Understanding Society

CRASSH Understanding Society lecture series supported by the Thriplow Charitable Trust

Judith Butler (Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley; Mellon CDI Visiting Fellow at CRASSH) gives the final lecture in CRASSH's Understanding Society series from her unique perspective of feminism, philosophy and language.

Richard Sennett will focus on the relation of social life to physical design. In this lecture he'll explore what shape cities should have to admit the complexities and conflicts of the people who live together, in a particular way. He'll talk about edge conditions within the city, distinguishing between borders and boundaries, exploring the design of porosity and mixture of people who differ from one another.

Professor Marilyn Strathern

Professor Marilyn Strathern will give the final lecture in a series of five lectures on Understanding Society. The series will culminate in a panel discussion at Kings Place on Tuesday 27 November 2012.

Abstract

This final lecture in the series takes on the issue of what seems one of the least appealing aspects of ‘society’, as the term is used in common parlance, namely its vacuousness, and suggests what an anthropologist might find interesting in that. Does the Big Society render the concept even more (as in bigger) vacuous? And if it does, what might be some of the consequences? The lecture questions both what might be taken for granted in an appeal to society and what it then means to promote it. If indeed there is no such thing, do these questions become more interesting, or less so? It is a conundrum that is best approached from a wider stage than ministerial pronouncements.

This lecture takes place between the French publication of Bruno Latour's An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns and the full version of the digital platform in English that allows the inquiry to unfold. This lecture will present the project both in its content - an anthropology of the moderns - and in its procedure - an exploration of the possibility of digital tools to develop academic books as well as collective research.

Professor Juliet Mitchell

Professor Juliet Mitchell will give the second in a series of five lectures on Understanding Society. The series will culminate in a panel discussion at Kings Place on Tuesday 27 November 2012.

Abstract

Public warfare and private depression, unfortunately, distinguish all human societies. Using, but standing against, the evolutionist understanding of violence and warfare, I suggest that to the contrary, warfare depends on a prohibition of violence. Following this prohibition warfare contributes to the construction of human society. Gender analysis and psychoanalytic insights into unconscious processes frame the argument which also briefly mentions Hamlet to illustrate its thesis.

Lord Giddens

Lord Giddens will give the first in a series of five lectures on Understanding Society. The series will culminate in a panel discussion at Kings Place on Tuesday 27 November 2012.

Abstract

Human social interaction and communication didn't just follow on from the emergence of homo sapiens but almost certainly contributed to that emergence and dominance over other species. In this lecture Lord Giddens shall stress the importance of media of communication in social evolution, leading from the hunting and gathering societies to city-based civilisations and later to the global society of today.