Tuesday, January 13, 2015 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (GMT)

A0.23 (Social Sciences)

• Dr. Conor Farrington (Cambridge) - The Sensemaking Spectrum: Understanding User Interactions with the Artificial Pancreas
• Prof. Deborah Lupton (Canberra) - Critical Digital Health Studies: A Research Agenda
• Sam Martin (Warwick) - Twitter: Re-Writing The City Landscape With Health Knowledge
• Dr. Marrian Hardy (Durham) - TBC

The University of Warwick is thrilled to have held 7th place in the 2014 Research Excellent Framework (REF).

The REF is run by the UK’s Higher Education Funding Councils, to assess the quality of UK research and to inform the distribution of public funds for research for the next six years

This lecture by Professor Deborah Lupton addresses Digital Sociology and its implications for the social sciences. Digital sociology is a relatively new term, having been in use for only a few years. It has gradually gathered momentum over that time, however, and her new book Digital Sociology is part of this trajectory. In this talk she will discuss her interpretation of the term ‘digital sociology’ and the confluences and continuances as well as the departures that this version has with previous iterations of the sociology of new information technologies/cyberspace and so on.

Dr. Mark Carrigan (Centre for Social Ontology) and Dr. Emma Uprichard (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies) will act as respondents.

Deborah Lupton is Centenary Research Professor at the University of Canberra. She is the author of 13 books and over 130 journal articles and book chapters on topics including the social and cultural dimensions of medicine and public health; risk; the body; parenting cultures; digital technologies; food; obesity politics; and the emotions. She is the co-convenor of the Australian Digital Sociology Network and the international Self-Tracking and Self-Quantification Research Network and member of the Technology and Society Network and the Network for Bodies, Organs and Tissues.

10:30am - 4:00pm in the IAS Seminar Room (F204)

Cultural participation has been a longstanding topic of fascination for scholars in the social sciences and humanities. However, established intellectual boundaries - between high culture and popular media, between different cultural genres and academic disciplines - may prevent dialogue between researchers studying different cultural forms and institutions.

This one-day symposium aims to promote conversation between scholars researching cultural participation from different intellectual traditions. It hosts four speakers who are engaging with new areas of research as well as new methodological challenges. The event will explore topics like cultural taste and digital media, the emergence of festival networks in popular music, the role of museums in exhibiting national-political memory, and the rise of 'creative industries training' in Higher Education.

A concluding roundtable will ask participants why cultural participation 'matters', and why trans and interdisciplinary dialogue may be beneficial for studying it.

The event is funded by the IAS and the Department of Sociology; it will take place in the IAS Seminar Room (F204). Attendance is free and lunch will be provided, but places are limited. To register a place, please email: s.varriale@warwick.ac.uk

The interim research findings from ESRC research mapping the effects of government anti-immigration campaigns are now available to read online.

Some key findings:

Read the results online, and don't forget to follow the research project on Twitter (@MICresearch)

Register now for the Narcissism and Melancholia Symposium on the 11th and 12th March 2015.

Keynote Speakers:

• Stephen Frosh (Birkbeck College)

• Ranjana Khanna (Duke University)

• Elizabeth Lunbeck (Vanderbilt University)

All welcome!

Friday, November 21st, Milburn House (G55)

This workshop will be led by Amy Godfrey and Louisa Harvey. It will contain a lively mix of discussion and creative activism, and create a space in which we can exchange, be entertained, and formulate ideas for change, in a world where too often other people make our bodies their business.

In the third Centre for Social Ontology seminar of 2014/15, Graham Scambler (Emeritus Professor of Medical Sociology at UCL) discusses reflexivity and an interdisciplinary approach to the ‘structuring of agency’:

Margaret Archer’s recent contributions to our understanding of reflexivity in late capitalist society provide useful resources for theorizing across the substantive domains of sociology. Using illustrations from my own work on the sociology health inequalities in general, and my ideal type of the ‘vulnerable fractured reflexive’ in particular, I examine some of the pros and cons of adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the structuring of agency. I conclude with a skeletal research programme involving interdisciplinary collaboration.

All welcome! The seminar will take place on November 11th, from 5pm to 6:30pm in S0.13 (Social Science Building) on the University of Warwick campus. See herefor help getting to the campus. Feel free to contact Mark Carrigan with any questions.

The Routes to Sociology Team are looking for new ambassadors to join them for the 2014-15 academic year.

Ambassadors for the Department, play a pivotal role in widening participation:

• Visiting schools and colleges with staff members
• Conducting tours of campus
• E-mentoring and shadowing
• Running workshops with offer-holders
• Providing a student voice for strategy and marketing issues
• Providing feedback to the department on publicity and outreach work

The deadline for applications is the 31st October 2014 at 12:00pm. Sociology students can apply now!

Tuesday, 28th October from 4pm - 7pm in the Arts Centre Cinema

A documentary that explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman.