Pavis Lecture - 4 November 2008

The 2008 annual Pavis public lecture at the Open University will be given by Professor Margaret Archer on Tuesday November 4 2008 at 16:30. (Tea at 16:00) in the Berrill Theatre, Berrill Building at the Open University under the title "Reflecting upon Reflexivity: is it just idle internal conversation?"

Professor Margaret Archer is known internationally as one of the UK’s leading social scientists and as the major social theorist of critical realism. She served from 1986 to 1990 as the first female President of the International Sociological Association (ISA). She is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Her work has focused on a classic social scientific issue; the structure and agency problem, that is to say the relationship between the social and cultural structures of societies, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, how people may reproduce yet also transform such social and cultural frameworks. Most recently she has reflected in particular on the way human agency emerges via “internal conversations”. Her books include (2007) Making Our Way Through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency, Cambridge University Press.

Personal Profile: Professor Margaret Archer
Wikipedia: Margaret Archer

The annual Open University Pavis lecture is organised by the Department of Sociology’s Pavis Centre which undertakes research concerned with the relations between culture and society. It was founded in 1993 with a bequest from former Open University student, the late James Pavis, a keen student of sociology and anthropology who wished to promote their study at the Open University.

You are warmly invited to attend the lecture to which we would be delighted to welcome you.

Pavis Lecture - 11 October 2006

When Species Meet - Donna Haraway (PDF document)

'When Species Meet' explores philosophical, historical, cultural, personal, technoscientific, and biological aspects of animal-human inter- and intra-actions. Dogs lead the way; but strong supporting roles are reserved for mushrooms, animal people, squid, bacteria, whales with videocams, and the rest of the kin group of post-cyborgs.

The talk works from paired fictional encounters of philosophers and biologists (Jacques Derrida with Barbara Smuts; Deleuze and Guattari with Lynn Margulis and Scott Gilbert) and concludes with Isabelle Stengers's and my agility dog Cayenne's help to think through what animal-human encounters propose in Whitehead's sense, or, how to become more worldly in the contact zones of the posthumanities.

Pavis Lecture - 17 May 2005

"What's Foreign in Cultural Studies? or, On English as a Chinese language" - Meaghan Morris

Meaghan Morris is Chair Professor of Cultural Studies and Coordinator of the Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme at Lingnan University, Hong Kong . Her most recent books include New Keywords: a Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (co-ed with Tony Bennett and Lawrence Grossberg) and 'Race' Panic and the Memory of Migration (co-ed. with Brett de Bary). She is Senior Editor of Traces: a Multilingual Journal of Cultural Theory and Translation, and in 2004 was elected Chair of the international Association for Cultural Studies.

Pavis Lecture - 11 February 2004

Professor Marilyn Strathern gave the 2004 Pavis Lecture on 11 February 2004 in the Berrill Lecture Theatre, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes. The lecture was entitled 'Medicine and Medicines: the whole person and its artefacts' and was followed by a discussion and a drinks reception.

Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion Symposium
8 - 10 January 2004, St Hughs College, Oxford

The aims of the symposium were (i) to contribute to a theoretical and conceptual clarification of the relations between cultural, economic and social capital, (ii) to consider the organisation and functioning of specific forms of cultural capital and (iii) to relate these concerns to current policy settings concerning the relations between cultural capital and social exclusion. These aims were pursued in a manner that contributed to the development of the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion inquiry and also provided the basis for an independent edited collection. The symposium also provided for a sharing of perspectives between all participants in the project – research users and research associates as well as the project team – while also benefiting from dialogue with others with expertise and interests of relevance to the project. This event was supported by the BFI and the Pavis Centre through the NECP.

Defending Bureaucracy Workshop - 27-28 March 2003

These are not the best of days for Bureaucracy. Everywhere its demise is demanded, reported and, more often than not, celebrated. Bureaucracy carries a hefty charge-sheet, inscribed with multiple offences ranging from the relatively banal obfuscation, circumlocution, procrastination and other typical products of a red-tape mentality to the truly heinous - genocide, totalitarianism, despotism. Indeed, to judge by some accounts, bureaucracy frequently in conjunction with the state, appears to be responsible for many of the problems of our times.

This workshop was devoted to exploring and problematizing contemporary anti-bureaucratic sentiment as it has appeared across a range of discourses and sites. The aim is twofold. First, to show how and why bureaucracy has played and continues to a play a highly productive role in organizing existence in a number of domains - public and private, governmental and commercial. An aspect of this task might involve indicating the extent to which bureaucracy, contrary to the views of many of its detractors, is alive, well and proliferating rather than disappearing and/or decaying. Secondly, to describe and assess the impact political, economic and social of contemporary attempts to de-bureaucraticize organizational life in these domains.

Pavis Lecture - 13 February 2003

Professor Cora Kaplan of the University of Southampton will give the next Pavis Lecture on 13 February 2003. The lecture will take place in the Berrill Lecture Theatre, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes at 16:00 with tea and coffee available from 15:30. The lecture is entitled The Disappearance of the Working Class Hero.

Cultural Returns: Assessing the Place of Culture in Social Thought. An international conference organised by the Pavis Centre for Social and Cultural Research at the Open University - 18-20 September 2002, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford

This major international conference brought together leading figures in cultural studies, cultural and political theory, cultural history, cultural geography, sociology of culture and cultural anthropology to debate the place of culture in social thought in the wake of cultural turns in a number of disciplines, and the place of culture in putatively ‘culturalised societies and economies.

