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Celia Lury (Centre Director)

Professor Celia Lury (Centre Director)

My main research contribution is to the development of the interdisciplinary study of culture. I have made a series of studies of cultural change, focusing on the implications of such change for understandings of the person, processes of individualisation and the relations between individuals and groups. I am currently exploring these topics as a member of a collaborative interdisciplinary project called 'People Like You': Contemporary Figures of Personalisation, funded by The Wellcome Trust.

I am also interested in the ways in which 'live' methods contribute to the enactment of social worlds. A current focus involves looking at the role of methods such as ranking, optimisation, and bio-sensing in the making of a topological culture. Recent publications on this topic include: Problem Spaces: Why and How Methodology Matters, Polity 2021; the co-edited volume, Routledge International Handbook of Interdisciplinary Methods, 'What is the empirical?', Inventive Methods, (co-edited with Nina Wakeford, Routledge, 2012), Measure and Value (co-edited with Lisa Adkins, Blackwell, 2012), and a Special Issue of Theory, Culture and Society on Topologies of Culture (co-edited with Luciana Parisi and Tiziana Terranova).

Research Profile

Interdisciplinary methodologies; feminist and cultural theory; sociology of culture; branding and consumer culture; numbers and names.

Academic Profile

I was the founding Director of CIM, which was established in January 2012. I had previously been Professor and Head of Department (from 2007-2010) in the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Prior to that I was in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University, where I was Co-Director of the Institute for Women Studies (with Beverley Skeggs, from 1994-7). I hold a DPhil and MA in Sociology from the University of Manchester and a BA (Hons) in Sociology from the University of York.

Current Research Projects

'People Like You': Contemporary Figures of Personalisation, a Wellcome Medical Humanities Collaborative award

Selected Publications

Research Students Supervised

  • Esteban Damiani - 'Digital Economies and the public: Analysing social media, online metrics and value production in the 2014 Uruguayan political campaign'
  • Craig Gent - 'The Dashboard and the Stack: the post-Fordist reconfiguration of work through dashboard interfaces'
  • Silvia Mollicchi - 'Complex art practices and the phenomenon of cultural iridescence'
    Scott Wark - 'Meme Theory'

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Contact

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies
Room B0.10
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL

Email: C dot Lury at warwick dot ac dot uk
Tel: +44 (0)24761 51757