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  • CfP: Centre for the Study of Women and Gender @SocioWarwick Seminar Series 2012/2013

    The Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of Warwick will host a Graduate Seminar Series in the academic year 2012/2013. 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’,…

  • Why it’s a mistake to surrender learning to psychology…

    Archer’s (2004) dispute with Collier concerning the relation between practical and theoretical knowledge illustrates this well, as both draw upon the same example (learning to ride a bike as children) to make opposing theoretical points regarding the role of discursive knowledge in acquiring practical skills. The former arguing that this is a matter of ‘catching…

  • BSA TEACHING GROUP Inaugural Conference

    BSA TEACHING GROUP Inaugural Conference 28th – 30th September 2012 Menzies Strathallan Hotel, Birmingham  This year’s eagerly anticipated BSA Teaching Group Inaugural Conference, sponsored by The Higher Education Academy, will be held at the Menzies Strathallan Hotel, Birmingham and places are already starting to fill up! With current BSA President and former Chair of the Council of UK Heads and…

  • Why have other VCs not been making the case for UK higher education in the media over the last two years?

    Prof Malcolm Gillies, VC of London Met, appeared on Radio 4’s Today this morning and aggressively challenged the recent controversial actions of the UKBA. This appearance was also picked up in the Guardian and no doubt in other places as well. Leaving aside the particular details of this case, an obvious question occurs: why  have other VCs not been making the…

  • Call for Papers: Digital Methods as Mainstream Methodology Showcase Event

    Friday 7th December 2012, British Library, London We would like to invite PhD students and early career researchers in the field of digital social research to present their work at the latest event by the Digital Methods as Mainstream Methodology network. The seminar series is funded by the National Centre for Research Methods Networks for…

  • Paul Ryan: Rape Is Just Another ‘Method Of Conception’

  • Asexual Perceptions of Allosexuals (or why naming people is the first step to stereotyping them…)

    Originally posted on The Asexual Agenda: HEY. I’m calling you out, ace community. I’ve seen something prevalent in our community, and I think it’s time that it needs to end. The way we talk about and portray allosexual folks is often almost a caricature. We often speak of them as if they are constantly horny,…

  • Why the ethics of researching Twitter and Discussion Forum users are so different…

    Traditionally, “Public places” refer to any regions in a community freely accessible to members of that community; “private places” refer to soundproof regions where only members or invitees gather” Erving Goffman, Behaviour in Public Places, Pg 9

  • The Sexual Assumption In Action

    The sexual assumption is the usually unexamined presupposition that sexual attraction is both universal (everyone ‘has it’) and uniform (it’s fundamentally the same thing in all instances) such that its absence must be explicable in terms of a distinguishable pathology. All from this Guardian article about asexuality earlier in the week: What, not even a bit of mild…

  • Realism and Human Experience

    consciousness is always to be conscious of something. Even if its referent is to an internal bodily state, this has an ontological status independent of the ideas we hold about it: experience is necessarily an experience of something, for the verb cannot be intransitive. Thus the experiencer is someone who encounters something prior to it, relatively autonomous…

  • The crisis of empirical sociology: against defeatism and rethinking the public role of the qualitative researcher

    As Savage and Burrows (2007: 894) point out, the popularity of the in depth interview in British sociology stems from an intellectual reaction to the excesses of Parsonian functionalism: responding to talk of reference groups, norms and values with the valorization of intensely idiographic methods which are geared towards the elaboration of people’s own values in their own…

  • First they mashed up the book, then they massacred its author: reply to Ewan Morrison

    A reply to Ewan Morrison stemming from a Twitter debate over this appearance on Radio 4. There seem to be two issues here which, though clearly related, remain distinguishable:  The ramifications of the digitalization of culture (and the changing practices of cultural engagement which they facilitate) for the commercial sustainability of cultural enterprise. The wider moral and…

  • Why sexual people don’t get asexuality and why it matters

    I got completely sucked into this discussion all afternoon. I had three initial aims with my asexuality research: mapping out community in a ideographically adequate way, understanding the role the internet played in the formation of the community and exploring what the reception of asexuality reveals about sexual culture. There’s still more I want to…

  • Social Change and Reflexive Guidance

    If a subject relies on interlocutors to sustain and confirm reflexive deliberations, it leaves them open to conversational censure in a way in which autonomous reflexives and meta-reflexives are not. If their interlocutor objects, mocks or fails to understand what they are saying then the possibility of reaching a conclusion, at least in that instance,…

  • Shit People Say to Asexuals

    I instantly thought of this video after spending way too much time arguing on this Guardian thread earlier today.

  • The Caterpillar’s Question: Cultural Resources and Identity

    After the initial section of my first round of PhD interviews (discussion of different deliberative mental activities) I asked participants what Porpora (2003) calls ‘the caterpillar’s question’: “who are you?” I had two intentions in asking the question. Firstly I hoped that it would frame the subsequent discussion (centring around their life in university) in…

  • Reflexivity and ‘drift’

    Some can remain at the mercy of their first-order pushes and pulls, drifting from job to job, place to place and relationship to relationship. Drift means an absence of personal identity and the accumulation of circumstances which make it harder to form one. Its obverse is not some kind of generalised conformity: its real opposite…

  • Human nature and social change

    Our concept of human nature is certainly limited; it’s partially socially conditioned, constrained by our own character defects and the limitations of the intellectual culture in which we exist. Yet at the same time it is of critical importance that we know what impossible goals we’re trying to achieve, if we hope to achieve some…

  • Catnets: my new favourite concept (and not *just* because of the name)

    Catnets exist where a set of actors are both internally densely networked in a relevant and meaningful manner and also share a common ‘category’ or ‘collective identity’. Actors can belong to a common category and even adhere to a common identity without necessarily enjoying meaningful and dense network ties: hermits are an obvious example. Likewise actors can…

  • Internal conversations and natural language use / question for qualitative researchers

    Much of my thesis centers around the notion of internal conversation. Leaving aside broader theoretical issues (what it is, how it works and why it’s important etc) it also poses an obvious epistemic question: if you’re using interviews then how can you claim to gain knowledge of people’s internal conversations? I’ve never thought this was much…

  • Morphogenetic personalism

    Morphogenetic personalism aims to understand the four-dimensionality to human existence (conceptualised as each individual’s psychobiography) through ‘slicing’ into the temporal parts of psychobiography, identifying and unpacking processes of elaboration and reproduction in the organisation of that personhood and, through doing so, ‘tracing out’ the specific connections with wider changes in social life which, in whatever…

  • A Realist Approach to Semiotics

    Semiosis is multi-functional (Jakobson 1990; Halliday 1994). It is simultaneously referential (or propositional, or ideational), social-relational (or interpersonal), and expressive. Thus, in the Habermasian terms introduced earlier, semiosis raises validity claims of truth, appropriateness and truthfulness/sincerity. Though it should hardly need saying, we insist on the importance of all three, including, contra Saussureans, the role of reference: there are not…

  • What critical realists mean when they go on about the ‘real’, the ‘actual’ and the ’empirical’…

    critical realists distinguish the real from the actual and the empirical. The  ‘real’ refers to objects, their structures or natures and their causal powers and liabilities. The ‘actual’ refers to what happens when these powers and liabilities are activated and produce change. The ’empirical’ is the subset of the real and  the actual that is experienced…

  • Social Theory and Fragmentation

    Sociology seems to produce a number of co-existing and mutually exclusive (semi) paradigms which continually split and re-form in different combinations. Those who are committed to the idea of the necessity of a ‘theoretical core’ frequently argue that such a situation represents a moment of synthesis, a moment that requires the development of a unified…

  • What is an organisation?

    Consider the Sociology Department of Warwick University. What is it? The department is not just the individuals within it. If you took all the staff and students from the department and plonked them down in a field in the middle of nowhere, you’d no longer have a sociology department, you’d have a gaggle of confused academics, support…

  • Emotions and Reflexivity

    Archer’s account has recently been subject to criticism for allegedly marginalising the role of emotion in reflexivity (Burkitt 2012, Holmes 2010). Though largely stemming from reading her recent work in isolation, such that the elaborate account of the emotions given in Archer (2000) is ignored, the form the critique takes raises some pertinent issues. Burkitt wishes to…

  • “What on earth will I tweet about?”: feeling comfortable with social media as an academic

    Curious about social media but unsure where to start? This hour long webinar will explore the issues faced by academics when using social media to communicate online: Being clear about what your goals are. Understanding the potential benefits for academics of using social media. Deciding which platforms and tools are right for you. Managing personal…

