in the Wall Street Journal, there is one area where self-tracking is beginning to be pursued with vigor: business operations. Some companies are outfitting employees with wearable…
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Just a pause to cool the refrain
Give me mercy and a minute now I’m a bleed a little poison out I’m a cry a little river down And then I’m setting this whole thing on fire And I’m burning up the night she died And I’m putting every last picture aside I’m gonna say what I need to say In my…
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Some thoughts on how to use NVivo effectively
Kelle (1997) sounds a useful note of caution in an insightful discussion of the history of CAQDAS software: The newly developed software programs for computer-aided textual analysis became tools for data storage and retrieval rather than tools for ‘data analysis’. Nevertheless, terms used quite frequently in the ongoing debate like ‘computer- aided qualitative data analysis’…
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Feminisms, Gender and Sexuality Seminar Series 2013/14
The next seminar in the Feminisms, Gender and Sexuality Seminar Series 2013/14 takes place on Thursday 14th November. We are pleased to announce the addition of a new seminar taking place. Full details of the 3 upcoming seminars can be found below. You are very welcome to attend, and we look forward to seeing you there. _________________________________________________________________________________________________…
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Imposing ‘market discipline’ on public services
There’s an absolutely cracking article by Aditya Chakrabortty in today’s Guardian reflecting on the privatisation of the railways. I was astounded to hear John Redwood cite the railways a couple of months ago as evidence in support of the privatisation of the royal mail. I’m fascinated by the question of how much, if at all, people believe this…
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Social Science and the Politics of Public Engagement
Social Science and the Politics of Public Engagement Tuesday, January 28, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM Open University Camden Centre, 1 – 11 Hawley Crescent, Camden Town, London In recent years new technology has begun to facilitate ever more novel forms of research practice across the social sciences. New opportunities for collaboration exist…
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Locating migration: street space and economy on Rye Lane, south London
The next Sociology Department Research Seminar will be delivered by Suzanne Hall (LSE) in the Gillian Rose Room from 5:00-6:30 this Wednesday (6 November). We look forward to seeing you there and further details about the talk are pasted below. Suzi’s talk will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Ramphal…
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So much to read, so little time
If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print. #Keeponreading I came across this post on the CISG tumblr recently and it stuck…
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“You obviously didn’t understand that book at all!”: social realism, strong misreading and the neo-pragmatist sensibility
Since reading this astonishing book by Neil Gross earlier in the year I have been increasingly aware of the latent influence of pragmatism on my thought. I used to really like Richard Rorty but came to think it was just a phase, explicable in terms of the resources his work gave me to articulate my gnawing dissatisfaction with…
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Dear @LoughboroughSU, did this seem like a good idea at the time?
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Book Launch: After Queer
Queer@Kings and Pluto Press present: After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics by James Penney Book launch and discussion Wednesday 6 November at 6.15 pm Room S-1.22 (Strand campus, first basement) King’s College —– After Queer Theory makes the provocative claim that queer theory has run its course, made obsolete by the elaboration of…
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Queer Feminine Affinities Extended CfP
Queer Feminine Affinities Edited by Alexa Athelstan & Vikki Chalklin Extended Call for Submissions Deadline Friday 17th January 2014 queerfeminineaffinities@gmail.com For more information about Queer Feminine Affinities, and the original call for submissions, please see www.queerfeminineaffinities.wordpress.com. We were delighted to receive an overwhelming and exciting response to our initial call for submissions to Queer Feminine Affinities. However,…
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Enduring Love? Couple Relationships in the 21st Century
Enduring Love? Couple Relationships in the 21st Century The Enduring Love? project is a major ESRC-funded study (2011-2013) that has been exploring how couples experience, understand and sustain their long-term relationships. To celebrate the end of the project we are hosting an event to launch the study findings and, with our dynamic array of speakers, to provoke wider discussion…
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Celebrity and Young people’s classed and gendered aspirations: End of Award Event – 11 July 2014
