The 85th birthday of Zygmunt Bauman in November 2010 presented the occasion for TCS to publish a special section of commissioned commentary pieces on a number of central themes in his work. The section, edited and introduced by editorial board member Roy Boyne, featured articles by Martin Jay, John Milbank and Julia Hell, and concentrated respectively upon the themes of modernity, the role of the intellectual, and the gaze of/at the other, highlighting the dependence on metaphor and the significance of (...) ‘looking’ in his writing. This interview takes that special section as its starting point, and asks Bauman to respond to some of the claims and suggestions made in those articles. In doing so, he argues for the continuing salience of the ‘liquid modernity’ concept for understanding the ‘purpose behind the effort’, and explains in detail his view of the intellectual and the role such an intellectual should play in the context of liquid modernity. (shrink)

This essay reviews Helen Nissenbaum’s Privacy in Context (2010), focusing in particular on her dismissal of the public/private dichotomy. Taking issue with the problem she constructs of ‘privacy in public’, her unitary reading of the dichotomy and ‘socializing’ of the value of privacy, or what she calls ‘contextual integrity’, and her treatment of technology in the abstract, the essay then goes on to argue that the framework she proposes is incapable of addressing the contemporary incursion of market logic into every (...) other aspect of social and political life in the digital economy, and therefore of protecting privacy at all. The essay concludes with an insistence on the need to approach contextual privacy problems from a political economic perspective and with a political conception of privacy, and for that to be founded upon a protean appreciation of the public/private dichotomy. (shrink)

Ce bref article propose un panorama des différentes approches théoriques et méthodologiques pour analyser le néolibéralisme. Il s’attache tout spécialement à définir les approches politico-économiques et gouvernementales (et dans quelle mesure elles s’opposent ou se combinent) et plaide en faveur d’une critique du néolibéralisme mieux construite sur le plan théorique et méthodologique dans le champ des Media Studies. En soulignant l’hétérogénéité des modes d’analyse d’un objet tel que le néolibéralisme, ainsi que les différences dans la manière dont ces approches se (...) déploient dans d’autres domaines des Studies, il préconisera donc d’appliquer ces regards critiques à la recherche menée également au sein de multiples disciplines dans d’autres pays (comme la France). (shrink)

Ce bref article propose un panorama des différentes approches théoriques et méthodologiques pour analyser le néolibéralisme. Il s’attache tout spécialement à définir les approches politico-économiques et gouvernementales (et dans quelle mesure elles s’opposent ou se combinent) et plaide en faveur d’une critique du néolibéralisme mieux construite sur le plan théorique et méthodologique dans le champ des Media Studies. En soulignant l’hétérogénéité des modes d’analyse d’un objet tel que le néolibéralisme, ainsi que les différences dans la manière dont ces approches se (...) déploient dans d’autres domaines des Studies, il préconisera donc d’appliquer ces regards critiques à la recherche menée également au sein de multiples disciplines dans d’autres pays (comme la France). (shrink)

Taking technological developments in urban mapping and the megacity phenomena of rapid change and sprawling space as its starting point, this essay provides a history of the present through a genealogy of maps of Montpellier in France, a rapidly growing modern city that provides examples from the earliest printed maps of the 16th century through to the most recent innovations in public-sponsored 3D mapping. By tracing the shifting correlations of narrative elements, it places in historical perspective the relationship between those (...) concepts, such as verticality and horizontality, and perception and representation, which are problematized in the contemporary contexts of megacities and digital technology. (shrink)