6th May 2010, 17:00-19:00
Goldsmiths University London

Lecture by Prof Karin D.Knorr-Cetina

Karin Knorr Cetina is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, University of Constance, Germany and Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Chicago where she holds the George Wells Beadle Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Sociology and of the Social Sciences.

She was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize for Distinguished Contributions to the Field by the Society for Social Studies of Science and Thomson Scientific in October 2009. She specializes in economic anthropology/ sociology, the anthropology of science, knowledge and technology, globalization and global society studies, contemporary social theory, and qualitative methods.

‘In this paper, I consider the foreign exchange market from a particular perspective: I will not focus on market participants and their activities, but rather on the object in which they are participating – on the market and how it engages participants and ensnares them in its project.’

Books and articles include:
Knorr Cetina, K. D. 2009. The Synthetic Situation: Interactionism for a Global World. Symbolic Interaction 32(1): 61-87.
Knorr Cetina, K. D. and Preda, A. 2004. The Sociology Of Financial Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Knorr Cetina, K. D. 1999. Epistemic Cultures. How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press.

Lecture by Prof. John Scott
(University of Plymouth)
Discussant: Prof. Les Back (Goldsmiths)

19th February 2010, 16:00-19:00
Goldsmiths University London
Organised by Nirmal Puwar at the Methods Lab, Sociology Department, Goldsmiths University London

The Methods Lab, based within the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths is calling on our inter-disciplinary resources and traditions to critically inhabit the space of social intervention and social impact. This initiative hopes to build a laboratory to stimulate creative debate about the ways in which the practice of sociology is changing, what social research should look like today, and how sociology can best respond to the demands of users of social research. The Lab is intended to provide a space for us to question and develop our own methods of sociological reasoning, to be open to the possibilities of practicing a sociological imagination in a world in which the fundamental co-ordinates of social life are held to be undergoing change.

In the context of the current growth in visual methods, John Scott will deliver a lecture on how early British sociologists used dramatisation & film documentary alongside mass observations surveys to offer resourceful methodologies, as well as ways of speaking to publics beyond the academy.

A sound recording of this lecture can be listened to here:
Sound file of talk by John Scott [mp3]

John Scott’s new book is Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology, an overview of historical and contemporary debates. His previous books include, A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research (1990), Who Rules Britain? (1991), Social Network Analysis (Second Edition, 2000),Poverty and Wealth (1994), Sociological Theory (1995), Stratification and Power (1996), Corporations, Classes and Capitalism (1985), Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes (1997), and Power(2001).

A TALK BY
IRIT ROGOFF

(Professor of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths)
at Goldsmiths, University London
21st January 2010, 17:00 – 19:00

What does it mean to take part in culture? Beyond the roles that culture assigns to us; beyond the roles of viewers and voters, listeners and demonstrators, visitors and protestors? Can we find new modes of engagement within the spaces of contemporary art, perhaps even by galvanising the attention that these spaces demand, for some other form of inhabitation?

This research project on participation tries to veer away from the inclusive prescription that characterises the so called ‘participatory turn in contemporary art’ in which various protocols were created to invite subjects into projects and spaces. Instead it asks what does it mean to take part in culture beyond the roles that culture allots us for taking part? By looking to the work of Arendt, Agamben, Nancy questions of community and collectivity are fleshed out through the concept of ‘singularity’ rather than that of identity. Equally, this engagement with the blurring of lines between makers, viewers, objects and spaces has required the development of an alternative vocabulary to capture the shifting relations within the art world.

Irit Rogoff is a theorist, curator and writer. She is Professor of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths, and has published extensively at the intersections of critical theory, politics and contemporary arts practices including “Museum Culture” 1996, “Terra Infirma” 2001, A.C.A.D.E.M.Y 2006 and “Unbounded – Limits’ Possibilities” 2010. Her curatorial work included 3 versions of “De-Regulation with the work of Kutlug Ataman” (Antwerp 2006, Herzilya 2008, Berlin 2010) and Academy (Eindhoven 2006) and “Summit – Non Aligned Initiatives in education Culture” Berlin 2007 and “Turning” in e-flux journal 2010.

