The Sociologist Postgraduate Newsletter, November 2010
Editorial Scribble .........................................
Happy autumn everyone! We want to start things off by saying hello and welcome to all the new MA and PhD students who joined the department in October. Whether you’re a short-term visiting student or here to stay for the long haul, we hope you enjoy your time here in Lancaster.
For those of you reading the Sociologist for the first time, this is now our 8th edition. Over the past 2 years, this publication has served as a space for postgraduates to come together and share ideas/opinions loosely related to Sociological topics or research issues. Therefore, we encourage anyone to contribute in the hopes of providing a diverse range of content which most postgrads will find useful and fun to read. Thanks to all of you who contributed to this issue and we hope you have a fantastic Michaelmas term! Your Sociologist Team Jenn Tomomitsu Muzi Pandir Lara Houston
Image by Paul Mumford
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Welcome Profiles Now that the new academic year has arrived, you may have noticed some new faces roaming the halls of the Sociology department. As a way of welcoming them and helping you get acquainted (if you haven’t already) below are a few profiles from some of the new postgraduate students:
We want to hear from you!
Contents Call for Submissions Welcome Profiles Review of Bob Jessop, ‘University in Crisis’ Lecture Series Guest Who? PG Research Sketch Review of Middle East and Islamic Studies Network Seminar PhD Comic 2010 October Festivities Joys of Recording Supervisions My PhD Office What I’m Reading Now… Lancaster09Blog Photo Feature Comment: “Public Enemies” Musings: The Hotel of Strangers Contributor Profiles Calendar of Events
Established 2008 Unless otherwise stated, the opinions expressed in the Sociologist are solely the author’s and not the editors or the Lancaster Sociology Department.
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Call for submissions Next deadline: 30 January 2010
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Want to write a review about a book, article or conference? Have a story to tell about doing field work? Is there a bit of advice you’d like to offer other postgraduates in the department? Do you want to comment on specific issues or debates?
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Submission Guidelines 1) Please email your articles, tips, reviews, stories or rants to thesociologist@live. com. We also welcome research-related photographs/artwork so please send them along. 2) If you are a new contributor, please send in a short biography (1 or 2 lines), and if possible, a photograph of yourself so we can include it in the contributor’s section. 3) If your submission contains images, please email these as a separate attachment and then label them accordingly in the word document. This is because images inserted into a word document will shrink in size and will appear blurry in the final layout.
Christoph Schneider Hi, my name is Christoph Schneider. I did my BA in Sociology in the beautiful town of Freiburg in southern Germany. Now, I am studying an MA in Sociology which is mainly the reason why I came to Lancaster. It promised new intellectual paths for sociological thought that I greatly enjoy following together with the people at the department. When the fields of social theory or science and technology studies are reached I appreciate challenging the classical nature/culture divide. Outside the library I enjoy listening to music or making it with my electric guitar. Furthermore, I like art that induces new ways of thinking. This is not confined to museums but can sometimes also be found in Rammstein, Little Britain or during a visit of a pub together with friends. Mathis Heinrich I am a first year PhD student from Germany, not only newly arrived in Lancaster, but also visiting the UK for the first time in my life. I completed my Masters in Political Science and Economics at the University of Marburg, where I have mainly focussed on the areas of European Integration, International and Comparative Political Economy and Critical Social Theory. Now, at Lancaster University I try to move on and have a special interest in exploring and comparing the social, discursive and everyday life dynamics in policy formation, namely in European Crisis Management, and along different varieties of capitalism. My supervisors are Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum and I am also involved in the current CPERC project on Cultural Political Economy of Crisis-
Management. Besides my studies I like playing tennis, watching football (FC Cologne) and from time to time playing the piano, while I would never refuse a good coffee or drink in a nice atmosphere. Ece Kocabicak I am a PhD student here in Sociology department and my focus is on women’s domestic labor (including care). I had computer engineering Bachelor of Science and some job experience in the region of Middle East and Africa. My master is from gender studies where I have studied the relation between technology and gender in terms of technology design, production and usage. Some of my short essays, articles and presented papers have been published in journals, newspapers and edited books in Turkey. Two things about me: being Cypriot and being a feminist activist focusing on the subjects like honor killings, violence against women, gender segregated labor market, social rights related with domestic labor, LGBTT rights and Peace. It seems that “Cuts” would be my new point of interest here in U.K. Sabrina Squires I am a first year PhD student based in the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies within the Sociology department. My primary research interests are in/link queer theory and politics, postcolonial studies, socio-economic inequalities and intersectionality. London is where I feel most at ‘home’ thus far and I enjoy writing, poetry, music, dancing and strolling/exploring. 3
review