  • Youth Prospects in Late Capitalism

    The changing circumstances faced in education and the labour market are often used to argue for a radical heterogeneity in the transitional pathways followed by young people (Biggart, Furlong and Cartmel 2008: 56). While an empirical evaluation of this claim is beyond the scope of the present project, it is worth considering the extent to which the…

  • How to make sense of longitudinal qualitative data

    These are the practical steps involved in the approach I’m taking to making sense of longitudinal qualitative data. In my case, these were 5 interviews with 18 people over 2 years. I had a interview guide for each one which was structured around the objective biographical markers pertinent to the participants (they were all students…

  • Podcast: Foucault, Biopolitics and Critique

    In this podcast recorded for Sociology@Warwick I talk to Claire Blencowe about her new book Biopolitical Experience. When I post this up on the department site, I’ll collect some of Claire’s papers as well.

  • “What are the challenges involved in using social media in teaching?”

    The panel (below) responds at this Digital Change GPP event earlier in the year. Charlotte Mathieson – English and Comparative Literary Studies. Robert O’Toole – Institute of Education. Eleonora Belfiore – Centre for Cultural Policy Studies.

  • “Should I be conscious of the language I use on Twitter?”

    The panel (below) responds at this Digital Change GPP event earlier in the year. Charlotte Mathieson – English and Comparative Literary Studies. Robert O’Toole – Institute of Education. Eleonora Belfiore – Centre for Cultural Policy Studies.

  • What comes after Evernote? @robertotoole talks about the Personal Research Environment

    A podcast recorded with Robert O’Toole at a Digital Change GPP event earlier this year. If you’re at Warwick and you’re interested in the P.R.E could you get in touch with me? We’ll hopefully be getting a chance to build this next academic year and, to do so, we need participants to help design it.

  • “Ultimately, if I’m honest, I do it because it’s fun”: @elebelfiore on using social media as an academic

    A podcast recorded with Eleonora Belfiore at a Digital Change GPP event earlier this year.

  • Why should academics embrace digital tools? @cemathieson talks about her experiences

    A podcast recorded at a Digital Change GPP event earlier this year.

  • Killer Bees

    I bomb atomically, Socrates’ philosophies and hypotheses can’t define how I be droppin these mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me Battle-scarred shogun, explosion when my pen hits tremendous, ultra-violet shine blind forensics

  • A quick thought about Jiscmail…

    Do you administer a JISCMail? I administer two: asexuality-discuss and socialmedia-discuss. Though I’m shit at administering them and, partly for this reason, nothing much happens on them. This is a shame because my initial motivation still stands: I thought there was inadequate dialogue taking place on both topics and I wanted to try and help…

  • Questions about the RCUK’s Open Access Policy

    What effect will the introduction of RCUK compliance criteria have on the strategic priorities of particular journals and scholarly publishers as a whole? How will the block grant by RCUK to institutions be calculated? Will it vary across mission groups? Will any stipulations be laid down about the internal distribution and management of the block…

  • ‘Academic spring’ or media hype? The open acccess debate and what it means for researchers

    This session will explore the profound changes currently taking place within academic publishing and address their implications for researchers. Debates around ‘open access’ have recently entered mainstream debate, with the Guardian talking of an ‘academic spring’ building around the world. However the issues at stake go beyond open access and a focus on the technical…

  • What does the government’s open access announcement mean for researchers? A round up of coverage & reaction

    The BIS announcement The Finch report  Finch report: the question of costs Why the UK Should Not Heed the Finch Report Predictable Problems — The UK’s Move to Open Access Free access to British scientific research within two years Government and funders move to make Finch a reality What about the authors who can’t pay? Why…

  • What about the authors who can’t pay? Why the government’s embrace of gold open access isn’t something to celebrate

    Sometimes I worry that Twitter is an echo chamber, reflecting my own prejudices back at me and shielding me from contrasting views. On other occasions though, I find this same characteristic immensely comforting. Such as when reading that the government has officially embraced the recommendations of the Finch report and finding that other PhD students…

  • The problems facing a digital research culture amongst PhD students and how universities can solve them

    The recent Researchers of Tomorrow study highlights an interesting trend relating to current doctoral students using digital technology as part of their research. Though I haven’t read the full report yet – yes, I do recognise the irony in this given some of the other findings – I wanted to get some thoughts down while…

