Annual Methods Lab Lecture
Thurs 17 Nov, 5-7pm, inc. drinks reception.
Small Hall (Cinema), RHB.
Free, to reserve sociology@gold.ac.uk
ON NARRATIVE
Human beings are narrating animals and the societies they create are homes for their stories. We create, appreciate and live stories all our lives; and we need stories in order to live. Although stories and narrative are often neglected in the orthodoxies of social analysis, they are usually critical to every stage of the human social research process. In the broadest terms we study the stories that people tell; we connect these stories to the wider stories of the world; and we ultimately represent them as our ‘social science stories’ – in theses, articles & books (and sometimes more startlingly in films, photos, media, conferences, exhibitions). Narrative and story telling also crucially places a critical role in shaping personal lives, political change and ethical choices. In this presentation, I will ponder a number of story images that enable us to think more clearly about the role of stories in our research and lives drawing from my own researches and experiences as both a gay man and a transplant person.
Ken Plummer taught at the University of Essex from 1975-2006 and ran the introductory first year sociology course for 18 years. He has written some ten books and over 100 articles on gay life, human rights, symbolic interactionism, life stories, intimacies, global inequalities, critical humanism, queer theory, studies of sexualities, masculinity and the body. Most recently he has been writing about the experiences of transplant surgery – which saved his life in 2007. His manifesto of critical humanism can be found in Documents of Life: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism (2001, 2nd ed). He was the founder and editor of the journal Sexualities. His most recent books are Intimate Citizenship (2003) and Sociology: The Basics (2010), and he has just published the 5th edition of his text book with John Macionis (Sociology: A Global Introduction). He is now an Emeritus Professor.
Elisions
Fri 25th March, 4-6pm
RHB 144, Goldsmiths
[Download Poster] [Event Information]
Alia Syed's art/films include: Wallpaper, Priya, A Story Told, Eating Grass, Spoken Diary, Watershed, Fatima's Letter, Three Paces; Swan; Unfolding.
Her work embraces a wide range of film practices, eluding a single, definable form. Her films problematise the image, particularly in relation to notions of gender and cultural difference.
Narrative cartographies: Representing migration
Fri 18th March, 4-6pm, Methods Lab Event
NAB 3.14, Goldsmiths.
[Download Poster][Event Information]
Giovanna Zapperi (EHESS, PARIS)
A presentation on recent works by artists based in France who deal with issues of migration and precarious existence, in and out of the French republic. The work of Bouchra Khalili, Florence Lazar or Alejandra Riera, offer a political dimension to displacement, as it is entwined with narratives of people and places, a relation that is constantly reinvented.
Giovanna Zapperi teaches art history and theory at Ecole supérieure d’art de Bourges and is research associate at Centre d’histoire et théorie des arts, EHESS (Paris).
For the Record: The Social
Life of Indian Vinyl in Southall.
25 February – 12 March 2011
EXHIBITION (inc.film)
PM Gallery & House, Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, London W5 5EQ
1pm-5pm Tue-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.
With a fast developing South Asian community, in the 60s and 70s Southall became a hub for the experience and exchange of Indian vinyl records. Through in-depth interviews, archive footage, and photography, For the Record (directed by Kuldip Powar in collaboration with Gunnersbury Park Museum and Goldsmiths, University of London) tells the story of Indian vinyl and it’s significance within the local and wider community. The film and exhibition presents not only a poignant historical account, but also compels us to consider the value that Indian vinyl holds today; as an object of transnational exchange, craft, skill, personal and collective memory.
http://www2.ealing.gov.uk/services/leisure/museums_and_galleries/pm_gallery_and_house/studio
http://www.culture24.org.uk/art348583
OBITUARIES: distinction and democratization
Thurs 10th March 2011 2-4pm
Deptford Town Hall Building (Basement)
Constance Howard Centre for Textiles
Goldsmiths, University of London
London SE14 6AF
BRIDGET FOWLER
This paper explores the Western newspaper obituary as an aspect of "collective memory". Bridget Fowler adopts a Bourdieusian theoretical approach, arguing that these biographical mosaics are important for offering "eternal" remembrance for the chosen few. The literary form of the obituary is undergoing a transformation, although one less revolutionary than obituary editors fondly imagine. The contemporary obituaries sometimes now encompass individuals who are famous in popular memory and counter-memory (the memory of dissidents). They are no longer strictly limited to the dominant classes – the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie – as they once were. Moreover, in terms of genre, obituaries have branched out beyond the mythically-idealised representations they were in 1900 into being documents of life about their subjects that reveal forms of social conflict, even profound contradictions. The paper concludes by asking whether the democratisation of the obituary might advance further whilst also retaining its character as a distinction.
Bridget Fowler is Professor of Sociology (University of Glasgow). Author of The Obituary As Collective Memory (2009), Reading Bourdieu on Society & Culture (2000), Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory (1997).