Call for papers – international conference of the Société Française d’Études Victoriennes et Edouardiennes
A Scottish Air: Inspirations & models from Scotland
30–31 Jan 2025, Université Grenoble Alpes
Looking at #Scotland as a source of inspiration & example in the #Victorian & #Edwardian eras, but also as a counter-model – within & beyond the borders of the UK
Book launch
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Scottish Literature
ed. Gerard Carruthers
16 April, Glasgow University & online – free & all welcome
A COMPANION TO SCOTTISH LITERATURE offers fresh readings of major authors & periods of #Scottish literary production from the first millennium to the present, presenting historical background, new critical approaches, & wider cultural & institutional contexts
Recovering Imaginaries of Illness & Disability in Scottish Literature & Culture: Sources, Contexts, Theory
Études écossaises 23 | 2024 – open access
This special issue of Études écossaises looks at what recovering imaginaries of illness & disability in #Scottish#literature & #CulturalStudies might involve. Contributions deal with a number periods of Scottish culture, & a wide variety of sources & media.
FIERY, UNSETTLING, INCISIVE collection of essays delves deep into history and cultural critique as well as the author’s life for a rigorous exploration of power and control, from racism and colonialism to misogyny and sexual violence. A MINUS
On 18 March, we will welcome researcher Patricia López-Gay (Bard College) for a lecture dedicated to the life and work of #JorgeSemprún, a Spanish political activist, public intellectual and writer.
NOTES ON TRUMPSPACE: Politics, Aesthetics, and the Fantasy of Home by David Marcus 2023 #punctumbooks
Trumpspace "argues that the fascination and horror Trump has provoked is owing in part to the way he lays bare the obsession with status, self-branding, and achievement-at-any-cost that has been part and parcel of the broader neoliberal ethos. Finally, it analyzes the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol through the lens of spatio-political theorizations of settler colonial power and conceptions of home and homeland."
CFP: “Scotland 30 years after Trainspotting”
Études écossaises, UGA éditions, Université Grenoble Alpes
This issue of Études écossaises seeks to take TRAINSPOTTING’s unique depiction of Scottish society as the starting point for an
investigation into the nature of contemporary Scottish life & how it has evolved between 1993 & 2023. Deadline for abstracts: 1 March 2024
now listening to "maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine" by jim downs.
from the intro:
"slavery, colonialism, and war - often treated separately in scholarly studies - had common features from the vantage point of medical professionals.
these episodes produced large, captive populations. slaveships, plantations, and battlefields created social arrangements and built environments that allowed physicians to observe how disease spread, and prompted them to investigate the social conditions that led to the outbreak of disease.
the increased appearance of these settings around the world between 1756 and 1866 gave way to a proliferation of medical studies that contributed to the emergence of epidemiology."
people say "colonialism is over! slavery is over!" but EVEN IF that were true, we still live in the world created by colonialism and slavery. ignoring this fact won't make it go away.
on a personal note, back when i worked at "PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases" (a scholarly journal for neglected tropical diseases), i learned that one of the main institutions for the study of tropical diseases was the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine. "that sounds like a kinda weird school name", one might think. and to this american's ears it certainly sounded strange... but once you know the history it's not so strange.
the school has that name because for physicians in england, they were dealing with soldiers & sailors who were getting stuff like malaria while out conquering the world. so that's why there's a whole field of "tropical medicine."
i absolutely do not mean to disparage anyone who is affiliated with tropical medicine or LSHTM. i worked with scientists who worked there and i deeply respect their work and commitment. my only point is that it's important to remember that almost all of us are still living in the house that colonialism, empire, and slavery built, and to act accordingly.
what do y'all think? : ""The biggest climate issue is a bunch of egotistical men who refuse to change," she says, referring to the heads of multinational corporations." - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67522279
i'm a cultural anthropologist (amateur), so my interest in her statement has less to do with "is she making an accurate statement" and more to do with: what is it that drives the desire to come up with 'the biggest issue with ___" or "the main problem with ___"? because there definitely is a desire to figure out the "root cause" of this thing (so that it can be "fixed"). but i don't know if that's possible.
i used to have this desire myself! it drove my activism... and my lack of activism - because i "couldn't figure out the root cause". analysis paralysis is a consequence of this kind of "root cause" thinking.
not to say that there aren't root causes (there may even be a root cause yet!), but that the search for a root cause can be a particular kind of activism failure mode. it's one that i think i was stuck in for way too long.
and to be clear, i DO think it's important to look for root causes, i just don't know if there's a SINGLE root cause.
i think that we are trapped in a tangled web that is
a systemic problem (a problem of systems that create outcomes regardless of which individual people are running the systems)
that is also a problem of a specific kind of masculinity (NOT a problem that's like something about men themselves as humans)
AND ALSO a problem of literal individual egotistical human men lol. (as today, kissinger death day, should remind us all.) sometimes it really does make the difference to remove literally 1 egomaniacal human man from a group situation. and sometimes that one man is fucking impossible to get at (especially since you can't get to them with guillotines anymore).