  • Asexuality, Activism and Allies

    – I first got interested in asexuality after making friends with two asexual people: (a) the sheer absence of even a momentary consideration f the possibility in academic literature (b) my own initial confusion and, as I began to talk to other people about it, the fact they shared this confusion – initially I just…

  • The ‘first’ sexual revolution

    Some initial thoughts for a talk I’m doing on Sunday I dislike the term ‘sexual revolution’ but nonetheless it can be a useful one in that it fallibly delineates observable epochal shifts in human intimate life which, nonetheless, are only aspects of wider and messier processes. In this sense I want to see the notion…

  • Scholarly Publishing and ePresses – Interview with @agatamontoya about the new university presses in Australia

    A podcast I did with Agata Montoya, an editor at Sydney University Press, as part of my Digital Change research. If you want to find out more about these issues, you should check out these articles by Agata: here and here.

  • How curation tools can enhance academic practice

    Do you suffer from information overload? Do you find it difficult to organise and process the things you find online so that you can apply them productively in your day-to-day working life? If so then curation tools could transform your experience of the digital world. Increasingly seen as the ‘next big thing’ of social media,…

  • Curation Tools for Academics – free workshop @warwickuni this Monday (9th) at 12pm in the Research Exchange

    Do you suffer from information overload? Do you find it difficult to organise and process the things you find online so that you can apply them productively in your day-to-day working life? If so then curation tools could transform your experience of the digital world. Increasingly seen as the ‘next big thing’ of social media,…

  • Tradition, Common Sense and The Emotional Burden of Reflexivity

    One of the key concepts I’m trying to elaborate in my PhD is what I term the emotional burden of reflexivity: the difficulty of knowing what to do and who to be, given the lack of normative guidance in  what Giddens terms a ‘post-traditional order’. However contra Giddens and others, I don’t think this state…

  • Online Communities and Digital Research Methods: a cautionary note

    One of the most exciting things about the internet from a sociological perspective is the impact it has on the formation of communities – groups who might otherwise be too geographically dispersed are able to come together, often elaborating some degree of collective identity from the dialogues which ensue as they gather in this ‘virtual’…

  • “Why do you find blogging useful as a researcher?”

    I asked this question on Twitter a couple of days ago in preparation for a Blogging for Researchers workshop I’m running at the University of Warwick. I’ve included some of the answers I received below. I’ve also collated a collection of resources here. Part of the reason I asked this question was because I wanted…

  • Infinite…no you don’t fuck around with the infinite… there’s no way you do that…

  • Personal Morphogenesis – modelling the ‘moments’ of biography

    One of the key aims of my thesis is to elaborate a theory of personal morphogenesis i.e. the psychosocial dynamics of how individuals change. In broad terms, I am construing the subject matter as biographical. I’m interested in understanding how the particular circumstances which a specific individual inhabits at a given point in time contribute to shaping who they…

  • Non-linear creativity

    Another example in a very specific area is given by a client in a follow-up interview as he explains the different quality that has come about in his creative work. It used to be that he tried to be orderly. “You begin at the beginning and you progress regularly through to the end.” Now he…

  • Social theory and social research – what went wrong?

    Underlying much sociological explanation is an attempt to bridge the gap between the ‘micro’ and the ‘macro’ within the context of a specific empirical inquiry. As the authors put it, “in the human and behavioural sciences, the analytical connection or co-relation between individual and social processes, between cognitive (mental) and social (group) structures, or between…

  • Some quick thoughts about sociological realism and digital life

    What do we do online? This is an issue I’ve pondered in a variety of guises but I’ve been thinking about it today as a result of running a fun (though badly attended) workshop about ‘demystifying social media’. As someone who runs social media workshops in universities, I’ve become ever more convinced that many of the confusions…

  • Between subjectivity and subjection: untangling the confusion about reflexivity

    Heaphy, Brian (2012) Reflexivity sexualities or reflexive sociology? In: Sexualities: Past reflections, Future Directions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. There are two main ways in which the term ‘reflexivity’ is used within contemporary social theory. The first refers to the self-monitoring and self-management of individuals. The second to critical self-reflection on the part of researchers about their own social positioning,…