Culture is increasingly central in contemporary societies. It is an important force in social and political change; a key economic sector in its own right; and it permeates our everyday lives. Meanwhile, culture has become increasingly central to social thought. In a range of academic disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, including sociology, anthropology, history, geography, psychology, media studies, education, politics, gender studies, economics and cultural studies, unprecedented attention has been paid to issues of meaning, symbol and communication. But how fruitful have the various 'cultural turns' been? What have they contributed to our understanding of the relations between culture and society?

It was time for an assessment of the role of culture in societies and in social thought, and for serious thinking about the most important directions for future work. This conference explored these issues across the following key themes.

• Cultural economy: changing conceptions of the relationship of economies, markets and culture
• Culture and governance: rethinking the regulation of culture, and the role of culture in social life
• Culture and personal identity: subjectivity, self, personhood
• Culture and collective identity: diaspora, globalisation, gender, class
• Culture, media and cultural industries

Keynote and plenary speakers included: Tony Bennett, Anthony Elliott, Nancy Fraser, Richard Johnson, Meaghan Morris, David Saunders, Beverley Skeggs and Margi Wetherell.

After September 11 Conference - 9-11 September 2002
British Film Institute

The news media are central arenas of political conflict and public debate. The proliferation of satellite news channels brings new transnational configurations of audiences into being that may have unpredictable consequences for states, governance and citizenship. This conference brought together academics, journalists and policy-makers to analyse and evaluate the role played by television news mediating the events of September 11 and ensuing conflicts. It examined responses to TV coverage by diverse audiences and competing narratives of causes and consequence.

The Media and 'The War Against Terrorism - 23 January 2002
Berrill Lecture Theatre, Walton Hall campus of The Open University, Milton Keynes

The Pavis Lecture 2002, organised by the Pavis Centre for Social and Cultural Research at The Open University. Speaker include Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Gordon Corera, Jean Seaton, Cynthia Weber.

Visual Evidence ESRC Seminar Three - Uses and Abuses - 4–5 October 2001
In association with "The Beautiful and the Damned" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London

The third in a series of three international, inter-disciplinary seminars, to be held at the National Portrait Gallery, is timed to coincide with the end of an exhibition — The Beautiful and the Damned — that explores some key issues about the social uses of visual evidence in the 19th century. The aim of this seminar is to reflect on some central issues about the uses of visual evidence and to invite presentations on the past, present and future of the visual in social research. These will explore the ethics, politics, institutions, meanings, etc which emerge from just such a consideration.

Contemporary Music Practices: Industry, Technology and Creativity - 15 June 2001

This one-day conference, organized by Teresa Dillon and Arun Saldanha, brought together academic speakers with professionals from inside the music industry. Subjects included Napster, digital sampling, gender and the music business and the politics of musical exoticism.

Visual Evidence ESRC Seminar Two - Meaning, Representation and Information 5-6 April 2001.

The second in the Visual Evidence ESRC seminar series described above.

Visual Evidence ESRC Seminar One - Mapping the Field - 11-12 December 2000

The first in a series of three international ESRC seminars organized by Peter Hamilton, Jon Prosser and Rob Walker was aimed at developing and refining image based research in an evolving field. The aims of the series are to provide an international forum for the future development of visual evidence in qualitative research, to promote constructive debate on problematic issues of a visual nature that are common across disciplines and to initiate a network among researchers, scholars and postgraduate students.

Mutuality Workshop - 24 November 2000

This one-day conference, organized by Dan Weinbren, aimed to share ideas on mutualism from a variety of sources. Other aims were to explore the development of ideas about co-operation, mutuality and the friendly societies and to analyze the changing nature of trust relations and the institutions of the civil society. Relationships between the voluntary sector and the post-welfare state, co-operation, consumption and popular culture in contemporary society were also discussed. Six individual sessions explored these themes, lead by speakers including Professors John Clarke, Pat Thane, Stephen Yeo and Martin Daunton.

Pavis Lecture - 19 October 2000

Stuart Hall, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Open University, gave the 2000 Pavis Lecture, on "The Multicultural Question". The lecture was relayed to an international audience via a webcast, and featured Professor Hall's reflections on responses to the Runnymede Trust report on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, which had been issued the previous week. A transcript of the lecture is available as number 4 in the Pavis Papers in Social and Cultural Research. Organizer: David Hesmondhalgh.

Nation, Culture, People Symposium - 19 May 2000

The National Everyday Cultures Programme (NECP) was publicly launched at a one-day inaugural symposium entitled Nation, Culture, People organized by Elizabeth Silva and Tony Bennett. The symposium was attended by some 160 people including Open University Associate Lecturers, academics and representatives of cultural and media organizations. Presentations on a series of research themes culminated in a keynote address from the Rt Hon Chris Smith, MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Sessions and speakers were:

• Culture and the Everyday: Tony Bennett and Elizabeth Silva
• Relocating Britain: Patrick Wright and Gail Lewis
• Lifecourse and Lifestyles: Ann Phoenix and Andrew Blaikie
• Home, Gender and the Everyday: David Morgan and Gill Dunne
• Class, Culture and Place: Mike Savage and Doreen Massey
• Cultural Policy and Everyday Life: Naseem Khan and Angela McRobbie

Cultural Economy Workshop - 13-14 January 2000

This two day workshop, hosted by the Pavis Centre, was organized by Paul du Gay and Mike Pryke and funded jointly by the Disciplines of Sociology and Geography, in association with Sage Publications. Leading academics from a range of social science disciplines took part in a series of themed presentations and discussions. Richard Sennett, LSE, provided the opening plenary to which Stuart Hall offered a response. The speakers were John Allen, Paul Heelas, John Law, Liz McFall, Angela McRobbie, Daniel Miller, Keith Negus, Sean Nixon, Don Slater, Matthew Soar, Nigel Thrift, Alan Warde, Paul du Gay and Mike Pryke.