Professor Bruno Latour Lecture

Professor Bruno Latour
Centre de Sociologie
Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines
Paris

will be addressing the Vancouver Institute on November 7 at 8:15 p.m. in Lecture Hall No. 2 in the Woodward Instructional Resources Centre, University of British Columbia.

On Seeing Paris as a Whole:
The Notion of Panopticon

Bruno Latour is one of the most influential contemporary sociologists of science. A principal architect of science studies, his work attracts critical attention from scholars throughout the sciences, humanities and social sciences. His books include The Pasteurization of France, The Love of Technology, and We Have Never Been Modern. In this last work, he launches an attack on both modernity and postmodernity. A key figure in interdisciplinary scholarship, he claims that science and society are inextricably bound together. His ideas are applauded or disputed around the world. He's been called one of the most brilliant and original writers about science for the past decade.

Fall Program 1998
Sep 26, Oct 3, Oct 17, Oct 24, Oct 31, Nov 7, Nov 14, Nov 21, Nov 28, Dec 5.

Background Information

(Compiled by Ted Powell)

• Professor Latour's web site
• Books by Bruno Latour; brief commentaries.
• Professor Latour's Philosophical Mystifications, by Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at New York University, written in response to "Y a-t-il une science après la guerre froide?", by Bruno Latour. Professor Sokal, troubled for some years "by an apparent decline in the standards of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic humanities ... decided to try a modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies --- whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross --- publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?" The answer was yes, and the paper, Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity appeared in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996). Sokal blew the whistle on the uncritical reviewers in A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies, which appeared in Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp. 62-64 As one might expect, considerable discussion followed. The article cited at the beginning of this paragraph formed part of this discussion. Further articles may be found at Alan Sokal Articles on the "Social Text" Affair.

Vancouver Institute home page: main site; mirror site.