Various new approaches in the anthropology and geography of material culture, in science and technology studies, in the new sociologies 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. Subjects covered by the conference We now have over 90 speakers covering the four main topics.
Speakers abstracts outlining their proposed talks can be found on our abstracts page.
Places for the conference are still available but are going fast. If you would like to attend the conference please contact Liz Ackroyd for a booking form and to let us know you are interested. Details of the conference programme and abstracts are posted below.