[csaa-forum] SSN Seminar: "Cultures of Hyper-Productivity and the Quantification of Work" with A/Prof Elizabeth Stephens

[Thao Phan]

Please join us for this online seminar hosted by the Deakin Science and
Society Network <https://scienceandsocietynetwork.deakin.edu.au/> (SSN).
You can join the conversation on Twitter by following us at @SSNDeakin and
using the hashtags #SSNseminar

*Register here: *https://ssnseminar-elizabethstephens.eventbrite.com.au

*Date/time:* Tuesday 17th November, 10am - 11:30am (Australian Eastern
Daylight Time, GMT+11)

*Title: *Cultures of Hyper-Productivity and the Quantification of Work: A
Visual History of Time Management Studies


*Abstract:*This presentation examines the cultures of hyper-productivity
and constant measurement that characterise contemporary experiences of
work, tracing their history to the new practices and technologies of time
management that emerged at the start of the twentieth century. It focuses
on two visual case studies: the chronocyclegraphs produced by Frank and
Lillian Gilbreth in the 1910s in the context of early industrial
management, and the chronophotographs produced by the French physiologist
Etienne-Jules Marey in the 1870s and 1880s. In these works, we see the
convergence of two key cultural developments. The first is the use of new
visual technologies to analyse and measure bodies in motion. The second is
the rise of quantified approaches to work management that assumed
productivity must and could always be increased. Attending to the images of
the quantified working body that appear in the work of the Gilbreths and
Marey reveals the cultural strategies by which hyper-productivity became
embedded in contemporary managerial practices, and makes visible the
sleight-of-hand by which quantification was established as the central
practice in contemporary time management.

*About the speaker:*

*Elizabeth Stephens* is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and an
Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Institute for Advanced
Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. She is the
author of three monographs: Normality: A Critical Genealogy (University of
Chicago Press 2017), co-authored with Peter Cryle; Anatomy as Spectacle:
Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present (Liverpool
University Press 2011); and Queer Writing: Homoeroticism in Jean Genet's
Fiction (Palgrave 2009). Her Future Fellowship examines the history of
collaboration between the arts and sciences as a site of shared
experimentation and transdisciplinary knowledge production.

*About the discussants:*

*Dr Alexandra Roginsk*i is a historian, writer and research fellow based in
the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship & Globalisation whose work
focuses on practices of the body. She combines methods from social,
cultural and ethnographic history to bring new perspectives to the history
of science and the role of authority and professional boundaries. Her
forthcoming book, Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World:
Popular Phrenology in the Antipodes, examines the role of the science of
head reading in the social fabric of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand,
and will be published through the Cambridge University Press 'Science in
History' Series.

*Nicky Ridgers* is an Associate Professor within the Institute for Physical
Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) at Deakin University. Her program of research
focuses on examining patterns of physical activity in youth.

*Watch the seminar:*

Seminar will be available to stream on YouTube live. Access using the live
link:  <https://youtu.be/eJsN8Ym85y4>https://youtu.be/T89i5HBT0L0

Date/time: Tuesday 17th November, 10am - 11:30am (Australian Eastern
Daylight Time, GMT+11)

Q&A with the speaker to follow. To send questions/participate in the chat,
you'll need to sign-in using a YouTube account
<https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-comment-on-youtube?r=AU&IR=T>.

The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the SSN YouTube
channel after the Livestream.

If you have any questions, please send to ssn-... at deakin.edu.au
<http://ssn-info@deakin.edu.au/>
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