Tag Archives: consumption

Events, Past Events

Vinyl Culture: A Seminar and a Party

L1230621Vinyl is the medium that won’t die. How do we explain it’s long-lasting appeal, its unique aesthetic qualities, and the strange sense that these questions are somehow important? This event will see a panel of expert commentators and practitioners discussing the issues in the ideal setting of Brilliant Corners, London’s only audiophile venue, before then hosting a party to put theory into practice.

 

Attendance is free and open to all – no need to register, just turn up.  Continue reading Vinyl Culture: A Seminar and a Party →

Events, Past Events

Security, Community & Democracy

This is the second seminar in our Culture & Polity series in which our invited speakers will be examining the post-neoliberal subject as produced by the strategies of behavioural economics, security screening and the discourse of virology. What is the meaning of community and the social under these conditions? What forms of governance emerge from new techniques of securitisation and behaviour management and what are the implications for democratic processes?

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Past Events

The Politics of Pain – Keep Calm & Carry On?

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On December 8th 2010 CCSR held a seminar on the implications of ideas of shared ‘pain’ which have become so central to the coalition government’s discourse of austerity. Speakers were Kate Pickett (co-author of The Spirit Level), Michael Rustin (of UEL and Soundings), and Jeremy Gilbert. Matthew Reisz, writing in the THE, noted how the event coincided with students taking to the streets ‘ahead of last week’s tuition-fees vote’ and the occupation of part of UEL’s campus. An Audio Recording of the seminar is available here and a copy of Jeremy’s paper ‘Sharing the Pain’ is available here.

Events, Past Events

The Politics of Debt

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The Politics of Debt: Concepts and experiences of debt have become central to the management of contemporary capitalism,  to understandings of its consequences and to social experience at every scale. National debt, personal debt, ecological debt are key issues for understanding contemporary culture and politics. But what exactly is debt? Can we manage without it? Are current levels of personal, national, corporate and ecological debt sustainable; and what are the origins of this most fundamental concept?

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Past Events, Uncategorized

ACS Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, 2010

CCSR committee member Debra Benita Shaw and Sarah Baker, a former doctoral candidate at UEL, attached to CCSR, who was recently awarded her PhD, presented papers at the 8th Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, June 17th – 21st, 2010. Sarah’s paper, called ‘Retro Homes and the Value of ‘Authentic’ Iconicity’ discussed the results of ethnographic research among ‘retro’ enthusiasts in the UK. Debra’s paper, ‘Investment Strategies in the Genomic Domain: The Life Cycle of homo oeconomicus’ presented the results of ongoing research into the connection between evolutionary psychology and contemporary neo-liberalism.

Started in 1996 in Tampere, Finland, the Crossroads Conferences were to fill what was felt to be a gap in the international cultural studies community. Since then it had become one of the most important international conferences in cultural studies where scholars from all five continents get together to exchange their scholarly insights as well as to get in touch with different cultures. Organized by the Association for Cultural Studies (ACS), Crossroads conference is now held every two years in different parts of the world: Birmingham in UK, Illinois in US, Istanbul in Turkey and Kingston in Jamaica. This was the first time it had been held in East Asia

Past Events

Politics of Consumption Seminar

The Politics of Consumption, a seminar organised by CCSR and held at UEL on May 18th, 2010 was an event intended to bring together experts and early-career researchers from both within and beyond the academy in order to discuss political and ethical issues around changing patterns of consumption in the 21st century economy.

The event featured a number of leading academics in the field – including anthropologist Daniel Miller from UCL, political philosopher Kate Soper from London Met and cultural historian Mica Nava from UEL – as well as the prominent Member of Parliament, Jon Cruddas, and Neal Lawson, the chair of Compass, a prominent organisation which has taken a leading role in social and political campaigns against, for example, ‘the commercialisation of childhood’.

The day was well-attended with over 100 attendees from across the UK as well as a number from overseas, and produced a very lively and engaged debate between proponents of a number of theoretical and political perspectives on the role of consumption and ‘consumerism’.