Note to Readers and Downloaders
Symmetrical Twins
In print: European Journal of Sociological Theory, 2012. (together with
Joerg Potthast)
Abstract:
This article explores the elective affinities between Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the sociology of critical capacities. It argues that these two research programmes can be understood as symmetrical twins. We show the extent to which the exchange between Bruno Latour and Luc Boltanski has influenced their respective theoretical develop- ments. Three strong encounters between the twin research programmes may be distin- guished. The first encounter concerns explanations for social change. The second encounter focuses on the status of objects and their relationship to locations. The third encounter is about the concept of critique. Drawing on their long-term mutual readings, we gain insight into how pleas for symmetrical analysis raised in response to Bourdieu’s theory of fields have evolved within both ANT and the sociology of critical capacity. We conclude by relating the development of the respective research programmes to the issue of disciplinary boundaries.
Strandgutcontainer. Eine experimentelle Ausstellung zur Neuverpackung wissenschaftlicher Qualifikationen
The article details a project with refugees and asylum seekers, who are researchers, scientists or academics. We did a collaborative exhibition, as part of “die wahr/falsch inc.” and founded an organisation called “researchers without borders“, headed by Judith Kröll, that continues to provide places to practice and work for these people, so that they do not loose their skills while waiting for their decision on their status.
The article builds on a double notion of the container, both as a literal exhibition venue, but also as practice of (de-)containment whereby refugees are assigned roles, status and practices both through our exhibition but also bureaucratic procedures.
My Best Fiend. On the Productivity of Intellectual Enmities
The audio files of Oswell’s and Fuller’s talk are here:
Frederick and the Sandbox: Methods for Researching Disastrous Futures
Formless Discourse. The Impossible Knowledge of Change of Use (2011)
abstract:
In this article, Michael Guggenheim analyzes architectural writing on the change of use of buildings published since the early 1970s. He shows that, in its sum, this literature fails its object because the process of change of use cannot be grasped in established architectural categories, categories that refer to fixed states. Guggenheim looks in detail at the metaphors and other figures of speech used to compensate this theoretical shortcoming. He concludes that architectural discourse needs to develop a processual view of buildings to more clearly differentiate between the three relevant perspectives—technological, semiotic, and sociological—in understanding the relationship between buildings and society.
Laboratizing and Delaboratizing the World. Changing Sociological Concepts for Places of Knowledge Production (2012)
abstract:
How has sociology framed places of knowledge production and what is the specific power of the laboratory for this history? This article looks at how sociology and STS have historically framed the world as laboratory in three steps: First, in early sociology, the laboratory was an important metaphor to conceive of sociology as a scientific enterprise. In the 1950ies, the trend reversed and with the emergence of a ‘qualitative sociology’, sociology was seen in opposition to laboratory work. With the ascent of laboratory studies, the laboratory perspective was again applied to many fields, including sociology itself. Based on a definition of a laboratory as aiming at placeless knowledge and being inconsequential this article argues that the two waves of laboratorization were metaphorical and did not really turn the world into a laboratory. Instead, two alternative concepts, those of the unilatory and the locatory, are proposed to gain a more precise understanding of some of these metaphorical uses of the term laboratory.
From Spinach to Brain
Comments on a Menu for the Workshop “Emotions on a Plate”
Held at Collegium Helveticum, 21. March 2007. (Together with Florian Keller).
A description of a menu that renders the theme “emotions and culture” edible, from childhood memories to cultural variations and the receptors that make memories real.
Appeared in: Johannes Fehr, Gerd Folkers (Hg.) Gefühle zeigen. Manifestationsformen emotionaler Prozesse. Edition Collegium Helveticum, Band 5, 2009.
Further theorized in the article:
The Proof Is in the Pudding. On ‘Truth to Materials’ in the Sociology of
Translations, Followed by an Attempt to Improve It.
STI-Studies, Special Issue on “The Five Senses of the Sciences”.
A Set of Rules for a Cooking Workshop
A description of a cooking-workshop that deals with the problem of collectively inventing a menu from a fixed set of accidental ingredients. Invented to teach cooking without recipe books. Invented to make people invent new dishes. Invented to prove that everybody can cook.
Great graphic design by Katya Bonnenfant.
Originally published in Yearbook Nr. 8 of Schloss Solitude, 2006, where several workshops were held. Thank you to the kitchen staff of Solitude who let us use their kitchen!
These are the rules, try it with your friends and report back, please!
A SET OF RULES FOR A COOKING WORKSHOP
1. The cooking workshop is taking place once a week.
2. Each week, up to six cooks enrol for the workshop.
No previous knowledge is required.
3. The cooks meet some days in advance to set up a list of ingredients.
4. Each cook can add as many items to the list of ingredients as he or
she likes.
5. The list of ingredients is assembled without knowledge of the
final menu and no consideration of good fit of the ingredients.
6. At the day the workshop is held, one of the cooks buys all the
ingredients on the list.
7. Up to six guests enrol for the dinner.
8. At 6 pm the cooks meet.
9. Each cook invents a menu which comprises all the ingredients.
10. Each cook presents his menu to the other cooks.
11. All the cooks together compose a new menu from the individual
propositions.
12. No recipes are used.
13. The final menu is cooked by all the cooks together.
14. Dinner is served at 8.30pm.
Über Parallelen zwischen Kochen und Denken oder weshalb schlechte Symposien gute Esser zeitigen.
also deals with the problem of mothers cooking. A report on our work as cooks for various workshops and symposia at Collegium Helveticum, trying to make sense of our role conflicts as lowly cooks and at the same time scientific staff at a prestigious scientific institution.
Written together with Florian Keller,
originally appeared in: Anja Eichelberg / Helga Nowotny (Hrsg.), Jahrbuch 2002 des Collegium Helveticum der ETH Zürich, Zürich: vdf, S. 337-347
A History of the World in Terms of Cooking
A series of short texts in German that tell the story of the universe, life itself, humans, the social, culture, art, the individual
in short: everything you always wanted to know from the viewpoint of food and cooking.
Texts were selected and edited together with Florian Keller and Luc Georgi,
originally appeared in: Matthias Michel (Hrsg.), Fakt und Fiktion 0.7. Narrativität und Wissenschaft, Zürich: Chronos.