[ecrea] The Future of Social Critique - Loughborough University, 2 June

Some of you may be interested in joining the following event at 
Loughborough, dedicated to social critique - for full details see below 
or check the website:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/socialsciences/news-events/news/the-future-of-social-critique.html

Best regards
Sabina Mihelj

***
Dr. Sabina Mihelj
Reader in Media and Cultural Analysis
Communication Research Centre
Department of Social Sciences
Brockington Building
Loughborough University
LE11 3TU Loughborough
UK



THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE

DATE: Tuesday 2 June 2015
VENUE: Loughborough University , James France Building, room CC021

An all-day Communication, Culture and Citizenship (CCC) Research
Challenge Seminar, with distinguished speakers to celebrate the
careers of two renowned academics in Loughborough University’s
Department of Social Sciences; Professor Michael Pickering and
Professor Graham Murdock.

The right-wing response to the continuing financial crisis in Europe
has sought to reduce the size of the state and the power of labour,
increasing income inequality and placing the heaviest burden on the 
shoulders of those least able to bear it.

This neo-liberal response has not gone unchallenged in some European 
countries with the growth of opposition on both the right and the  left. 
In the UK we have experienced a ‘revolt from the right’ with the  growth 
of UKIP, but the response from the left has been muted and  largely on 
the margins.

In contrast, the early years of the Thatcherite project saw a
flowering of radical opposition that crossed over from politics to
culture and into the universities. The questions addressed in this
seminar are:

If then, then why not now?
What has changed both inside and outside universities?
What resources are available for the renewal of critique?
Whatever happened to the ‘public intellectual’?
How do we assess questions of value and make this a key aspect of  critique?

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Session 1.10.30am-12pm

CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS INQUIRY AND THE POLITICS OF CRISIS

Professor Graham Murdock - Loughborough University
Professor Natalie Fenton - Professor of Media and Communications, 
Goldsmith’s College

This session addresses the present state, and future prospects, for a 
critical analysis of media and communications and media activism against 
the background of crisis in capitalism, environment and politics

LUNCH

Session 2. 1-2.30pm

POPULAR CULTURE AND CRITIQUE

Professor Michael Pickering - Professor of Media and Cultural
Analysis, Loughborough University
Dr Steph Lawler - Reader in Sociology, University of York

The last fifty years have seen popular culture become the analytical 
concern of a good deal of social critique, with the primary focus  being 
on how relations of power are reproduced in cultural texts and 
representations, and much less said about what is of value in popular 
culture. This session looks at the need to rethink the value question 
and give it greater salience, for effective social critique depends upon 
getting a good handle on both power and value.

COFFEE & TEA

Session 3. 3-4.30pm

PANEL DISCUSSION OF THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL CRITIQUE

THIS IS AN OPEN SEMINAR: Everyone is Welcome

This seminar is organised by the Cultural Communities, Cosmopolitanism 
and Citizenship (CulCom) Research Group in the Department of Social 
Sciences, Loughborough University.

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