October 25 did not take place… by Joe Rigby A review of The University in Crisis lecture, Bob Jessop on ‘Universities and the Knowledge-Based Economy in the Shadow of Neo-Liberalism’ On 25 October, people from across the university strata, undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, academic and non-academic staff from the humanities to the hard sciences, as well as some not affiliated with the university at all, packed into an overflowing Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre. They had come to attend the first in a series of talks to be held on the theme of ‘The University in Crisis.’ The discussion was led by a presentation from Bob Jessop, a political economist working in the Sociology Department here at Lancaster, who spoke to the title of ‘Universities and the KnowledgeBased Economy in the Shadow of NeoLiberalism.’ Bob Jessop usefully outlined what he understood both by the ‘Idea of the University’ and what he urged was not simply a crisis in the University, but a crisis of the very Idea of the University itself. The Idea of the University, of ‘Universitas,’ Jessop explained, was one of a community of teachers and students with a collective and autonomous power over the certification, valuation and direction of the collective’s research and thinking. The Idea of the University entails a certain freedom 4
of thought, of teaching, of research, and for students a certain freedom to choose and direct their own path of study. This Idea of the University is in crisis, Jessop argued, since in a knowledge-based economy one of the primary products of universities, namely knowledge, has become a key site for capitalist appropriation. Simplifying somewhat: knowledge-ownership has become a strategically central element in capital accumulation and accordingly, in the race for profits, the Idea of the University as a site of free and autonomous intellectual production has been undermined. The University is not just in crisis. There is a crisis of the very Idea of the University since in a knowledge-based economy intellectual production is no longer simply ‘instrumentalized’ for the sake of technological advancement or profit. The work of the intellect is subordinated to, put to work in the service of, and directly valued by capital, or the market, itself. Such was the enthusiasm to participate, that for one and a half hours people stood or sat on the floor and even spilled out into the corridor of the lecture theatre. The theme of
the series, as well as the title of the invited speaker’s talk, clearly drew an interested and concerned audience from a range of different backgrounds. But when the time for debate came it was not altogether clear what precisely the crowd were all so interested or concerned with. Had we come because we were simply interested in what a political economist had to say about the knowledge-based economy, neoliberalism and the university? Had we come because we were concerned about a crisis in the university? There were no substantive disagreements with Jessop’s diagnosis. No one challenged the idea that the Idea of the University exerted a weak effect on our present. Our working lives, our experience of studying, all seemed to verify the thrust, even if not the detail, of Jessop’s analysis. Yet there was an air of timidity and meekness to much of the discussion, especially when some familiar voices dared raise the question
of what is to be done. It was as if people had gathered to spit out something intolerable, and yet the same sour taste had caught our tongue. A theatre full of perturbed, maybe embittered but nevertheless thinking people, yet no ideas about a directive for the play. This is our common political condition. October 25 held a mirror up so we could see ourselves more clearly. Let us not remain gazing narcissistically at out own reflection but risk at least on more effort at a collective thought. The next talk in the series The University in Crisis will be held at 5pm, on Thursday 18 November, in Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre. The format is of an open discussion on the changing nature of the University which will be led by Maureen McNeil, from the Department of Sociology, speaking to the theme ‘From Gentleman’s Club’s to Entrepreneurial Hubs, to…’
Guest Who? Each issue we will publish a mystery person in the Sociology department. See if you can guess this issue’s mystery interviewee! Who knows, it might be your office-mate, a close friend or someone you’ve never met before. The answer is on the bottom of the last page. Use three words to describe yourself: Concrete, (too) honest, benevolent
The world needs a lot less ... Negative thinking
Worst habit? If I tell you this the group of people in the Sociology department from which you can choose becomes extremely small :)
Recount a memorable childhood moment: When I was about 12 I attended an intensive karate course/summer school. I remember standing in a line in the middle of the woods doing katas.
What’s your most valued possession? Memories Favourite food? Sea food Something you re good at? Explaining things (once I understood them) An ideal vacation for you is ...with people I love
A friend standing next to me started giggling and laughing and so did I. Unfortunately the teacher heard us and punished us with a whole afternoon of more katas and no food that evening. Yet I still giggle and laugh. Describe a moment in history you’d like to have been there for: The whole 20th Century
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Lancaster sociology research highlights
by Müzeyyen Pandır
Research Sketch Natalie Gill For each issue of the Sociologist, we promote postgraduate research in the department by interviewing our fellow colleagues. For this issue, we’re happy to introduce Natalie Gill, a third year PhD student in the Centre for Science Studies at the Sociology Department. In a few sentences, can you describe what your project is about and why you chose this particular topic? My project follows the rolling out of Lancaster’s waste collection service. At the end of my MA I found myself curious about policy and about STS, so I wanted to do something that would help me satisfy both of these curiosities. I was lucky that at that moment in time Lancaster was in the process of implementing new waste policy practices. So it was perfect really. What has been the most enjoyable part about doing research on your thesis? Spending time in coffee shops drinking good coffee. Can you describe a worst and best moment during your PhD?
The best and the worst moments have been during fieldwork.
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Women Resisting the War on Terror in the Middle East
The very worst was while I was spending time at the local waste collection office and I was asked to input some data, which I spent the day doing. When I came into the office a week later the data had disappeared. Horrible. Three words which describe how you feel about your project.
Obsessed, obsessed, obsessed Where do you see yourself 10 years? Good question. I have no idea. If you could do another PhD, what topic would you choose? Something that would take me somewhere warm to do my fieldwork. What advice would you give to people who are just starting their PhD? Start writing early. Write lots. You don’t need to understand what the PhD is doing before you start to write.
A review of a recent seminar by Nicola Pratt, on “Women’s activism and the War on Terror in the Middle East” Attending faculty seminars is good not only to get away from your own work and dip into other seas, but also to listen to people who bring first hand-information from the places you want to hear from. On 3 November, we had the chance to listen to Associate Professor Nicola Pratt, the guest speaker for the Middle East and Islamic Studies Network seminar series. Nicola Pratt is an activist in the international peace/anti-war movement and her academic work is based around the politics of the Middle East and feminist international relations theory. Her most recent work focuses on women in the conflict zones and accordingly, the title of her talk was “Women’s activism and the War on Terror in the Middle East”. The focus of Pratt’s talk was on the implications of the so-called war on terror on gender roles in the Middle East in the post9/11 period. Women’s roles have a special significance in the war zones for they are instrumentalised by both sides of the war (occupiers vs. resistance fighters/combatants) for their own interests. We all remember that Western politicians tried to legitimise their mission against radicalisation in the Middle East with the aim of saving women. And from the combatants’ side, women are given a symbolic role and seen as “guardians of authentic culture”, so any attempts to improve women’s conditions are considered as interference from the Western world. Besides
many things, what is taking place is that the difference between “us” and “them” is once again being marked over women. In her talk, Pratt told us about a different perspective, where women are not only passive victims of war, but are active participants either as resistance fighters or combatants. She talked about different forms of struggles in which women in the Middle East were involved and how they negotiate their participation in the struggle, depending on their national/religious and class based identities. She exemplified her arguments from the data she collected during the 2007 and 2008 Cairo Conferences against US imperialism and Zionism and started her talk with positioning the significance of the Cairo Conference in the struggle against the so-called war on terror. Since 2002, the dominant politics of the Cairo Conference has been a combination of anti-US imperialism, anti-Zionism and opposition to neo-liberal economic policies. The supporters and participants were mainly leftists and nationalists. In the later years, Islamists (Hamas, Hizbollah) who are against the US-backed Arab governments, also joined this alliance of leftists and nationalists. So the politics of the conference was extended to include the opposition to the authoritarian Arab regimes as well. The alliance with Islamists was not welcomed by everyone. 7
While some leftists chose to stop supporting the conference, some continued participating thinking that the struggle against imperialism should be prioritised, and some saw the alliance as an opportunity to form dialogue with
Where are women in the resistance then? Islamists on those problematical issues such as gender equality and religious minorities. As Pratt tells us, Women’s Forum of the Cairo Conference is where different experiences of resisting are represented. Women tell about their involvement in protesting soldiers, transporting weapons, supporting those in the battle and in prisons. Participating in the resistance against imperialism and Zionism has definitely helped to evolve a culture of resistance among Arab women. So, besides resisting against foreign forces in their country, Arab women have increasingly started to rise up against patriarchy and struggle for gender equality. It is not a coincidence that in 2007 and 2008, many women in Egypt started socioeconomic struggles against government. They organised workplace strikes and protests for better pay and conditions, started struggles for housing and land, and at the same time they
continued their struggle against occupation. It is obvious that the explosion of anger triggered a will to change.
Postgraduate Conkers Competition
There is still a division between those who see the struggle for gender equality as a Western agenda aiming to change the authentic culture, and those who see it as part of the struggle against imperialism, occupation and dictatorship. This division is harmful as it forces a choice between battles. However, as Pratt also mentioned, placing the struggle for women’s rights within the resistance against the so-called war on terror also has a downside: it ignores the class positions between different women and this forms an obstacle to the presentation of working class women in the alliance.
‘Conkers’ is a traditional British game involving horse chestnuts (the name ‘conker’ refers to the nut itself). The way it works is that each conker is threaded with string. Two players face each other and take turns trying to break the other person’s conker. This requires solid aim and a good swinging technique using the momentum from the string. As soon as one conker breaks, a winner is declared. In October, the Sociology department held another postgraduate conkers competition (organized by Elizabeth Shove) in the County South courtyard. The winner of this year’s competition was Elizabeth Belsey who is holding the conker trophy. Congratulations Elizabeth!
October 2010 Festivities
Maybe this is where trans-national feminism should come in and be involved in the Middle East to help women articulate their own agenda. This should be such an agenda which does not only prioritise gender interests or the so-called war on terror only, but bring various women struggles together. It should be an agenda letting Middle Eastern women speak for themselves in their own various voices.
