R.I.P. Sandro Roventi (1947-2010) (Sunday Sociological Song)
Italian sociologist Sandro Roventi left us. Yesterday he was put to rest in the cemetery of Lambrate (Milan). Sandro was the person who introduced me to sociology (after being trained as an economist). Passionate, funny, politically unpredictable, lucid, generous: he was all these things and much more. He started his career during the Italian Years of Lead. After the European Consortium for Political Research published his Italy and Terrorism in the 1970s (1980) he became the target of unwanted attention from both the political police and the Red Brigades. The epitome of a generation of social scientists / activists steering through a time of political unrest and de facto civil war.
The first lesson of his Sociology class went something like: « Ok kids. To make a champagne molotov all you need is a bottle, alcohol and a cloth… » – and after looking at our dumbfounded faces he would go on introducing us to the notions of conflict, labour, social justice, etc. We became friends eventually. He supervised my tesi di laurea. He wrote the preface to my first book. Until I left Italy I was a regular guest at his dinner parties. Sometimes, we would listen to music. I remember he loved this song. I love it, too.
Breaking News: The Media Manipulate You (Sunday Sociological Song)
Here’s for another episode of our trans-blog ongoing series Sunday Sociological Song. You know the rules by now: one sociological concept or book + one song to go with it. This time the book is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman – and the song is Bad Day by REM.
When you listen to Russian music, you are downloading anarchy (Sociological Songs Special)
Let’s try something different: a Sociological Songs Special, completely focusing on a single band. And the band is Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Гражданская Оборона, « Civil Defense » in Russian), a landmark USSR punk number from the 1980s [1]. Now I know what you think. But please, suspend your disbelief. The former Soviet Union had, despite repression, a flourishing punk scene. Just have a look at this picture gallery of retro-crested, mirror-shaded, pin-pierced vodka-drinking rockers. Then we’ll talk. And as we are talking, please also have a look at this impressive media archive, where you can download an incredible amount of original recordings, bootlegs, and pictures.
As legend has it, Grazhdanskaya Oborona was the mindchild of Yegor Letov (1964-2008), the self-styled « psychedelic » poet and musician from Omsk, Siberia. Letov always had a talent for controversy. Which might explain why he started his career as an anarchist under a communist regime and ended up, after the fall of the Berlin wall, founding the National Bolshevik Party, a right-wing/left-wing (?) political organization whose symbol is everything but unequivocal. But this is a story for another time…
Like for many other punk bands, Grazhdanskaya Oborona’s songs were a mix of hard rock, noise, ska (sometimes), and unbecoming lyrics. A good example is probably the ironical (and definitely NSFW) винтовка – это праздник (The rifle, what a party)
Knowtex, Culture Visuelle et les autres
C’est le mois d’août, tout le monde est en vacances et moi j’ai envie d’écrire un petit billet pour vous annoncer que dans le milieu de la recherche française on assiste – avec beaucoup de satisfaction – à la naissance de médias sociaux pour la mise en relation d’universitaires, étudiants, scientifiques et grand public. Ma sensibilité (exquise, vous vous en doutez) et mes intérêts (on ne peut plus éclairés, ça va sans dire) me font privilégier deux services particulièrement bien conçus : Knowtex et Culture Visuelle. L’un, plus orienté sciences exactes, et avec un penchant pour la divulgation ; l’autre plutôt sciences humaines, et centré sur l’enseignement. Moi, je suis délicieusement (paraît-il) polymorphe, donc vous me trouvez parfois sur l’un, parfois sur l’autre.
Donald Duck, conflict simulations and the military-entertainment complex
Today, the BBC Asia-Pacific website features an article about « manga-style comics » published by the US military « to teach Japanese children about the two countries’ security alliance ».
US military propaganda (2010)
As a conscientious objector, I cannot help but find the all thing disturbing. Especially because I’m sure the Japanese public has not yet digested this other fine example of American comics, pre-dating the US/Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security: Read more
Running experiments on Twitter? Don’t forget the bug
Just a quick post to point you to an interesting article about tie formation on Twitter – which is also the place where I found this reference, a couple of days ago:
Scott A. Golder and Sarita Yardi (2010). Structural Predictors of Tie Formation in Twitter: Transitivity and Mutuality. Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Conference on Social Computing. August 20-22, Minneapolis, MN.
Here I summarize the results:
- The more followers you have, the more followers you attract (ok, admittedly this doesn’t come as a surprise…);
- Reciprocity in tie formation doesn’t seem to be due to similarity in interests but, more likely, to some kind of social obligation (well, this is getting more interesting);
- Self-presentation (pic, bio and location) doesn’t seem to matter, except for location which appears to be negatively correlated to tie formation (now they got my attention…);
- Transitivity and mutuality predict tie formation if they are taken together, but authors « suggest that a consistent status hierarchy and some level of tie strength drive this effect » (this is definitely worth looking into).
If you miss the sound of vuvuzelas, try listening to Die Antwoord!
I, for one, am not much of a football fan. But I have to admit that this year’s World Cup has been a mesmerizing spectacle. Not because of the actual playing (and not because of French team debacle, so aptly analyzed by SocProf), but mainly because of the soundscape. For me vuvuzelas were, like, you know, Luigi Russolo’s « Art of noises » and emergentist theory of human action rolled into one. Don’t get me started on that, because I could go on and on for days and – beyond this blog, you know, I have a life.