  • Digital Technology and Human Being

    I’m fascinated by the impact of digital technology upon human beings. In part this comes from being someone  who has been an avid user of the internet for the last 13 years or more (since I was 13/14) and recognises, in occasional moments of reflective self-awareness, the enormous impact that digital technology has had on…

  • Conducting Interdisciplinary Research Workshop

    Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

  • News from Salford University – please circulate

    Dear colleagues, fellow students and friends, I don’t know if you are aware of the looming redundancies in the University of Salford, and the process for weeding out staff. People in most schools and departments (including sociology and politics) are having to reapply for their jobs (Professors are not included in this procedure, but in…

  • Conducting Interdisciplinary Research Workshop

    Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

  • Anti Manifesto

    Consider this critic a cretin, Just resting on laurels completely invented. Word acrobatics performed with both harness and net. I am so full of shit. But I will remain until this self-awareness fades Until I defeat the purpose of this soapbox that you made. That you made. Hope, perseverance, a vision (some doubt). Green ink,…

  • Conducting Cross Faculty Collaborative Research Workshop

    Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

  • Digital Training for University of Warwick ECRs

    The Digital Tools for Research programme aims to introduce Early Career Researchers to the use of social media at all stages of the research lifecycle. Beginning on Monday 28th May with three core modules to be completed by Friday 20th July: Publishing on the web Tools covered: blogs Online identity Tools covered: Academia.edu Networking Tools…

  • Rehabilitating ‘essences’

    It’s difficult to express quite how much I agree with the passage below. Historically, some justified objections to specific understandings of essence led to a repudiation of the concept in its entirety. As Christian Smith points out there has been a pervasive tendency within social network analysis (though I think it’s much broader than this,…

  • The politics of relationality

    An interview with Graham Harman: it is especially surprising when the political Left embraces relational ontology (I am astonished that Peter Hallward defends such an ontology), because nothing is more politically reactionary than the idea that we are all exhaustively the products of our context. If I am nothing more than the logical outcome of…

  • An eerily poetic defence of ontology

    The ostensibly revolutionary transition from consciousness to language still leaves humans in absolute command as the primary subject matter of philosophy. All that happens is that the lucid, squeaky-clean ego of phenomenology is replaced by a more troubled figure- a drifter determined by his context, unable to fully transcend the structures of his environment. In…

  • “We all know bankers are greedy bastards!” Ideological dimensions to the financial crisis

    Think back to 2007. Did you believe the end of neoliberalism was nigh? I must admit I did. It seems rather naive in retrospect. Yet fast forward five years and consider the political terrain: we have witnessed a massive consolidation within the financial sector and an unprecedented attack on the welfare state across Europe. As if…

  • CCIG Event: John Holmwood on Markets, Expertise and the Public University, 28 June at the OU

    Markets, Expertise and the Public University: A crisis in knowledge for democracy?  Wednesday 28 June 2012, 14.00-17.00 Open University, Milton Keynes, Library Seminar Rooms, 1&2 The Creating Publics project was launched in March 2012 with the aim of innovating new ways of engaging publics in the on-going processes of social science research and public life. For the 3rd…

  • Upcoming social media training workshops at the University of Warwick

    Digital Change GPP Workshops for University of Warwick Researchers An introduction to multi-author blogging Tuesday, May 29th, 12pm to 1pm Research Exchange, Seminar Room 2 Register for the event here Introduction to academic podcasting 6th June, 12pm to 1pm Research Exchange, Seminar Room 1 Register for the event here Demystifying social media 18th June, 2pm…

  • Postmodernism and the Three ‘Pomo Flips’

    Faced with theoretical or philosophical positions that seem untenable, it is tempting to counter them by reversing or inverting them, for example, responding to empiricism’s belief in the rooting of knowledge in empirical observation by claiming knowledge to be independent of observation and observation to be wholly dependent on discourses. This strategy retains the problematic…

  • Postdoctoral Funding Workshop

    31st May 12 noon to 3:30 pm (including lunch between 12 and 1) Scarman House This event has been designed to give attendees the ability to produce competitive Post-Doc funding applications by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced colleagues who have won Post-doc awards. Matthew Watson is Professor of Political…

  • Relationality and Reflexivity

    What we are attempting to accomplish is to marry our concerns to a way of life that allows their realization, a way of life about which we can be wholehearted, investing ourselves in it with each personifying its requirements in our and unique manner. Hence we gain and maintain some governance over our own lives.…

  • Wherefore Art Thou Elvis?