PhD Comic
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Sociology Halloween Party The annual departmental Halloween Party was held on October 25th. Costume prizes went to Shireen Chilcott, Professor Elizabeth Shove and Ruth Love. If you weren’t able to make the party, below are some photo highlights from the evening.
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Research Tips
The joy of recording supervision sessions by Tom Roberts Curious about how to make the most of your supervision meetings? Tom Roberts provides some useful tips about recording technology… Why why why .... didn’t I record what my supervisor said the other week?! As the years have rushed past as a PhD student, I have come to realise that it pays dividends to record your meetings with your supervisors. If you’re anything like me, then you’ll probably find it difficult to plan what you want to say, defend what you’ve just said, and write down and remember what your supervisor said all at the same time! I recall in my first year hearing someone say that a PhD is all about the process, the journey. After a good few years here, I now know what they meant. It is! And it can be a very rewarding journey, but it’s not an easy one. I have been thoroughly deconstructed en-route, and only recently have been able to piece myself – like one of those 1000 piece jigsaws – back together again. But I have learnt a lot on the way. Lessons that will stay with me. Lessons about myself, and my limitations as well as strengths and where I have grown. One of those weaknesses is that memory is fallible. So despite what you may think at the time, and despite the idea or suggestion making perfect sense, if you don’t have a 12
proper way of recording it, you’re likely to forget it. Planning supervisions with a set of questions can also help. If you know what issues you want to address beforehand (although this isn’t always possible), it can help you and your supervisor to better address them, and give focus to your meeting. But recording your meetings, provided you have your supervisor’s permission to do so, can really help you ‘chew the cud’ of what was suggested, without you having to go back and ask for more clarification. You can go back to it and really listen and reflect upon what was said. It also provides a permanent record of how your thesis thinking has evolved. But recorders are also a crucial investment if you are carrying out interviews as part of your empirical research. Today they are relatively cheap, and have pretty good internal microphones. Mine is an Olympus VN 5500PC 512 MB Digital, not unreasonably priced at £34. Do bear in mind though, that if you want to conduct an interview at a station or shopping mall then you’ll have difficulty deciphering the noise. Similarly if you’re to carry out focus groups or group interviews then you need to approach the department to borrow their higher quality recording devices.
My PhD office Do you have a story about your office that you’d like to share? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Send us your thoughts as we’d like to learn more about how postgrads create work spaces for themselves. This issue’s office belongs to Erkan Ali, a 3rd year PhD student in the department. I do have an office space at home. It is quite private and closed off from the rest of the house (if I shut the door). In fact, the space is not exclusively an office space, as such, but part of my bedroom. It comprises a simple desk and chair. Unfortunately, though, at the present moment, it is doubling as a generously-sized book shelf; it is piled-up with lots of books, papers, articles, files, and so on. In fact, it is covered so completely that I can’t even see the top of the desk itself! When I first purchased the desk and chair (as a set) it was intended for precisely the kind of use one would normally associate with an office space at home – a private retreat where I could go and work without interruption or distraction. However, not long after I’d bought it, I realised that I wasn’t always able to work there. Ironically, I think this is precisely because it is intended as a private workspace! I became aware that this place is where things are SUPPOSED to happen, a feeling which
only leaves me uninspired; it all starts to feel a bit contrived, really. This may sound silly, but I suppose my rejection of the desk and chair, which I now only clean and dust-down like any other piece of furniture, is an indication that I am quite a spontaneous person in many ways, and I have now commandeered another part of the house for doing my work. My writing and my thoughts, just like most people I suppose, happen in spurts, and often without warning or preparation. I prefer to always keep a notebook handy to jot down my thoughts when an idea flashes through my mind at a million miles per second – I record these and gather them. I wander around (a little bit like my thesis), sometimes working in the library, sometimes in my office in the department, and, of course, sometimes at home as well. But perhaps my main office at this stage of my PhD journey is a certain coffee shop in Manchester town centre. Admittedly, this is not as inexpensive of a place to work as 13
What I’m reading....
“The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb Jennifer Tomomitsu What are you reading at the moment? As researchers we are endlessly engaged with academic texts, so for this feature we ask postgrads around the department what they read for pleasure during their spare time. When I saw Wally Lamb’s new novel on the library bookshelf, I couldn’t wait to read it. I first became a fan of this author when I picked up She’s Come Undone, a coming of age story about the trials and tribulations of a young woman from New England. Having been impressed by his ability to write so brilliantly and convincingly from the perspective of a young girl, I was excited to pick up this long awaited third novel, entitled The Hour I First Believed. In typical Lamb fashion, this book tackles sensitive subjects ranging from guilt, family secrecy, sexual abuse and drug addiction, all the while weaving through a narrative about the build-up to, and the aftermath of, the Columbine shootings in Colorado. This makes it an ambitious book not only in terms of its physical size (the hard cover version is a whopping 700 pages), but also in the topics it addresses. The main plot is mainly centred on the lives of Caelum and Maureen, a young married couple who attempt to cope with life post-Columbine. Caelum is a writer and Maureen is a school 14
nurse who worked at Columbine high school and managed to survive the shootings. Written through the eyes of Caelum, the reader is taken on an emotional ride as a multitude of events begin to unfold so that just when you think things cannot get worse, another tragedy strikes. It is through Maureen’s post-traumatic stress ordeal that things begin to unravel in sometimes disastrous and unexpected ways.