AND THAT ALSO has a bunch of other root causes like colonialism, slavery, human separation from nature, spiritual poverty, devaluing of animal and plant life, devaluing of the land, the concept of 'owning land', racism, heteronormativity, ableism, the legal system that protects corporations, the market system, the belief in and desire for hierarchies, the desire for an ordered and controlled world, "ends justify the means" thinking, and a million other things.
i don't know if there's a way to get free of this web (i certainly feel very wrapped up in it), but i can still use my teeth to bite at the little pieces of web around me & my friends & the little piece of land around me!
this bloomberg article is an excellent example of a common trope in western media: "xyz in human nature means that humans are primed to wreck their habitat." you even see this kind of thinking in policy and scientific writing.
as a cultural anthropologist (amateur), whenever i see "human nature" invoked as an explanation for LITERALLY ANYTHING, i start to get extremely suspicious.
almost always it's used as a reason for why [bad thing in society] cannot ever be solved (with the implication that maybe one shouldn't even bother because it's..."human nature").
"human nature" has been used to justify all kinds of things: men dominating women, anti-trans viewpoints, imperialism & colonialism, slavery, and more.
on the other hand, anyone can cobble together evidence showing that it's "human nature" to do any of a million "good things": care for other people, care for the land, etc.
so it's kind of a wash. it's why i don't think anyone should be making appeals to "human nature" as a reason to support/oppose much of anything.
don't ever let a "human nature" claim badger you into admitting defeat. here are arguments i use to counter just about any "human nature means we can't solve problem x" claim:
so what? even if something IS human nature, the societal problem is still there (and should be resolved, fixed, not condoned, etc.)
last i checked, wiring is not destiny. in addition to human "nature", we have this other thing called "culture" whereby humans transmit important information about how to live gained from the experiences of previous generations and older people to younger people. one can decide that one holds certain values (like: "don't destroy your habitat") and transmit those via culture.
almost all humans have been raised within families & societies that once again, mold how we think. literally no one is out here operating on "wiring" alone.
shame on you for trying to pin x problem on "human nature"! it's a cop out!
(specifically in response to the climate change-related "human nature" argument:) for millenia, many peoples all around the world found ways to live within nature's cycles. they primarily relied on important teachings that conveyed to younger generations the need to care for the land so that future generations can enjoy food/air/water/etc. too. so like, who cares about human nature in this case? people (who did not have fancy written languages or universities or scientific models!) had extremely reliable cultural practices that meant that generations of their people lived without destroying their habitats. so get out of here with this "oh it's human nature for us to destroy the environment."
🎙️New Imagine Otherwise episode alert! We dive into the relationship between Big Tech and mortality.
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews media scholar Tamara Kneese @tamigraph about her new Yale University Press book Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond.
We are hiring!
Assistant Professor – Science and Technology Studies (71102)
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
Pratt Institute: School of Liberal Arts and Sciences https://apply.interfolio.com/130757
The Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies seeks applicants for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor. @Sociology#CulturalStudies#SocialScience#STS
And FT & PT faculty at Pratt are Unionized (UFCT Local 1460)!
i was researching how breadfruit trees were moved around the world by colonials and came across this quote on the wikipedia entry for william bligh: "In order to win a premium offered by the Royal Society, he first sailed to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit trees"
it's not the first time i've seen references to royal society competitions/prizes/quests and i'd like to learn more about this subject.
but the histories of the royal society that i've come across so far have been in that sort of "heroic colonial"/"great man" mode.
i'm looking for something that's more along the lines of "what role did the royal society have to play in the movement of plants and other organisms?" it seems like they were putting out these "challenges" for "explorers", but that's where my knowledge ends.
i'd also be happy to read a book that's about the role of the royal society in empire-building & colonialism in general.
Sure, let's make more announcements at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night, why not.
Hey, people! I'm on the editorial board of #Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture, and we are seeking submissions. Please think about putting something in if you are an academic, artist, or ghastly hybrid working on #sound#SoundStudies#SoundArt
Sure, let's make more announcements at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night, why not.
Hey, people! I'm on the editorial board of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture, and we are seeking submissions. Please think about putting something in if you are an academic, artist, or ghastly hybrid working on #sound#SoundStudies#SoundArt
Testing the #academia outreach here on Mastodon. Please boost if you think you know others who might know.
I'm looking for some good light undergraduate-level books/articles in English about Taiwan under the Japanese and during the White Terror. History, culture, I would even love recommendations of short fiction if you have any.
“Ireland & Gaelic Scotland have been often perceived as closely related, sister nations – & the poem “Dùn nan Gall” (Donegal) by Derick Thomson […] explores this sibling image in a startling manner when the two languages, #Irish & #Scottish#Gaelic are envisaged as two sisters dying in each other’s arms.”