On the 11th July 2014, Heather Mendick, Kim Allen and Laura Harvey will host an end of award event to discuss findings from their ESRC funded research project on Celebrity and Young People’s classed and gendered aspirations (CelebYouth). This interactive and participatory event will be an opportunity to share the ideas coming from this two year…
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(a)Sexuality and Pathology
As the AVEN website describes, “in a world where sexuality is promoted as the norm, many asexuals grow up thinking that they’re somehow sick, broken or deficient” (AVEN, 2011). This raises the question of the nature of this norm, as well as how it is formed and propagated. Why would individuals who do not experience…
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The Ambiguity of (a)Sexual Categories
The situations one faces in negotiating intimate life without a desire for sexual activity foregrounds the centrality of the sexual assumption in the conceptual apparatus culturally available for making sense of human intimacy and human sexuality. Without the assumption of sexual desire, the salience of intimacy concepts begins to break down. While they may retain…
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The Commercialization of the Erotic
In contemporary society it stands starkly obvious that ‘sex sells’: it has become a cultural resource incorporated into and deliberately deployed as part of the machinations of consumer capitalism. As Elliott and Lemert (2009: 114) observes, “sexuality increasingly becomes a terrain on which the impact of global capital, ideas and ideologies are brought to bear’…
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What is Capitalist Realism?
Assuming I haven’t completely misunderstood Mark Fisher’s point then I’d argue this is one of the most striking examples of capitalist realism I’ve ever encountered. It was posted as a comment on this Glenn Greenwald article. Note how an assertion of the obviousness of this state of affairs goes hand-in-hand with a dismissal of the ‘rubes’ who are…
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The Slow Death of Press Freedom?
I find it more than a little disturbing that these two explicit threats to press freedom have been issued by the government in the space of 24 hours. Note that Cameron’s statement about the Snowden leaks comes at the same time as prominent NSA loyalists are breaking ranks in America to call for a ‘total…
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The Stangely Poetic Character of WordPress Spam
Because the admin of this web page is working, no uncertainty very shortly it will be renowned, due to its feature contents.
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“Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity”
What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges? I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want. When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking ‘Is this the one I…
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Inaugural meeting for a SE London Campaign for Public Uni / CDBU group
INAUGURAL MEETING SE LONDON GROUP CDBU/CPU Aim to start a Council for the Defence of British Universities-Campaign for the Public University SE London Group by comparing ‘Greenwich and Goldsmiths in the market’ supported by UCU nationally and Goldsmiths and Greenwich UCU branches + SUs, also inviting S.Bank, QMC, East London, Kent, CCC and SE London FE…
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The Case Against Open Access
I think the argument made here by John Holmwood is very important. My instinct is to support open access, though I think the scale of its ramifications are sometimes overestimated, however there has often seemed to be a degree of inattentiveness to economic and political context within which these arguments are being made: For many…
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The Future of Scholarship
The LSE Impact Blog co-hosted a conference about Open Access last week which I’m now wishing I’d gone to. I really liked the talk given by Jonathan Gray, director of policy at the Open Knowledge Foundation, which offered an adept diagnosis of the present crisis in scholarly publishing and its implications for the future of…
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Things That Are Not Asexuality
I found this post about what asexuality isn’t very interesting (HT Asexy Vida). I’m fascinated by how people who aren’t asexual respond to asexuality, particularly when they first encounter it. I’ve argued in the past that the almost universal tendency to explain away asexuality reveals some very interesting things about contemporary sexual culture. This helpful article does a good…
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Economists are horrible people
I don’t think this is a particularly meaningful statement. But it’s certainly an attention grabbing one. I encountered it earlier when Salon picked up on a post by Adam Grant on Psychology Today: Why does the invisible hand want to slap you across the face? Because it belongs to a douchebag. That’s the conclusion, anyway,…
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BiReCon 2014 – bisexual conference Call for Papers
Call for Papers Please circulate – any queries to birecon2014@bicon2014.org.uk BiReCon 2014: Out in the World Forging links between research and communities BiReCon is a conference for anyone with an interest in contributing to, or finding out about, current work on bisexuality. The conference aims to bring together academics, professionals, activists, and bisexual communities. It…
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Call for Papers – NGender: Seminars in Gender and Sexuality Related Research
Call for Papers NGENDER: Seminars in Research Related to Gender and Sexuality University of Sussex, Spring 2014 NGender is entering it’s exciting fifth year at Sussex. We hope to continue the success of previous years in hosting interdisciplinary papers on a variety of gender and sexuality-related themes. NGender is organized by doctoral students and aims…
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Transseminars – free seminars with some bursaries available for travel. See below
Trans’ in Popular Representation (Thursday 28th November, University of Warwick) We’re delighted to announce details of the third seminar in this ESRC-sponsored series. This FREE event will focus on trans as a cross-media phenomenon involving traditional and new media from film and television to web-based media, photography and performance art. Speakers Del LaGrace Volcano (gender…
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CfP: Discover Society
Announcing a new monthly online magazine of social research, policy analysis and commentary CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS DISCOVER SOCIETY Measured-Factual-Critical http://discoversociety.org We publish short (1500 word) research-based articles on social topics. We also publish: ‘Viewpoints’ (on current social issues); ‘Policy Briefings’; ‘On the Frontline’, and a longer, ‘Focus’ article in each issue We welcome contributions that…
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Cultural evolutionary tipping points in the storage and transmission of information
I was intrigued by this paper analysing the evolution of human culture in terms of ‘tipping points’ in our capacity to store and transmit information. It has a different focus but it’s nonetheless entirely consistent with Margaret Archer’s work on culture and could be used to historicise her account. Her approach to culture focuses on the interface…
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The Politics of Zombies
A few months ago I wrote about the use of zombies to represent crowds in films like World War Z. My basic point being that zombies are a shorthand for portraying the irrationalism of mass assemblies which threaten the social order. Leaving aside the sheer socio-political weirdness of this bit of the film, it also left me…
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CfP: Centre for Women and Gender @SocioWarwick Postgrad Seminar Series
The Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of Warwick will host a Graduate Seminar Series in the academic year 2013/2014. We would like to invite postgraduate students working in, but not limited to the following areas: Media, Culture and Gender Representations Work and Family (Trans) national Gender Intersections of Gender, ‘Race’, Class,…
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Fat Sexualities Panel event – 19 Nov
The next Gender and Sexuality Talks event (formerly Gender and Sexuality in the Pub) is on 19 November. It will be a panel discussion on “Fat Sexualities” — speakers on the panel include Dr Charlotte Cooper, Dr Caroline Walters, Ingo Cando of Wotever World and Bethany Rutter of fashion blog “Arched Eyebrow”. Tickets are available on…
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So what do the Tea Party do now?
Overall, 47% of the public says they think of the Tea Party movement as separate and independent from the Republican Party, while somewhat fewer (38%) say it is a part of the Republican Party, and 14% do not offer an opinion. Attitudes on this question are little different from when it was asked in April…
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The Popularity of Public Ownership
There’s a great article on Open Democracy discussing the politics of public ownership. I couldn’t agree more emphatically with the analysis and that’s why I’m giving as much of my time as I can to We Own It despite being chronically overworked at present. ‘If a political party announced a plan to end the privatisation…
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The Phenomenology of Obsessiveness
To talk about ‘modes of reflexivity’ can sometimes seem to suggest types of person or personality. Understanding reflexivity in this way misleads because its suggestion of divergent individual traits can too easily obscure the commonalities shared between all reflexive individuals. To postulate a mode of reflexivity entails a claim about an identifiable tendency in how some set of individuals deliberate about…
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Creative methods in gender and sexuality research & public engagement
Creative methods in gender and sexuality research & public engagement Organised by Prof. Feona Attwood and Dr Meg Barker When? 1-6pm, Friday 18th October Where? 138 Kingsland Rd, London, Greater London E2 8DY How much? FREE. In the area of sex and gender it can be helpful to get away from the standard stories that people often tell in research and to the media about…
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The coming UK culture wars?
I was struck when reading Paul Dacre’s Guardian article over the weekend by how easily I could imagine looking back in a decade on the spat over Ralph Miliband and seeing it as the emerging fault line of what became a UK culture war. I certainly hope I’m wrong but the increasingly hysterical rhetoric emanating…
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Some quick thoughts on the sociology of craft
Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake. Craftsmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labour; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist; parenting improves when it is practiced as a skilled craft, as does citizenship. In all these domains,…
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The search for the ‘perfect’ situation
Confronted with a world composed of seemingly durable, essentially unchanging elements, we sense that real satisfaction must lie in manipulating these elements in such a way that we construct the ‘perfect’ situation. The situations we habitually find ourselves in are always to some extent unsatisfactory, yet it seems to us that merely certain modifications would…
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Paul Krugman, Niall Ferguson and the norms of public intellectualism in a digital age
The academic blogosphere had been getting a bit boring ever since the Chomsky and Zizek spat came to an end. Fortunately, Niall Ferguson decided a couple of days ago that it was time to take his longstanding feud with Paul Krugman to the next level in an earnest essay, syndicated on the Huffington Post weirdly…
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CfP: Discover Society
Announcing a new monthly online magazine of social research, policy analysis and commentary CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS DISCOVER SOCIETY Measured-Factual-Critical http://discoversociety.org We publish short (1500 word) research-based articles on social topics. We also publish: ‘Viewpoints’ (on current social issues); ‘Policy Briefings’; ‘On the Frontline’, and a longer, ‘Focus’ article in each issue We welcome contributions that…
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The Practice of Abstraction
Science, theory and technological knowledge abstract from particular contexts and their contingencies so as to provide general or universal knowledge and technical control. When we abstract, we isolate particular aspects of some object or situation, usually ones which are detachable in the sense of capable of existing in much the same form in different contexts, and hence…
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LGBT Youth Suicicde Prevention – researcher post
Senior Research Associate LGBT Youth Suicide Prevention Project Salary: £31,331 to £36,298 Closing Date: Monday 04 November 2013 Interview Date: Wednesday 27 November 2013 Reference: A808 In this role you will work on a Department of Health funded national study investigating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people and suicide/self-harm. You will have a Ph.D. in…
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Why Things Matter to People
Underlying this book is a simple proposition: things matter to people. As well as the thought and interaction which have been traditional objects of the human sciences, we also evaluate – our relation to the world is one of concern. Andrew Sayer’s book is concerned with drawing out the theoretical and methodological implications for social science of recognising this irreducible dimension…
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CfP: Digital Sociology PhD/ECR Workshop
Are you a PhD student or Early Career Researcher doing work in digital sociology? The BSA Digital Sociology Group has organised a PhD/ECR Workshop where a limited number of participants can get feedback on their work from peers and established academics in a supportive environment. The event will take place between 11am to 4pm on…
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Dear England
Just saw a tweet which reminded me of quite how much I love this: 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 came Britannia lit the match, but Britannia fears the flame Where blood stains the pavement,…
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Seminar Series on the History of Sexuality
I am so indescribably aggrieved that I can’t make this: Seminar Launch Event: What is the History of Sexuality? 6 p.m. Tuesday 7th January 2014, The Court Room, Senate House London. The Institute of Historical Research, London, launches its new and exciting research seminar series, History of Sexuality, with a round table discussion of ‘What is the History…
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Striving for deep work when the situation demands shallow work
I worry a lot about deep work (giving sustained attention to hard things that create value). As a professor, deep work is required to produce new results. Therefore, the more I do, the better. I often envy the schedules of professional writers — like Woody Allen, Neal Stephenson, or Stephen King — who can wake-up, work deeply until they reach their cognitive…
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Why Sociologists and Technologists Should Talk
An interesting article from ZDNet (HT Jean-Loup Richet) made a case for why all technologists should become technology sociologists. It contends that the question of how and why technology will be used tends to be occluded by the continual focus of technologists on the properties of the artefact itself: We’ve looked at the technology. But, no one is asking…
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The virtues of a daily writing habit
Frequency makes starting easier. Getting started is always a challenge. It’s hard to start a project from scratch, and it’s also hard each time you re-enter a project after a break. By working every day, you keep your momentum going. You never have time to feel detached from the process. You never forget your place,…
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BSA Annual Conference 2014: Changing Society – Call for papers
BSA Annual Conference 2014: Changing Society Call for Papers Theory Stream Submissions This stream welcomes abstracts on any aspect of theory as well as abstracts for the following Study Groups: · Bourdieu · Historical and Comparative Sociology · Realism and Social Research · Weber The Realism and Social Research group would also like to invite abstracts under the theme “What is Realism for?” The group is particularly interested in papers that consider any of the following issues: The relevance of realist theory to substantive social, economic and political issues. The practical implications of methodologically operationalising different forms of realist thought. Those from other schools of thought who wish to engage critically in a dialogue with realist theory. How to submit All abstracts and proposals for other events can be submitted online at: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/bsa‐annual‐ conference/submissions.aspx The deadline for submission of abstracts is 18th October 2013. For further information contact the Theory stream coordinators: Gurminder K Bhambra E: g.k.bhambra@warwick.ac.uk Tom Brock E: T.Brock@mmu.ac.uk Alternatively, contact the BSA Events Team E: events@britsoc.org.uk
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Money, Power and Opportunity in the Late Modern City, or, isn’t it a shame J G Ballard isn’t around to see this?
This documentary by Alex Gibney, director of the Corporation amongst others, takes as its starting point the disjuncture between Park Avenue Manhattan and the other Park Avenue over the river in the Bronx. The former is home to some of the wealthiest people in the country whereas the latter is a site of endemic deprivation:…
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Narrowly escaping the academic life
This really struck a chord with me given my continued ambivalence about a career in academia: With my new eyes I re-survey the life around me. Most particularly I become frightened to realize how close I came to letting myself slide into the academic life. It would have been effortless … just keep on making…
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The Retreat from Being and Flight into Having
Man is faced with the task of being responsible for his existence. His being-in-the-world is primordially disclosed to his concern. But under the menacing and inescapable shadow of death, existence as such is anxiously felt as too massive and overwhelming to be concernfully accepted in its totality. Consequently we shy away from the immensity of…
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Commodification and Exploitation in #HigherEd
Another conversation this morning about casualisation in UK higher education left me feeling I should probably try and articulate my convoluted and perhaps contradictory views on this issue. It keeps cropping up in conversations, usually in the pub, which inevitably leave me feeling afterwards that I’ve given people who I 99% agree with the impression…
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“Now fucking pay me” – One of my all time favourite film scenes
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Activists fight for right to the city – Britons, Africans unite in urban struggles
Activists fight for right to the city Britons, Africans unite in urban struggles British campaigners and representatives from overseas social movements battling to win employment and housing rights in their cities join forces next month in a unique event that will seek public support for their causes. Londoners – market traders opposing immigration raids and…
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Confused as to why the US government has been shut down? Let Mr Burns explain
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Invited speaker booed, threatened and led off stage for anti-war views
This astonishing video shows the journalist Chris Hedges, invited to give a commencement address at Rockford College, instead being met with an astonishing hysteria because of the anti-war views expressed in his speech: The New York Times sacked him afterwards. The speaker wasn’t an antiwar student. It wasn’t an antiwar faculty member. It was New York…
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“When I first read Foucault’s account of the panopticon. I thought it was brilliant but overheated. Now, it actually seems like somebody’s plan”
An absolute must read essay in the Guardian by the novelist John Lanchester who was given access to the GCHQ files by the Guardian: The totalitarian state in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four would need no broader legal justification than that: it really does allow a government to do anything it likes. It was at this point…
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Why Is America in Decline?
This interview with Chris Hedges is very good though extremely depressing. I found his critique of Obamacare from the left (in the first few minutes of the video) particularly interesting. I’ve also been struck by how interesting Hedges is as a person whenever I’ve heard him talk auto-biographically.
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Would Benjamin have dismissed Žižek as a hack?
I’ve been chatting on-and-off with Andrew McGettigan recently about left-wing intellectual culture & he just sent me this absolute gem of a quote: And I define a hack as a man who refuses to improve the production apparatus and so prise it away from the ruling class for the benefit of Socialism. I further maintain that…
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Want to take part in an interesting art project this Sunday?
About the project In Four Stages of Conversations, Lundahl & Seitl are focusing for the first time on the function of art to connect people in a universal search for meaning and common aspiration for a better world. The work will happen in a room with variable lighting conditions – at certain times it will be in complete…
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Is anyone else weirdly fascinated by this sort of spam?
Hello my dear , How are you doing ? . My name is Miss lilian . It is my pleasure to see your profile here and it interests me to be your friend . I want us to be friends if you do not mind . Your status , country , color , age ,…
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CfP: Discover Society
Announcing a new monthly online magazine of social research, policy analysis and commentary CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS DISCOVER SOCIETY Measured-Factual-Critical http://discoversociety.org We publish short (1500 word) research-based articles on social topics. We also publish: ‘Viewpoints’ (on current social issues); ‘Policy Briefings’; ‘On the Frontline’, and a longer, ‘Focus’ article in each issue We welcome contributions that…
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BSA Annual Conference 2014: Changing Society
BSA Annual Conference 2014: Changing Society Call for Papers Theory Stream Submissions This stream welcomes abstracts on any aspect of theory as well as abstracts for the following Study Groups: · Bourdieu · Historical and Comparative Sociology · History of Sociology · Realism and Social Research · Weber The Realism and Social Research group would also like to invite abstracts under the theme “What is Realism for?” The group is particularly interested in papers that consider any of the following issues: The relevance of realist theory to substantive social, economic and political issues. The practical implications of methodologically operationalising different forms of realist thought. Those from other schools of thought who wish to engage critically in a dialogue with realist theory. How to submit All abstracts and proposals for other events can be submitted online at: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/bsa‐annual‐ conference/submissions.aspx The deadline for submission of abstracts is 18th October 2013. For further information contact the Theory stream coordinators: Gurminder K Bhambra E: g.k.bhambra@warwick.ac.uk Tom Brock E: T.Brock@mmu.ac.uk Alternatively, contact the BSA Events Team E: events@britsoc.org.uk
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Space, place, democracy and digital at DPR 2014
Hi, I’m helping to organise a conference stream at next year’s Discourse Power and Resistance. For more about the conference check the website out > http://dprconference.com/ There’s an attached description of the theme. As part of the ‘Space and Place in the Democracy Project’ conference stream at Discourse Power Resistance 2014, we are particularly interested in presentations on…
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Save the #NHS and join the march and rally on 29 September!
Only a few days to go…. Supporters of the National Health Service and everybody who wants to defend jobs, services and a decent welfare state will be marching in Manchester on 29 September to deliver a clear message to Conservative Party Conference that we mean to Save Our NHS from cuts and privatisation. Join the marchers there!…
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The Incredible Disappearing Agent
Neoliberalism thoroughly revises what it means to be a human person.Classical liberalism identified “labor” as the critical original human infusion that both created and justified private property. Foucault correctly identifies the concept of “human capital” as the signal neoliberal departure that undermines centuries of political thought that parlayed humanism into stories of natural rights. Not only…
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CfP: Theory Stream for BSA Annual Conference 2014
This stream welcomes abstracts on any aspect of theory as well as abstracts for the following Study Groups: · Bourdieu · Historical and Comparative Sociology · History of Sociology · Realism and Social Research · Weber The Realism and Social Research group would also like to invite abstracts under the theme “What is Realism for?”. The…
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Beyond ‘Fateful Moments’ and ‘Turning Points’: Conceptualizing Biographical Events and Their Relationship To Social Change
Beyond ‘Fateful Moments’ and ‘Turning Points’: Conceptualizing Biographical Events and Their Relationship To Social Change Advocates of biographical research often talk of it in terms of the “dynamic interplay of individuals and history, inner and outer worlds, self and other” underwritten by a view of “human beings as active agents in making their lives rather…
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The Weirdly Humanistic Anti-Humanism of Richard Rorty
The process of de-divinization which I described in the previous two chapters would, ideally, culminate in our no longer being able to see any use for the notion that finite, mortal, contingently existing human beings might derive the meanings of their lives from anything except other finite, mortal, contingently existing human beings. – Richard Rorty,…
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Brian Fallon and Bruce Springsteen – a love affair in three parts
A few days after Bruce Springsteen appeared with Gaslight Anthem at Glastonbury, he invited Brian Fallon on stage with him at Hyde Park Calling. It’s hard to watch this video and not get the impression that the minute following 1:23 was probably the happiest moment of Brian’s life (though he does look like he’s about…
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“I’m a cyborg? I thought I was just wearing glasses”: technology, agency and ontology
This is a quick attempt to elaborate on a thought which kept coming back to me during the Quantified Self seminar on Tuesday. It seems obvious to me that one of the key conceptual questions encountered in studying technology which augments human capacities (and this category is obviously much wider than digital self-tracking) is the…
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The Quantified Self Research Network (QS, Self-Tracking and Wearable Computing)
Earlier this week the first meeting of the Quantified Self Research Network took place at the University Leeds. This was established by myself and Chris Till in order to help encourage interdisciplinary dialogue amongst people working on different aspects of Quantified Self. Our assumption was that there were a lot of people who intended to work…
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Asexuality as a Spectrum: A National Probability Sample Comparison to the Sexual Community in the UK
This came through on the Asexuality Studies mailing list – posted here because of the likelihood some not on the list might want to read it: I have finished my Master’s Thesis: Asexuality as a Spectrum: A National Probability Sample Comparison to the Sexual Community in the UK The final product is available here to…
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Network analytic approaches to the production and propagation of literary and artistic value
Daniel Allington, The Open University www.danielallington.net 1 October 2013 Centre for e-Research Anatomy Museum Space King’s Building (6th Floor) King’s College London The Strand London According to Bourdieu, the value of art, literature, etc is a form of belief that is produced within the cultural field and then propagated outwards into wider society through public-facing…
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An Invitation to Digital Public Sociology? Some initial thoughts
What does ‘public sociology’ entail in a world of facebook, twitter, youtube, slideshare, soundcloud, pinterest and wordpress? What affordances and constraints do these tools entail for the task of “taking knowledge back to those from whom it came, making public issues out of private troubles, and thus regenerating sociology’s moral fibre”? What implications do these tools have…
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Does Žižek take himself as seriously as other people do? Idolatry, activism and the academic left
So as most people reading this will probably realise, Žižek bashing and boosting has been somewhat in vogue within certain sections of the academic blogosphere in recent months. The Sociological Imagination was an enthusiastic part of this recently, through an ever-so-slightly polemic blog post penned by Steve Fuller, Slavoj Zizek may be great at beating up…
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The Sociology of Daydreaming
People who build castles in the air do not, for the most part accomplish much, it is true; but every man who does accomplish great things is given to building elaborate castles in the air and then playfully copying them on solid ground … Mere imagination would be indeed be mere trifling; only no imagination…
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Les Back on Digital Sociology
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Helene Snee on Digital Sociology
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Mark Carrigan 