Also, interesting articles:
‘Turning’ in e-flux journal 11/2008
‘Education Actualizes’ in e-flux journal 03/2010
‘Free’ in e-flux journal 03/2010

6.30 – 8.30pm
Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Two talks and a discussion about presence, liveness and the importance of participation:

KRIS COHEN (Art History, University of Chicago)
“Intimacy without Reciprocity: Suffragists, Trolls, and Sharon Hayes; Art of Protest”

EDGAR SCHMITZ (Art, Goldsmiths)
“Some rather ambient attitudes: “Indefference, exit and the question of affirmation”

Chair: Nina Wakeford (Socoiology, Studio Incite)

How are contemporary artists dealing with the question of participation, particularly in light of the promise of new media to promote greater reciprocity through interaction? How important is the collective creation of atmospheres of participation? Are artistic strategies caught between generating enthusiasm and constituting indifference? How do artists contribute to emergent forms of atmospheres through technologies?

Organised by the INCITE research group, Department of Sociology, Centre for Cultural Studies and the Leverhulme Media Research Centre, with the support of the Economic and Social Research Council and Intel Research.

Irmela Schneider (University of Cologne):
“Tele-dialogue in 20th Century German Television: a case study of participation.”
Respondent: Goetz Bachmann (Goldsmiths)

Anne Cronin (University of Lancaster):
“Urban billboards, fabulation, and the animation of public space”.
Rachel Moore (Goldsmiths): ‘Not what the neon sign says…’
Respondent: Celia Lury (Goldsmiths)

Karen Mirza (artist): “The Museum of Non Participation”
Karen Tam (Goldsmiths Cultural Studies):
“Orientally Yours: Karaoke Singers, Opium Addicts, and Chinese Diners”
Nina Pope (artist): “Fully Engaged?”
Respondent: Kris Cohen

Scott Lash (Goldsmiths): “Public Sphere as Atmosphere”
Respondent: Ken Anderson (Intel)

Monday 2nd November 2009,
Goldsmiths University London

Prompted by Les Back, Howard Becker discusses the craft of sociological writing and thinking. It is by no means a list of ‘how to’ he presents, but instead a number of questions, of tools maybe, but no templates. ‘There are no manuals’ he says and case studies are not ‘chosen’, but ‘made’. His reiteration of the importance of failure and of throwing oneself into an experience is refreshingly honest and humble, ‘I love the moment of utter confusion’, he says, ‘because I am bound to learn something’.

The two hours are filled with personal accounts, examples and descriptions of learning through doing. The notion of craft in relation to Sociology he refers to more in metaphorical terms: craft as a day-to-day activity, mundane, unpretentious (in relation to ‘high art’), involving skills and a constant negotiation between head and hands. The craft of Sociology is one of careful listening then and the meticulous noting down of observations.

He gives a wonderful analogy to John Cage’s way of understanding music as a moral evaluation of sound, that in fact ‘all sounds are interesting and beautiful, you just have to be in the right frame of mind’. ‘Even noise can be music.’ Howard Becker relates it to Sociology and the activity of doing fieldwork in that ‘wherever you are, there is always something interesting to discover, everywhere is fascinating if you can train your eye and insight’.

On thursday 5 November, Howard Becker will be speaking about his new book “Do you know…? The Jazz Repertoire in Action”.

Both events are organized by the Sociology department Goldsmiths. More on Howard Becker here.

An exhibition exploring the ways in which technologies are made in suburban Australia.

by KAT JUNGNICKEL

24th – 31st of October 2009
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Kingsway Corridor, Richard Hoggart Building

Exhibiting the ‘homebrew high-tech’ objects and practices of ‘backyard technologies’ as well as Kat’s own methods of making sociological knowledge as part of a PhD in Sociology – blogposts, fieldnotes, photos, sketches, objects and film – the exhibition hopes to generate dialogue about improvised, hands-on and object-oriented ways of thinking, and the role of objects in sociological practice.