So, for those of you that miss that disturbing, spitty, heartfelt, proletarian sound, here’s a – seemingly unrelated – piece of South African culture: rap-rave music, as instantiated by Die Antwoord, the hottest band of the moment [of course, mildly NSFW].
Taxijam presents Die Antwoord from taxijam on Vimeo.
« Here in South Africa the taxis play rave music fokken loud my bru. You can hear it from the next city when the taxi comes through, you hear DOOM DOOM DOOM—they gooi the rap-rave megamixes pumping like a nightclub. So my main inspiration is the taxis. The whole album is based on the sound it’s gonna make when it’s pumping through a taxi—It’s that high energy shit you can’t compare. »
[Watkin T. Jones (aka "Ninja"), lead vocalist of Die Antwoord, interview in Vice Magazine]
Ps. On Die Antwoord’s official website you can listen to their entire first album $O$. It’s definitely worth it, especially if you are not planning to take a Cape Town taxi anytime soon. They are presently touring Europe and the US, so another thing that you might want to do is go to one of their live shows. With a vuvuzela, to blow along with their despicable zef-gansta rhymes…
Hidden track #7 : CCCP – épatez vos amis avec du punk philo-soviétique
Les chanteurs siamois d’Amanda Palmer ? Le crust-ska des Leftöver Crack ? Die Antwoord et la nouvelle scène zef afrikaans ? Admettez-le : à un certain moment, cela devient difficile de trouver quelque chose de vraiment nouveau pour épater vos amis mordus de musique. D’autant plus que, si vous vous mettez à explorer des trucs nouveaux sur Spotify ou sur Last.fm, vous risquez de bousiller vos stats… Mieux vaut s’orienter carrément vers des groupes défunts, genre des formations pratiquement méconnues à la populace, qui n’ont influencé pratiquement personne, et qui ne risquent pas de vous faire suggérer du Lady Gaga la prochaine fois que vous vous pointerez sur iTunes.
Nom : CCCP – Fedeli alla linea (« URSS – Fidèles à la ligne »). Année de création : 1981. Pays : Italie. Genre : art-punk philo-soviétique avec influences folk, disco et world.
Un petit morceau représentatif de leur production la plus originale : Valium Tavor Serenase, vignette d’aliénation pharmaceutique, mélangeant rock dur et « liscio » (une espèce de valse du nord de l’Italie).
Comment monter un projet de recherche transdisciplinaire
Monter un projet de recherche transdisciplinaire : la conception d’une idée innovante, l’implication des partenaires, la soumission du projet et sa négociation avec les organismes financeurs sont autant d’étapes d’un processus complexe et parsemé d’obstacles. Les chercheurs, souvent plus soucieux de finaliser le volet scientifique du dossier, sont de plus en plus amenés à se pencher sur la préparation du budget, sur les aspects de logistique et sur la préparation des accords de consortium.
Vendredi 28 mai, Alain CIMINO (Cimbiose) a animé la deuxième séance du séminaire EHESS « Transdisciplinarité » du Centre Edgar-Morin consacrée au montage, à la coordination et à la gestion des projets de recherche collaborative. Sa présentation, en format .pdf est désormais disponible ici et sur la page web de l’enseignement.
Projets transdisciplinaires : Contexte institutionnel et sources de financement
Quelles sont les sources de financement, les institutions publiques et les acteurs du secteur privé qui peuvent aider la création d’un projet de recherche transdisciplinaire ? Quel est le rôle d’un coordinateur ? Comment structurer le calendrier ?
Vendredi 21 mai, Alain CIMINO (Cimbiose) a animé la première des deux séances consacrées au montage, à la gestion et à la coordination de projets de recheche, dans le cadre du séminaire EHESS « Transdisciplinarité » du Centre Edgar-Morin. Voilà la version .pdf de sa très riche présentation, disponible aussi sur la page web de l’enseignement.
C’est pour moi l’occasion de remercier les chercheurs et les étudiants présents, et pour leur rappeler l’horaire et la salle dans laquelle aura lieu la deuxième séance :
« Faire de la recherche transdisciplinaire (2/2) : outils, méthodologies et questionnements »
28 mai 2010 (15h-17h)
Salle 524, EHESS,
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme,
54 Bd. Raspail
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What’s this blog about?
I'm an associate professor of Digital Humanities at the Paris Institute of Technology (ParisTech) and a researcher in sociology at the Edgar-Morin Center (EHESS, Paris). Bodyspacesociety offers regular updates about my ongoing research, publications, and teaching. If you want updates on media features and conferences, please click here.
The views presented on this blog are solely mine and do not represent the positions of my institutions of affiliation.
New books out now!
The special issue of the journal 'Communications' Cultures du numérique is out. Also, you might want to check my latest book Les liaisons numériques. Vers une nouvelle sociabilité?. Both published by Editions du Seuil, both available in bookshops and online.
» Buy Liaisons numériques
» Visit the companion website
» Buy Cultures du numérique (Communications, n. 88)
All blog content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 France License.
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