    I cut my teeth on the stone of a teenage romance I was the salt of the earth, I was hard, and the last of the independents And the breath from my chest I was blowing kerosene My lips and fingertips were stone, I wore my heart on my jeans I sang the blues like…

  • Continuous Publishing, Open Research and Impact (part 2)

    Part 2 of this post. I had to stop writing because the battery on my phone was dying. Though the fact that I can write part 1 of the post (on my phone in a coffee shop in Manchester while waiting for a train) and write part 2 of the post (from a desktop computer…

  • Continuous Publishing, Open Research and Impact

    Some initial thoughts for a talk i’m doing tomorrow: – what goes into producing a chapter or a paper? Lots of ideas, conversations, extracts from texts, chunks of writing etc. some of these have a social existence, in so far as they emerge out of formal or informal academic conversations, however most are private and…

  • Protests against privatisation at Sussex University – Tuesday 22 and Thursday 24 – please spread the word!

    Staff and students announce protests against University of Sussex privatisation  Staff and students at the University of Sussex will be protesting against plans to privatise university’s support services next week.  Campus trade unions today (Friday) announced there will be protests on Tuesday (22 May) and Thursday (24 May) at 1pm at the university’s library square (see notes…

  • Using visual metaphor to explain how stuff works: what theorists can learn from beatboxing?

    In this video the Beardyman, UK beat boxer renowned for his use of live looping, collaborates with the visual artist mr_hopkinson to visually describe the practice. As someone who is fascinated by this kind of music but had never understood how it works, I was incredibly impressed by the articulacy of the visual message. The video communicates embodied practical knowledge through…

  • Boomboxes and Dictionaries

    I took a drive today, thought about you. Thought about a friend who passed, and how much we just went through. I saw the sun shine off the hood of a cadillac, I thought about some things i’d say, and some i would take back. I thought about how fortunate i feel to be alive.…

  • Deadline Approaching FWSA 2012 Small Grants Scheme for Postgraduates

    The FWSA is now offering a small grant of £250 for workshops, seminars, conferences and networks organised by and aimed at postgraduate students. This money can be used for a variety of purposes and can be used alongside other awards. The lead organizers named on the application form must be FWSA members at the time the application and at the time the initiative is to take…

  • Asexualities: a training day for therapists

    Please forward this training event to all your colleagues. Many thanks.   Do you have an understanding of asexuality? What is the place of intimacy and amorous or romantic relationships within asexualities? What is your current thinking around sexual desire?   Asexuals are making themselves heard and thus are redefining what we understand by intimacy,…

  • New public engagement website announcement – Hiding in the Pub to Cutting the Cord?

    We’re delighted to announce that we’ve recently published a collection of memories of childbirth, as part of a public engagement project. This is entitled ‘Hiding in the Pub to Cutting the Cord? Fatherhood and Childbirth in Britain, from the 1950s to the Present’, and is currently being undertaken at the Centre for the History of…

  • Gender and Sport seminar, Friday 18th May, University of Warwick

    This is  just a reminder that Centre for the Study of Women and Gender is hosting an afternoon seminar on “Gender and Sport” on Friday 18th May, 2012 in Ramphal 3.41, from 2-5pm. Attendance is free, and everyone is welcome – please drop me an e-mail if you’d like to attend so we can order enough…

  • Podcast – Exploring the Emergence of Underground Musical Worlds

    From the Sociology@Warwick Seminar Series in May 2012. Nick Crossley from Manchester University discusses his use of social network analysis to explore the early development of punk and post-punk musical worlds in the UK. Read more about this research here and here.

  • Isn’t this civilised?

    How civilised, as the Islington middle classes mindlessly parrot. You give the cunts a glass of wine and switch the fire on, and they say: ‘This is civilised.’ They cut some fucking pieces of ciabatta with a knife, and they go: ‘Isn’t this civilised?’ And you want to go: no, you daft cunt, no it’s…

  • The Sociology of Animals and Why It Matters – Podcast with Nickie Charles and Bob Carter

    In this podcast for Sociology@Warwick I talk to Bob Carter and Nickie Charles about their new book Humans and Other Animals. A paper on this subject written by Nickie Charles is available online here.  

