b.traue (@gold.ac.uk)
boris.traue (@tu-berlin.de)

Research Interests

Social technologies and technologies of the self; sociology of visual culture; media and governmediality; sociology of professions. A book titled „Das Subjekt der Beratung (The Subject of Coaching)“, which proposes a genealogy of alternative therapeutic culture from 18th century counter-culture to contemporary ‚cybernetic’ therapies such as coaching, is currently in print. In a new project, I adress the shift from oral and textual technologies of the self to audiovisual and digital technologies such as videodiaries, web tutorials and lectures, and political videoactivism. A key focus is on how these developments transform the relationships between state, media and the individual as a citizen, consumer, and part of collectives. The development of this
perspective of govern’mediality’ is a collaborative project with media theorist Christoph Engemann. I am currently also planning a book that reassesses phenomenology and pragmatism as critical resources within social and genealogical thought.

Recent Publications

(2010) The Cybernetic Self and its Discontents. On the impossible
Possibility of Self-Care. In: Andrea D. Bührmann & Stefanie Ernst
(eds.): Control or Care of the Self. Sociology of the Subject in the
21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (forthcoming)

(2009) Das Subjekt der Beratung. Zur Soziologie einer Psycho-Technik.
Bielefeld: transcript verlag.

(2009) Kompetente Subjekte. Kompetenz als Bildungs- und
Regierungsdispositiv im Postfordismus. In: Thomas Kurtz & Michaela
Pfadenhauer (eds.): Soziologische Kompetenzforschung. Wiesbaden: Verlag
für Sozialwissenschaften. (in print)