SEMINAR: The Science of Culture and Cultural Science

CCI is delighted to invite you to a seminar with

Professor Tony Bennett (UWS)
Professor Gay Hawkins (UNSW)
Dr Jason Potts (QUT/UQ)
Distinguished Professor John Hartley (QUT)

on The Science of Culture and Cultural Science

12.00 – 1.00pm Lunch and opening welcome by Chair (Stuart Cunningham)

1.00 – 1.45pm Presentation – Science Studies and Cultural Analysis: Relations of Knowledge and Governance (Tony Bennett)

1.45 – 2.30pm Presentation – Markets as Hybrid Forums (Gay Hawkins)

2.30 – 3.00pm Afternoon tea

3.00 – 3.45pm Presentation – Cultural Studies and the Evolutionary Science of Innovation (Jason Potts)

3.45 – 4.30pm Presentation – Emergence and Emergencies: Tricksters and Cultural Science (John Hartley)

4.30 – 5.00pm Discussion and wrap

Overview:
‘The approach I want to describe is that of cultural studies, which is English for “cultural science”.’ So said Raymond Williams in 1974 to describe the project of cultural studies as he saw it. Since that time, it has arguably become more controversial to speak of conjoining science and culture. Now that cultural studies has become institutionalised at the creative, literary, and theoretical end of the humanities, the possibility of re-founding it as ‘cultural science’ may seem further off than ever.

This seminar explores some contemporary approaches to the science of culture arising from the new humanities and social sciences.

TONY BENNETT
Tony Bennett is Research Professor in Social and Cultural Theory at the Centre for Cultural Research at UWS. Previously he was Professor of Sociology and Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change at the Open University; and Professor of Cultural Studies, Dean of Humanities and Director of the ARC Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at Griffith University. Tony Bennett’s interests span a number of areas across the social sciences and humanities, with significant contributions to the fields of literary theory, cultural studies, cultural sociology, and museum studies.

Abstract: Science Studies and Cultural Analysis: Relations of Knowledge and Governance
My concerns in this presentation are to identify how the concerns and procedures of science studies might enrich the methods of cultural analysis that are available to us. I shall outline the ways in which the attention paid by science studies to the fabrication of new scientific objects in customised settings can be applied to similar processes in the cultural realm. I shall also consider how the perspectives of science studies regarding the ways in which knowledge practices connect with diverse forms of social engagement can be applied to enrich and qualify Foucauldian perspectives on the relations of knowledge and governance applicable to the cultural realm. These theoretical and methodological concerns will be illustrated with reference to ongoing work on the relationships between anthropological fieldwork, museums, and metropolitan and colonial governance, and the networks through which these relations operate.

GAY HAWKINS
Gay Hawkins researches in two key areas: ecological humanities, materiality and biopolitics, and the relations between government, media and everyday life. She has published widely on the institutional, political and theoretical implications of these areas. She brings to this research an innovative interdisciplinary approach that is concerned with the intersections between cultural and material practices and forms of rule. Her most recent books are The Ethics of Waste: how we relate to rubbish (2006) which was on the Gleebooks nonfiction bestseller list for two months in 2007, and, co-authored with Ien Ang and Lamia Dabboussy, The SBS Story: the challenge of cultural diversity (2008).

Abstract: Markets as Hybrid Forums
This paper uses recent work in science and technology studies, sociology and geography to investigate the relation between economics and politics. A central focus will be Michel Callon’s idea of markets as ‘hybrid forums’, or key sites for the proliferation of the social. This approach focuses on the performative dimensions of markets and the multitude of technical and material devices that enable them. It also focuses on the contested nature of markets, the ways in which their various overflowings (or externalities) can generate issues and emergent collective identities. In other words, markets are increasingly triggering spaces for the political – not simply via reactive opposition but via the configuration of socio-technical-controversies that often involve dialogue about the nature of ‘common worlds’. Using the example of bottled water markets and controversies I hope to show how hybrid forums re-conceptualize the relations between democracy and economy.

JASON POTTS
Jason Potts is an evolutionary economist, on secondment to the CCI from the School of Economics, University of Queensland, specialising in the economics of innovation and growth through technological and institutional change. He has developed the analytic basis for the use of complex systems theory and population dynamics in modelling evolutionary economic processes. His current work focuses on the economics of creativity.

Abstract: Cultural Studies and the Evolutionary Science of Innovation
This talk explores the intersection between the methodological individualism of (Schumpeterian) innovation studies and the methodological collectivism of the cultural studies approach to the theory of innovation. An evolutionary approach is developed here that specifically examines some of the incentive aspects of consumer adoption of novelty. The demand side of the innovation process involves both of these domains yet these have not been previously reconciled. I will argue that a cultural science approach can help.

JOHN HARTLEY
John Hartley is research director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology. He was foundation dean of QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty and in 2006 was awarded its first Distinguished Professorship. Previously he was head of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University in Wales. The author/editor of 20 books and many articles on culture, media, journalism and the creative economy, he is the founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 2009.

Abstract: Emergence and Emergencies: Tricksters and Cultural Science
'In spite of all their disruptive behaviour, tricksters are regularly honoured as the creators of culture' (Lewis Hyde). This paper attempts to reconcile the two side of the famous Schumpeterian formula for entrepreneurial agency - 'creative destruction'. It considers how 'innovation at the margins' applies not only to economic but also to cultural renewal; and how such innovation may be characterised by what some may see as deception, lies and theft. This line of thought is part of a larger project to take the 'evolutionary turn' in cultural studies, towards a 'cultural science' where culture is seen as a complex, open, adaptive and dynamic system. But the emergence of the new may betoken an emergency for the system as a whole. The implications of incorporating the trickster into an evolutionary model of culture will be assessed in relation to ongoing work in cultural science.

Please RSVP to infocci@qut.edu.au by Friday, 13 August 2010