  • Window on Research: Dave O’Brien on Cultural Consumption in Contemporary Society

    This podcast discusses cultural consumption in contemporary British society, exploring who does what and why, against the backdrop of the ethos of creative workers. The cultural ‘omnivore’ thesis is outlined and critiqued, suggesting the importance of expertise, social status and social class to understand cultural consumption. The podcast links consumption to production by linking creative…

  • Explanatory Methodology

    What cultural resources play a role in the lives of participants? How do they enable and constrain the commitments, projects and modus vivendi of participants? This constraint and enablement is mediated through internal conversation. Which cultural resources under which circumstances lead to personal morphogenesis? How do the former and the latter relate in leading to this outcome? Which cultural resources under which circumstances lead to personal morphostasis? How do…

  • Public Sociology In an Age of Austerity – Michael Burawoy and John Holmwood in Dialogue

    Michael Burawoy is president of the International Sociological Association and John Holmwood was recently elected president of the British Sociological Association from June 2012 onwards. In this dialogue recorded at the BSA conference in April 2012, they explore the challenges faced by public sociology in an age of austerity. Part 1: Neoliberalism Part 2: Higher Education Part 3: Future of…

  • Was Aditya Chakrabortty right about Sociology? A work sociologist responds…

    In a recent article Aditya Chakrabortty argued that economics has failed us but sociology has been unable to offer any alternatives. In this podcast I talk to Melanie Simms of Warwick Business School, who signed this group letter to the Guardian, about work sociology and its relevance to the big questions which Chakrabortty accuses the discipline of having no answers…

  • The Transformation of Academic Practice – Interview with Martin Weller, author of the Digital Scholar

    In this podcast I talk to Martin Weller, author of the Digital Scholar, about the changes which digital technology is bringing about within academia and where they might ultimately lead. It’ll be up on Sociological Imagination at the end of this week or early next week.

  • An Introduction to Multi-Author Blogging, May 29th, 12pm to 1pm in @researchex seminar room 2

    The word ‘blogging’ often has negative connotations. Yet blogging can be understood both as an output and as a platform. Many negative views about blogging are connected to a certain idea of what it is: a single author, using it as a forum to express their views to a world which, in my cases, isn’t particularly interested. However this…

  • The fate of the individual in late capitalism

    in the absence of a public space in which we can engage with one another in an attempt to discover and secure the common good, we fall back on private strategies to shore up both our material conditions and our sense of self. We try to tailor our personalities to become more competitive. We mange…

  • Use of web 2.0 tools amongst UK researchers

    The research is two years old so it’s very possible this has changed dramatically but I’ve been preoccupied with this for the last few days: http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/use-and-relevance-web-20-researchers

  • The Arrogance of Publishers vs. Academic Culture – Why the Outcome Is Virtually Certain

    Technologists also believe that publishing is transportable — anyone can be a publisher. All you need are some basic skills, access to a blogging platform, and some determination. While for certain forms of expression this can be true — this blog is an example — for a complex organism like an academic press or an…

  • Impacting publics: striking a blow or walking together?

    2nd Creating Publics keynote lecture event with Rachel Pain (University of Durham)  Impacting   publics: striking a blow or walking together?  Wednesday 16 May 2012, 14.00-16.00 Open University, Milton Keynes, Michael Young Building Meeting Rooms 1 & 2   The Creating Publics project was launched in March 2012 with the aim of innovating new ways of engaging…

  • Studying gender and sexuality psychosocially: Dialogue across perspectives, 15 May 2012

    Studying gender and sexuality psychosocially: Dialogue across perspectives Tuesday 15 May 2012, 10:00-16:40 The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA Location: Michael Young Building 1,2 & 3 Map and Directions: http://www8.open.ac.uk/about/main/faculties-and-centres/milton-keynes-campus  Event This event brings together people who are studying gender and sexuality from a variety of psychosocial perspectives. There have been a…

  • Fast, cheap and out of control

    Particular types of technology lend themselves to this digital, networked and open approach. Brian Lamb (2010) borrows the title from Errol Morris’ 1997 documentary to describe the kind of technology he prefers and thinks is useful in education as being fast, cheap and out of control. As with digital, networked and open, it is the…

  • I can’t sleep because of my endless coughing so I’ll play with Worldle instead…

  • John Holmwood gets a spontaneous round of applause while talking about the future of #sociology at #britsoc12 during the @cwrightmills event