Dear Colleagues



Some of you may be interested in joining the following event at Loughborough, dedicated to social critique - for full details see below or check the website:



http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/socialsciences/news-events/news/the-future-of-social-critique.html



Best regards

Sabina Mihelj



***

Dr. Sabina Mihelj

Reader in Media and Cultural Analysis

Communication Research Centre

Department of Social Sciences

Brockington Building

Loughborough University

LE11 3TU Loughborough

UK



 



THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE



DATE: Tuesday 2 June 2015

VENUE: Loughborough University , James France Building, room CC021



An all-day Communication, Culture and Citizenship (CCC) Research

Challenge Seminar, with distinguished speakers to celebrate the

careers of two renowned academics in Loughborough University’s

Department of Social Sciences; Professor Michael Pickering and

Professor Graham Murdock.



The right-wing response to the continuing financial crisis in Europe

has sought to reduce the size of the state and the power of labour,

increasing income inequality and placing the heaviest burden on the  shoulders of those least able to bear it.



This neo-liberal response has not gone unchallenged in some European  countries with the growth of opposition on both the right and the  left. In the UK we have experienced a ‘revolt from the right’ with the  growth of UKIP, but the response from the left has been muted and  largely on the margins.



In contrast, the early years of the Thatcherite project saw a

flowering of radical opposition that crossed over from politics to

culture and into the universities. The questions addressed in this

seminar are:



If then, then why not now?

What has changed both inside and outside universities?

What resources are available for the renewal of critique?

Whatever happened to the ‘public intellectual’?

How do we assess questions of value and make this a key aspect of  critique?



Tuesday 2 June 2015



Session 1.10.30am-12pm



CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS INQUIRY AND THE POLITICS OF CRISIS



Professor Graham Murdock - Loughborough University

Professor Natalie Fenton - Professor of Media and Communications,  Goldsmith’s College



This session addresses the present state, and future prospects, for a  critical analysis of media and communications and media activism  against the background of crisis in capitalism, environment and politics



LUNCH



Session 2. 1-2.30pm



POPULAR CULTURE AND CRITIQUE



Professor Michael Pickering - Professor of Media and Cultural

Analysis, Loughborough University

Dr Steph Lawler - Reader in Sociology, University of York



The last fifty years have seen popular culture become the analytical  concern of a good deal of social critique, with the primary focus  being on how relations of power are reproduced in cultural texts and representations, and much less said about what is of value in popular  culture. This session looks at the need to rethink the value question  and give it greater salience, for effective social critique depends  upon getting a good handle on both power and value.



COFFEE & TEA



Session 3. 3-4.30pm



PANEL DISCUSSION OF THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE



THIS IS AN OPEN SEMINAR: Everyone is Welcome



This seminar is organised by the Cultural Communities, Cosmopolitanism  and Citizenship (CulCom) Research Group in the Department of Social  Sciences, Loughborough University.



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