Michael Burawoy Presents: Conversations with Pierre Bourdieu |
The Faculty of Humanities and the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) together with the School of Social Sciences Seminar Series in Social and Historical Enquiry are hosting a series of eight lectures by Professor Michael Burawoy (Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley and Mellon Distinguished Visiting Professor, Wits University) aiming to surface conversations between Pierre Bourdieu and diverse social theorists working in the Marxist tradition.
Download an outline of the conversations here.
Mon., Feb. 22, 2010: Introduction: Who's Afraid of Pierre Bourdieu?
Wed., Feb. 24, 2010: Theory and Practice: Marx Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 1, 2010: The Nature of Domination: Gramsci Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 3, 2010: Colonialism and Revolution: Fanon Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 8, 2010: Pedagogy for Whom? Freire Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 10, 2010: Antinomies of Feminism: Beauvoir Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 24, 2010: Intellectuals and their Publics: Mills Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 29:2010: Is there a Working Class?: Burawoy Meets Bourdieu
SCROLL DOWN FOR LINKS TO THE READINGS
Venue: Graduate Seminar Room, South-West Engineering building Time: 4 p.m.
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (1930- 2002) was the most renowned sociologist and social theorist of our time. His work ranged from politics to culture, from sport to literature, photography and painting, from economics to philosophy, from gender to colonialism. He continues to be read across the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities and increasingly in every corner of the world. Great theorist though he was, he was always committed to empirical research – from his ethnography of the Kabyle and the Algerian War to his studies of French peasants, from his correspondence analysis of consumption patterns to in-depth interviews with immigrants. He was at once a theorist of symbolic domination, a defender of reflexive science, a vehement critic of market society and a prominent public sociologist. It is not possible to grasp his work outside its relation to others, in our case relations constructed as conversations with Marxism – a tradition with regard to which he was at best ambivalent. The conversations are largely silent in his own work, and it is the purpose of the lectures to make them audible.
Michael Burawoy
Michael Burawoy has studied industrial workplaces in different parts of the world through participant observation, casting light on the nature of postcolonialism, the organization of consent to capitalism, the peculiar forms of working class consciousness and work organization in state socialism, and the dilemmas of transition from socialism to capitalism. He has developed theoretically driven methodologies that allow broad conclusions to be drawn from ethnographic research and case studies. Throughout his career he has engaged with Marxism, seeking to reconstruct it in the light of historical challenges of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He teaches sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of The colour of class (1972), Manufacturing consent (1979), The politics of production (1985), The radiant past (1992), Ethnography unbound (2000), and The extended case method: four countries, four decades, four great transformations, and one theoretical tradition (2009) Prof Burawoy is a Visiting Scholar at the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits University.
Download readings for the lecture series: