I'm not sure if I understaand what this conference is about but I
suspect they may benefit from dialogue with some sociologists of
religion.
Greg
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:53:54 +0000 (GMT)
>From: Steve Woolgar <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Subject: cfp: Sociality-materiality Brunel conference
Apologies for cross postings.
Call for papers
Sociality/Materiality
The Status of the Object in Social Science
Conference to be held at Brunel University, UK 9-11 September 1999.
Keynote Speakers
Bruno Latour
Rom Harre
Karin Knorr Cetina
Roy Boyne
William Pietz
John Law
The key challenge for this conference is how we can rethink traditional
conceptions about the performance of social order and social relations
in the face of the newly appreciated impact of material environments and the
socialising effect of 'things'. In view of the 'weakening' of traditional views
of social reality as an entirely social realm, a familiar issue resurfaces:
what holds society in place? If (post)modern societies are able to
survive on much less structure, cohesion, or foundation than social theorists
have generally assumed, how much cement, how much 'existence' does
the social actually need? And what is the stuff that it is made of?
Various new approaches in the anthropology and geography of
material culture, in science and technology studies, in the new s
ociologies of consumption and risk culture, and in art criticism, have
pointed towards an understanding of the performative and integrative
capacity of 'things' to help make what we call society. By emphasising
how much the social is ordered, held, and 'fixed' by the material,
these new approaches pose a critical challenge to mainstream
social theory, which has only been marginally interested in
relationships between humans and nonhumans, culture and nature,
or society and technology. This conference is designed to promote
cross-fertilizations between these various 'new materialisms', and
to the forging of critical links with more classical tropes and themes
in the history of thinking about institutionalisation, reification,
fetishism, and the 'realisation' of social facts. By focusing more
intently upon the social life of objects and the expressive, retroactive,
or 'interpellating' effects which they have on human behaviour, our
hope is for the conference to reinvigorate and alter the terms of
classical debates about idealism vs. materialism, realism vs.
constructivism, agency vs. structure, or essentialism vs. fluidity
and difference.
The conference will be organised into 4 main streams:
Fetishes and Facts:
new approaches to fetishism in anthropology, science studies,
art criticism, cultural studies, psychology, feminism
cultural property
beyond idealism vs. materialism
things at risk/risky objects
Realising the Social:
+ realism and constructivism: opposition and/or compatibility
+ performativity and social reality
how virtual is society?
approaches to reification
The Culture of Objects
+ the materiality of place
+ art(ificial) objects
+ emotional objects
+ object-centred sociality
The Disorder of Things
+social ordering and complexity
+the fluidity of objets
+streams of materialisation
+ objects and topologs
The costs of the conference will be:
Full Rate (including all meals and 2 nights accommodation): u185
Non-resident Rate (including all meals except breakfast): u135
Concessionary Rate - for Postgraduates (all meals and accommodation): u135
Booking forms will be sent out in February 1999 after the papers
have been selected for the conference. If you would like to give
a paper please send us a title and an abstract of no more than
250 words for consideration by 15th January 1999. The conference
organisers can all be contacted at:
Dick Pels
Department of Human Sciences
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex
UB8 3PH
UK
If you would like to attend the conference but do not intend giving
a paper please write to us and we will put you on our mailing list
to receive a booking form.
Organising Committee at Brunel University:
Dick Pels ([log in to unmask]),
Kevin Hetherington ([log in to unmask]),
Frederic Vandenberghe ([log in to unmask]).
Greg Smith (Research Officer)
CREDO
Mayflower Centre
Vincent Street
London E16 1LZ UK
tel 0171 474 2255 Email [log in to unmask]
check out CREDO on our website
http://www.newtel.org.uk (and click Community Involvement Unit then
CREDO) and follow links for our publications
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