[csaa-forum] Herzfeld Master Class

[Greg Noble]

Cultural Intimacy and Social Poetics: a new agenda for cultural research
A Master Class with Michael Herzfeld

The Centre for Cultural Research, Parramatta 
campus, University of Western Sydney, 8-10 August

The Centre for Cultural Research and the Cultural 
Research Network (Centre for Critical and 
Cultural Studies, University of Queensland), 
invite postgraduate students to a Master Class 
with Michael Herzfeld.

Michael Herzfeld is Professor of Anthropology at 
Harvard University and author of many books, 
including The Social Production of Indifference 
(1993), Cultural Intimacy (1997) and Body 
Impolitic (2003).

The Master Class will address the place of 
empirical research in analysing cultural dynamics 
in the transnational contexts in which we live. 
It will explore the continuing relevance, or 
otherwise, of disciplinary specialisation and its 
relationship to methodology in the study of 
culture, identity and relations.

Herzfeld's work offers an innovative approach to 
fieldwork defined against both the textualism of 
postmodern theory and the positivism of the 
conventional social sciences. Herzfeld offers an 
anthropology - which he defines as the critical 
appraisal of common sense - that is comparative 
and reflexive. It entails a politically engaged 
grounding in experience that is neither reductive 
nor romantic. It occupies the 'militant middle 
ground' between simple binaries of theory and 
practice.

In one of his most provocative books - Cultural 
Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State - 
Herzfeld draws on wide-ranging fieldwork to 
explore the 'dirty laundry', the collective 
secrets, that sustain a nation-state by securing 
the loyalty of its citizens. His approach, which 
he calls a 'social poetics', examines the 
disjuncture between official models of national 
culture and the experience of ordinary citizens. 
This social poetics is an attempt to connect the 
minutiae of everyday life to cultural change in 
the longue durée, utilizing a semiotics of 
cultural form to explain how social norms not 
only inform everyday interaction but also draw 
from its accidents and distortions. 

Herzfeld's work invites us to consider a new 
agenda for cultural research and to think about 
the ways a social poetics might inform our own 
projects. In this seminar, we will focus on the 
ways interdisciplinarity and empirical work form 
the basis for cultural research, teasing out what 
we might mean by the 'militant middle ground' of 
theoretical and political engagement. A range of 
readings, centring on Herzfeld's own writing, 
will be provided to initiate debate. Participants 
will be invited to give brief presentations to 
bring their own specific intellectual interests 
into play in this discussion, reflecting on the 
relation between anthropology and broader 
cultural research, and what that might mean in 
terms of the kinds of methodologies that cultural 
research might develop.

Students will find the Master Class beneficial in 
developing the methodological, theoretical and 
conceptual dimensions of their own research 
projects. To this end, you will be expected to 
contribute actively to the Master Class, relating 
your research to the ideas and methods discussed. 
A book of readings will be distributed prior to 
the Class.

Numbers for the Master Class will be kept low, 
and you need to apply for entry. The application 
will include a 300-word rationale outlining the 
relevance of the Master Class to your research, 
accompanied by a brief CV. Registration for the 
Master Class will be $120. The Cultural Research 
Network will provide funds to cover travel and 
accommodation for postgraduate students outside 
Sydney. Your application will need to indicate 
whether you need these funds to attend the Master 
Class.

The deadline for applications is June 30. 
Applications can be downloaded from the Centre 
for Cultural Research website, at:
http://www.uws.edu.au/research/researchcentres/ccr/herzfeld

For further information, contact Greg Noble at
g.noble at uws.edu.au

-- 
Dr Greg Noble

School of Humanities            	ph:     (02) 47 360 365
University of Western Sydney
C Bldg, Kingswood campus
Locked Bag 1797                    	email: g.noble at uws.edu.au
Penrith South DC
NSW 1797
Australia

Researcher, Centre for Cultural Research
Parramatta Campus, UWS

Co-author of Bin Laden in the Suburbs: 
Criminalising the Arab Other (Sydney Institute of 
Criminology, 2004)
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