Read more and follow her thoughts at:
http://studioincite.com/makingwifi/

All day conference at Goldsmiths, University of London
Saturday 24 October 2009

C Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination was published in 1959 some half a century ago. This event explores the legacy of the book but also asks: how has the sociological imagination been transformed since its publication. How is the promise of sociology today different from Mills’ formulation? Mills wrote The Sociological Imagination while a Fulbright fellow at the University of Copenhagen during the 1956-1957 academic year. It is a critique of American sociology and also an argument for his own vision enshrined in books like White Collar and The Power Elite. Initially titled ‘Autopsy of Social Science’ he wrote the book, as Daniel Geary has argued in a recent intellectual biography of Mills, out of the conviction that America sociology had broken its promise. US sociology had resulted in the Grand Theory of Talcott Parsons which papered over conflicts and injustices and the abstracted empiricism of Paul Lazarsfeld that could not see the empirical wood for the political trees. In a similar spirit we want to use its anniversary to ask probing questions about the state of sociology today.

This event was organized by the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths. The program included:
Beverley Skeggs: Introduction
Les Back: ‘The Promise of Sociology in the 21st Century’
Keith Khan Harris: ‘The Practice of Dialogue’
Vikki Bell: ‘Art, Events and Remembering?’
Alberto Toscano: ‘Imagining Finance and Crisis’
Kevin McDonald: ‘Beyond Imagination’
Kate Nash: ‘The Scale of Political Imagination’
David Oswell: ‘On War and Infancy:
Modern Imaginations of Violence at the Borders’
Nirmal Puwar: ‘Imagining Public Spaces’
Nina Wakeford: ‘Visual commitments: design, art, me’
Caroline Knowles: ‘Global Imagining:
Shoes and Fabrics in Motion’
Paul Halliday: ‘Sociological Film’

Today, the Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy present:

‘Critical Hope: Radicalism After Radicalism’

with Dr Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London), Professor Les Back (Sociology, Goldsmiths) and Professor Lisa Adkins (Sociology, Goldsmiths)

Two more events to follow next year:

‘Media and Civic Agency: Critical Cultural Connections’
Professor Peter Dahlgren, University of Lund, Sweden
Thursday 25 February 2010
5.30-7pm, Richard Hoggart Building, room 309, Goldsmiths

‘Capitalism, Culture, Critique’
Professor Luc Boltanski, École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Professor Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research, New York
Thursday 29 April 2010
5-7pm, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths

The Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy is based at Goldsmiths and brings together researchers from the departments of Media and Communications, Sociology and Politics.

Tuesday 12 May 2009

An inaugural lecture given by Professor Caroline Knowles, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre of Urban and Community research. She presented a journey through her past research projects, located in different parts of the world, finishing with her most recent collaboration with artist Michael Tan of Nanying Technological Universtiy in Singapore on ‘Footwear and Social Fabrics’, an ‘object biography’ of the life-worlds and journeys of a pair of flip flop sandals from their production in China to their consumption in Ethiopia.

The talk is accompanied by an exhibition of a selection of photographs by Michael Tan in the Kingsway Corridor at Goldsmiths University.

A brief summary of her speech:

Caroline Knowles argues that the world in which we live is created in the journeys people make around it. Travel is no trivial pursuit: it matters and makes matter. Understanding how people travel is the key to understanding how the world works. How the world walks is how the world works! In this lecture she will argue that journeys and the skill with which people navigate constitute and expose the operation of the world on a global scale. So journeys provide powerful intersections at which to observe, ask questions and act. We are where we go, how we go and why. Drawing on examples of journeys in her recent research Knowles explores the world of homeless psychiatric patients on the streets of Montreal; British migrant ‘ladies who lunch’ living in Hong Kong; and the intersecting journeys of a Chinese migrant worker, a smuggler and an elderly woman living in Addis Ababa; all connected by the journey of a pair of flip-flop sandals. Caroline Knowles argues that viewing the social world from the standpoint of the journeys traversing it provides a simple and effective thinking tool in understanding the world in which we live. The lecture is powerfully enlivened by images made by photographers Ludovic Dabert, Douglas Harper and Michael Tan in the context of research collaboration between sociologist and artist.

more info: www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/sociology/staff/knowles.php