[csaa-forum] CCR Seminar Series 2007: MAY 17, Tony Bennett + Kay Anderson's Book Launch

[Reena Dobson]

Dear All

 

The Centre for Cultural Research (CCR) is pleased to announce two events
at the Museum of Contemporary Art,  Circular Quay on May 17th, 2007 : 

 

First, a public talk of Professor Tony Bennett, scheduled as part of our
seminar series for 2007 (see abstract below). 

 

Second, the launch  by Tony Bennett of  Race and the Crisis of Humanism
by Professor Kay Anderson (see attached invitation). 

 

Tony's talk will commence at 3pm. The cafe at MCA can be accessed for
afternoon tea. The book launch will begin at 5pm, followed by drinks.

 

All warmly welcome, to either or both events. 

 

The afternoon's events will be chaired by Professor David Rowe, Director
of CCR. 

 

Time: 3pm-6.30pm 

 

Venue: Conversation Room, Level 3, MCA, Circular Quay, Sydney 

 

Please RSVP by Monday May 14th to  ccr at uws.edu.au

 

 

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Aesthetics and politics 

Tony Bennett, Open University, UK

Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus has played a significant role in
cultural analysis in suggesting that our relations to texts - whether
visual, literary, or auditory - are mediated via class-based habitus
that provide unified and unifying principles of taste that are manifest
across the full range of an individual's cultural interests.  Yet
Bourdieu claimed that his own habitus was a divided or cleft one as a
consequence of the conflicting experiences arising from his social
mobility.  This lecture will suggest that such a divided habitus is the
rule rather than the exception, and that the notion of a unified habitus
- which plays a central role in Bourdieu's sociology of consumption - is
unsustainable.  The argument will be illustrated by drawing on the
evidence regarding the social distribution of cultural tastes from a
recent study of the relationships between cultural practices and
cultural capital in the UK.  Its implications for accounts of the
relations between aesthetics and politics will be explored by
contrasting Bourdieu's interpretation of the social inscription of
aesthetic discourses in processes of class distinction with competing
accounts focused their role in relation to development of liberal forms
of governance.  

Tony Bennett is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for
Research on Socio-Cultural Change at the Open University. His research
is situated at the interface of sociology, cultural studies and cultural
history, and includes a focus on the history and theory of museums,
modern forms of cultural governance, studies of everyday cultural
practice and their relevance to contemporary class theory and cultural
policy, and the relationships between social and cultural theory. Among
his numerous publications are: Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums,
Colonialism (2004), New Keywords (2005) (with L. Grossberg and M.
Morris), Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures (1999)
(with J. Frow and M. Emmison) and an (in press) Handbook of Cultural
Analysis.

 

 

 

David Rowe

Director

Centre for Cultural Research

 

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