Lancaster09Blog Photo Feature by Christos Stavrou © www.christosstavrou.com
Although this may sound like a gut-wrenching read, The Hour I First Believed has its witty and humorous moments. Also, the book succeeds at interspersing other political and catastrophic events related to the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina without being overly moralistic. Having said that, this is probably my least favourite of Lamb’s books as there is so much detail and interpretation required by the reader that at times it can feel tempting to skip a few pages. I have yet to finish the book, but if the first 600 pages are anything to go by, I am expecting to encounter more surprises, turmoil and plot twists. I highly recommend one of Wally Lamb’s novels so if you’re interested, 15
Images by Christos Stavrou © www.christosstavrou.com
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Images by Christos Stavrou © www.christosstavrou.com
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Commentary
Public Enemies by Basak Tanulku For this issue, we asked your opinion about what constitutes a Sociologist. Basak Tanulku responds to this question below… What is the meaning of “sociology” or a “sociologist”? The best and shortest answer would be the study of societies and those who study societies. However, although I usually prefer the shortest answers, in this piece I will try to reflect more on the meaning of a sociologist. For this purpose, I will focus on the condition of social sciences and sociologists since the 1980s especially in the West, although my argument can easily be applied everywhere in the world. As you can see, no one is fighting for their rights in any country despite all of the budget cuts, deficits, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and environmental and conservation problems. By contrast, there is a fake consensus in public debates where everyone seems fine although burning inside. This indicates that the powerful gets the most while the masses should and must be suffering. What is the reason for this situation, or political correctness? One possible reason is “arranged multiculturalism”. Western societies have been filled with immigrants who do not know how to claim their rights and can never be a threat to the existing system and paradigm, except when creating disturbance in host countries which can also lead to the rise of rightwing politics, or history repeating itself. This arranged multiculturalism is beneficial to big businesses as immigrants become a source of cheap labour without being protected by welfare mechanisms which allow businesses to easily generate profit from them. These immigrants do not have class consciousness, 18
rather they tend to support right-wing political parties in their own country, but, ironically left-wing (!!) ones in their host countries, which support them as the result of arranged multiculturalism and ironically reproduce this system. In addition, they are the ones who do dirty jobs and in case of emergency they become scapegoats and are sent back to where they came from. Immigrant workers, due to their ideological background or lack thereof, cannot generate political opposition based on class. As a result, there cannot be established working class solidarity in host countries, with the support of locals, which explains the reasons for this differentiated and segregated society and who benefits from it. Another reason for this fake consensus is the lack of people who earn livelihood from their labour, due to the impact of outsourcing production to third world countries, or globalisation. This has reduced the number of people who are aware of the things going on, and not alienated from the production process, while an increasing number of people earn money out of thin air, or as “rentiers” (people who derive income primarily from rent money). Lots of people have become fascinated by the power of money, celebrity culture and other forms of diseases, or mass schizophrenia. There is another reason which fuels this situation: since the 1980s, a new kind of sociologist emerged at the time when Madonna and Michael Jackson became celebrities. There are certain rules to being a
sociologist: firstly, you should wear a similar mask as everyone else; a bohemian look which indicates that you don’t care about your physical appearance. You should also accept a forced sociability which pushes you to join parties and clubs to render you visible and “social” enough so that you can increase your networks, which indicates the rise of network society. The importance of networks is that we act in networks, to exploit our friends and relatives in pursuit of profit or Snakes and Ladders. As networks become the dominant paradigm in social sciences, I wonder if any sociologist would think of a way to break and get rid of these networks. While sociology was previously about the study of societies, since then it has become a tool, interested only in how things happen. There are PhDs on how to use a new technological device (which should be submitted in just 3 years), or just-in-time production. As new theories have dominated sociology, building up a world in which technology determines social processes rather than vice versa, and a new human being which comprises a machine instead of a soul, it is no surprise that people have become machines who react only when they are fed by celebrity culture, and interestingly in this respect there is no difference between a human being and a laboratory mouse, as argued by these new theories. In the end, sociology has become a method which proposes non-sociological arguments, or there is no such thing as society. Another rule is to hate the middle classes, because you think that they are conservative, but interestingly you should accept any fundamentalist and conservative ideas coming from immigrants, or lower classes, in the name of the love of “difference”. The hatred towards middle classes is strengthened by the hatred towards nepotism which interestingly dominates the life of an ordinary sociologist, but instead of nepotism there is “social capital”. A sociologist should also seem liberal enough to accept any kind of stupidity in the name of innovation, creativity and “avant-garde”, which indicates the fetishism of difference, interestingly parallel with the multiculturalism
created since the 1980s. While you escape from the popular, you should also admire it, such as in the case of Lady Gaga, who is accepted no matter what she does in the name of “difference”, as the epitome of postmodernism, a meaningless entity and the subject of study for sociologists. Interestingly, this gaga-isation has found its place in academia: you should be obsessed with appearance, surface, technique and rules, instead of the subject of your research, or surface without content. However, someone should not regard this piece as an example of anti-intellectualism which has dominated right-wing politics, which has criticised intellectuals regarded as alienated from traditional ways of life and values. Rather, by criticising an academic form of life which does not criticise, or know how to take sides due to their fear of being labelled as having a “phobia” of any kind, I try to open the doors of academia which are closed to the rest of society. In this respect, I would call sociologists “public enemies”. When the doors of academia will be open to everyone which will reduce the difference between doers and thinkers, and the ordinary can participate in debates in which their futures are structured, instead of watching big brother TV programmes and reading celebrity news, then we would not need for public enemies. My piece would have ended here, with a hint of hope. However, after the announcement of cuts in Britain, I wanted to add this last paragraph, by taking a step back. After I saw that people react only when they think Rooney should stay with Manchester United, I thought on the meaning of “public enemy”. I think in this world the easiest thing is to be the enemy of the public, it makes money, it makes sense. The difficulty lies in taking the side of the public and being consistent. Not academics, but the public acts as its own enemy, the irony comes here. Not academics, but the public should remember that they are humans and should act collectively. Otherwise, the public remains its own enemy, making the world a stage of tragicomedy instead of a battle field, or Stockholm Syndrome. 19
Musings
The hotel of strangers / Retour du mort
long this strange situation kept going on; now associated in my mind with an image of old coins in a trembling glass jar, but perhaps because my resistances eventually became weaker, at some point it all became clear: life is no more than waiting for the tsunami in the most idyllic beach somewhere at the South Far East. “Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe’s icecold wave will lick your escaping foot.” Goethe
But what are the alternatives? What should we do? From one side, Zizek’s head is popping out from a youtube box reminding us with his unmistakable accent not to underestimate the power of appearances. He likes to add references from Adorno’s Minima Moralia. And from the other side, there is a simple sign at Villa Grimaldi, somewhere in the suburbs of Santiago, saying: “The forgotten past is full of memory.”
by Christos Stavrou “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” Fight club My love, I met that guy who had really upset you, do you remember - the spawn of the devil as you had called him the other night. He came and stood next to me, throwing his shadow over my shoulders, I could not really see him without moving from my stool at the bar. We were just waiting for the music to start. He leaned over my head pressing without touching - every inch of my skin. Like a large and round cow-head with bleached golden locks and plastic squeaky glasses, his head had moved so close - I could smell his last fifty cigarettes. Not that I was paying any attention - just staring at the mirror behind and across the bottles, but didn’t want to let him know either. He was talking on and on about his girlfriend and his mother’s dementia, I could feel his wet tongue smothering my ear. At some point he stopped to ask where I am from, ‘Oh Greece is fucked!‘ he said, and then added, ‘but hey you did well with the Olympics - it shows what a glorious nation you are...’ The band was supposed to be good. He told me this as well - apparently he knew them personally. They began playing a song, a middle-aged bunch of generic men copying the real thing from the 70s rock scene - the leader was even supposed to be from the same place as was the singer of the authentic group; but they were awful. I tried not to look back, but somehow he found my eyes in a straight line 20
‘Aren’t they good, eh?’ he asked nodding for several times. *** The strangest night of all was the night I got drunk for the first time again. I never count the wine glasses on the table anyway, but this time it was as if it had never happened before. You could say that I went sixteen years old all over again; and I’m glad you didn’t hear my giggling voice exhilarated from the newly found lack of control up to the early hours. Then it all turned around; I was tired and still awake in a bed that was impossible to use. After a couple of efforts in vain, a fear grabbed me from the hand, this storm inside my head every time I was trying to lie down was not a dream but a certain invitation to death. Shadows on the wall, the hung clothes under the dim light - I just sat at the edge of the bed, with my feet hanging by as if they were at the edge of an old wooden pier, almost at the sea level but still chased by few sudden and angry empty waves. Waiting until the end in there; keeping my eyes open convinced that this was the only way to avoid sleeping... No airplanes circled moaning overhead, as in Auden’s words, no flashbacks with images of past memories, as the rumor has it - it was never like that… Who has invented these stories anyway? It’s always a mere darkness... I really don’t know for how
precariously sliding on ice behind us. Once by the bus stop, a girl spoke to me in a very low and sad tone: ‘You made so many people upset’ she whispered. For several weeks such quick celebrations were enacted at social gatherings or during accidental meetings on the street, once even before a party - you know that awkward length of time before the avid pleasures of simultaneous chatting and drinking begins. I did remember her; meeting my eyes once before for two quiet and unpromising seconds; I had to smile – here is another friendly imposter!
Image from the film La petite mort (Francois Ozon, 1995) Just before the inaugural speech of another summer procession – I saw him crossing the large room with speed towards me; one man came and shook my hand, still looking downward all the way approaching - he really didn’t say anything, actually I hardly remember any words or his eyes ever meeting mine, surprising that I do remember all this now; but he shook my hand with such fervor and faith, floating his arm for a while, that made me feel like a hero. “… an immense cortège of undertaker’s mutes (mutes in love, political mutes, bourgeois mutes...). We are each of us celebrating some funeral” Baudelaire They would come and surround me almost anywhere, turning gently their backs away, and softening their voice like when they are used to utter something significant and really personal. We never had meaningful talks before, which made the moment to last longer as if
Well, despite all the craving for something different, there is never much of another side. Ritualised routine and the back of our minds is where this world has been resting. Like on a shelf for today’s new set of rationalisations and on top of self-interested motives to feel better through others. And probably not from courage, but guilt or fear, or whatever else, I know more people who will try anything else than risking ending up alone. Sometimes, again, a few puzzling and ambivalent appearances from the dark will come surprisingly closer and open up to the idea of an exciting new quest, although nothing too deep, still uncommitted love; for example by revealing to you one of their temporary secrets - or composing something witty, probably only because they have suddenly felt weak or vulnerable. And there soon the sight is lost again; just play the game some might say, or enjoy yourself, the game is bigger than us. Happy hypocrites and social butterflies add almost nothing to our previous picture of humanity, ah humanity!... So, I had my shot of sociality like a bitter pill, without much thinking and with a glass of 21
alcohol, hoping between the teeth for a lucky error – something pleasantly dysfunctional at last. If in the old state of affairs there wasn’t much space left for any properly orgasmic and painful investments, soon – as it became true - there wasn’t much need to question such things either. Even the accidental meetings began lasting less than a greeting. There had already been quite enough traces of generosity behind the fear of mortality arriving suddenly and equalising everybody around. *** Watching a particular scene from Robert Bresson’s ‘The Devil Probably’ and I grasp the conspiracy. The plantless beer garden at the back of Sun Hotel, the Music Room cafe behind the walls, the nearby tea room that always smells industrial cleaners, the three commercial copy-paste cafes in the main walking street, the bikers’ cheap boozer along the old joints and the renovated war-bunker on the way to the train station, the neo-corporate Gallery cafe with the badly paid staff, those blue-painted holes inside the narrow alleys serving bacon, eggs and burnt coffee, the popular communal centre with the school dinner food, the new soulless space downtown with the milky piano sinking under golden decorations, even that busy studenty cocktail bar among the loud karaoke pubs; there is not even one place with a chair in the sun during a bright sunny day. *** My love, I forgot the champagne in the freezer. Sorry but you left too fast too soon. It must have exploded overnight. Now I have a small mountain of soft alcoholic ice and two frozen fingers that don’t mean to stop bleeding. I want to be the poet of my life like Nietzsche said. I want you to be a girl in flower from a novel by Marcel Proust. It’s impossible to say no. Use the right words, place them in the right line - don’t forget to leave a breathing space, it will be perfect. Trust me, you can make trees melt and stars fall behind as you bike fast through the night forests, now that we are fading away faster than our abandoned promises. 22
PhD Workshops
Contributors Müzeyyen Pandır
Michaelmas Term 16th November - TBA 7th December - TBA Lent term (Gail Crowther) 18th January: Ethics of research 1st February: Preparing for presentations 15th February: Getting published & dealing with Journals 1st March: Preparing for Panels 15th March: Looking (way) ahead – The viva!
We need your help... Please help us make next year’s newsletter even better by answering the following questions. You can copy and paste the answers into an email to: thesociologist@live. com 1. What did you like most about the Sociologist? 2. What did you like the least? 3. What suggestions would you offer to improve the publication? 4. Any other comments or suggestions (such as ideas for content)
Guest Who?! Misela Mavric
Müzeyyen (or Müzi, as most of you know her) is a final-year PhD student in Sociology. Her research explores European Union discourses with a special focus on the kinds of inclusion and exclusion they produce. She is from Istanbul and she enjoys movies, music, books, tea and coffee. Jenn Tomomitsu Jennifer is in the final stretch of writing up her thesis on enactments of seeing and the material practices of scientific imaging. In her spare time, she enjoys music, yoga, cycling, hiking, or snowboarding when back home in Canada. Lara Houston Lara is a second year PhD student in the Centre for Science Studies. Her work focusses on mobile phone repair cultures in Kampala, Uganda, and she’s currently undertaking her fieldwork there. Basak Tanulku Basak has recently passed her Viva. Her research is on gated communities in Istanbul and she is interested in urban studies, and social and spatial segregation. In her spare time, Basak enjoys travelling, walking and spending time in the countryside.
Tom Roberts Tom Roberts is a PhD candidate in the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change (CSEC) looking at the role of narrative and storytelling in imagining, engaging and enrolling publics in energy futures. Tom is also Environmental Coordinator at Lancaster University and has helped recruit an environment team, run environmental campaigns, achieved fairtrade status for the University and drafted an ethical investment policy. Christos Stavrou Christos was born in Athens, Greece and lived for many years in Leeds where he studied Sociology and practiced photography as an artist and a documentary photographer. Some of his previous work can be found on his website: www.christosstavrou. com. He arrived in Lancaster last autumn to conduct doctoral research, funded by the ESRC, which is an interdisciplinary approach bringing together Visual Sociology, Disability Studies and Photography. Joe Rigby Joe is a fourth year PhD student in Sociology. His research focuses on contemporary capitalism, border control and states of emergency.
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Departmental and Faculty Seminar Schedule Please note: this schedule is still preliminary as speakers, paper titles and dates will change in the upcoming months
DATE 11 November 2010 10.30am-17.45pm
TITLE Liberty and its Histories: a Symposium with Quentin Skinner (History Department)
VENUE IAS Meeting Room 2/3
15 November 2010 4.30-6.00pm
Can we draw on ideas from complexity theory to do ‘more with less’ in child welfare
Bowland College North, SR 20
Professor Robert Geyer
16 November 2010 1.00-2.00pm
Katy and the internet: some perspectives on the embededness of internet use in a particular family’s literacy practices (LRDG seminar)
County South Room C89 (Meeting Room 7)
Awena Carter
16 November 2010 4.15-6.00pm
Designated Ethnic Areas in Singapore Tourism (CeMoRe Seminar)
IAS Meeting Room 2/3
16 November 2010 5.00pm
Schools Africa Project (African Studies Group)
IAS Meeting Room 1 Richard Borowski
17 November 2010 2.30-3.30pm
Designing a project and writing a case for support (Writing External Funding Applications seminar series)
IAS Meeting Room 3
17 November 2010 12.30-2.00pm
Stories of Self: Tracking children's identity and wellbeing through the school years
IAS Meeting Room 1 Dr Jo Warin
17 November 2010 4.00-6.00pm
Analyse this! The Institutional Identity Crisis of Mercosur
Bowland North SR10 Andrea Oelsner
18 November 2010
'No wealth but life': Ruskin and Cultural Value (The Mikimoto Memorial Ruskin Lecture 2010)
Management School Professor Robert Lecture Theatre 1 Hewison
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SPEAKER Keynote Speaker: Quentin Skinner
Voon Chin Phua
DATE 23 November 2010 4.15-6.00pm
TITLE Do women think differently about foreign policy? (Sociology Departmental Seminar)
VENUE IAS Meeting Room 2/3
SPEAKER Clare Short
24 November 2010 1.00pm 24 November 2010 5.00pm
Metaphilosophy Talk
Bowland North SR 27 Bowland North SR 16
Nick Unwin
Gautier, Boileau and Chenavard: interrelations of utopia and architecture in nineteenth-century France (DELC research seminar)
26 November 2010 10.30am-5.30pm
Turbulent Trade Routes (Mediterranean Mobilities & CeMoRe)
29 November 2010 6.00pm 2 December 2010 4.00-6.00pm
Ireland, the Brontes and Jane Eyre (Public Lecture) Ruskin at Walkley: Reconstructing the St George’s Museum
Greg Kerr
IAS Meeting Room 2/3
Tim Cresswell, Tim Hall, Craig Martin, Peter North, Kathy Pain Management School Professor Terry Lecture Theatre 1 Eagleton IAS Meeting room 2/3
Marcus Waithe
8 December 2010 5.00pm
Film, Recycling and Bowland North SR Intervention: Technologies and 16 Transnational Mediascapes DELC Research Seminar
9-10 December 2010 9.00am1.00pm 14 December 2010 4.15-6.00pm
Mini STS PhD conference Haunting Places (Sociology Departmental Seminar)
IAS Meeting Room 1 Keynote Speakers: Claire Waterton, Daniel Neyland IAS Meeting Room Gail Crowther 2/3
15 December 2010 4.00-6.00pm
The Theory of Approval and Disapproval
Bowland North SR 10
Edward Harcourt
19 January 2011 4.00-6.00pm
The Challenges of Researching Madrasas (Islamic seminaries)
Bowland North SR 10
Ron Geaves
26 January 2011 4.00-6.00pm
'The problematic practice of legislating for security : a Bourdieusian analysis of the UK Parliament and counterterrorism law'
Bowland North SR 10
Andrew Neal
31 January 2011 6.00pm
What is Poetry? (Public Lecture)
Cavendish Lecture Theatre
Professor Terry Eagleton
David Wood
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