Communications & Subjectivity
Communications and Subjectivity brings together researchers working in the CCMS field who have a specific interest in research into theories of subjectivity. The group carries out and encourages work of an interdisciplinary nature.
Membership
The group includes Paul Cobley (convenor), Jenny Harding and Wendy Wheeler. Cobley has brought publishing expertise and a series of publishing and international networking links to the group which have enabled less experienced researchers to undertake a number of activities previously not within their reach. He has also introduced ‘biosemiotics’, hitherto little known in the UK, to the theoretical dimension of the group’s research. Wheeler has also brought publishing expertise as well as a burgeoning profile of work concerned with the mediation of pre-political cultural formations in popular discourses. Both Cobley and Wheeler have published work on media and culture which has been instrumental in introducing to the anglophone CCMS audience the biosemiotic paradigm that is one of the key interests of the group. Cobley also recently directed a panel on applications of biosemiotics to culture (at the 9th IASS congress in Helsinki) in which Wheeler also participated. Jenny Harding’s expertise in the fields of subjectivity, particularly the emotions, and life history research has been instrumental in the development of research projects.
Research projects
2005: ‘What kind of programme is it?’ questionnaire research into a week’s television viewing, genre assignation and identity.
2007: ‘Digital domestic photography’ ethnographic research pilot study on amateur uses of digital cameras.
PhD students
Jon Baldwin (registered 1998); The gift in culture
Sara Cannizzaro (2007); Virtual communities from a biosemiotic perspective (CCMS funded studentship)
Jean Collingsworth (2003); The self-help genre and subjectivity
Caroline Dunn (2007); Football fandom and identity (CCMS funded studentship)
Deana Neubauer (2007); The biosemiotic imagination in modern culture
Publications
Since 2003, the group has produced the peer-reviewed international journal Subject Matters whose editorial board includes Seyla Benhabib, Simon Critchley, Paul du Gay, Sandra Harding, Axel Honneth, Mandy Merck, Horst Ruthrof and Ziauddin Sardar. Special issues have been devoted to the work of Alain Badiou (arising from a Communications and Subjectivity conference), Emanuel Levinas, and a double-issue on ‘Posthuman conditions’ edited by Neil Badmington.
Conferences
2003: ‘Badiou’s Ethics and Subjectivity’ conference, featuring Simon Critchley, Andrew Gibson, Ray Brassier and others
2005: ‘Biosemiotics: The New Challenge’, with biosemioticians Jesper Hoffmeyer (Copenhagen), and Kalevi Kull (Tartu)
The annual ‘Nonverbal Arts; Verbal Discourses’ conferences held every
May at London Metropolitan University (except 2005 when the venue was
the University of the Arts) since May 2003)
2003: ‘Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses’ featuring Adrian Forty (UCL), Richard Appignanesi (London), Juliet Steyn (City U);
2004: ‘The necessity of artspeak’ featuring Roy Harris (Oxford), Danuta Mirka (Freiburg), Lesley Stevenson (TVU);
2005: ‘The creative mind’ featuring Margaret Boden (Sussex), Dario Martinelli (Helsinki), Wendy Wheeler;
2006: ‘Media studies, the new universities and the cutting edge’
featuring John Beynon (Glamorgan), Ros Brunt (Sheffield Hallam) and
Dorothy Hobson (Wolverhampton);
2007: ‘Digital domestic photography’ featuring Don Slater (LSE),
Stephen Bull (Portsmouth). Annette Kuhn (QMU) and Andy Minnion (UEL).
Seminars
2002: Kristian Bankov (NBU, Sofia).
2003: Peter Schulz (Lugano); Karen Ross (Coventry).
2005: John Deely (Houston); Susan Petrilli (Bari); John Beynon (Glamorgan).
2006: Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths), Benjamin Noys (Chichester); John Deely (Houston); David Gauntlett; (Westminster).
2007: Ivan Mladenov (NBU, Sofia), John Pickering (Warwick); Patrick
ffrench (King’s College, London); Mihaly Szivos (University of
Budapest); Paul Bouissac (Emeritus Professor, University of Toronto),
Daniel Miller (UCL), Traian Stanciulescu (Iasi), Nina Power
(Middlesex).
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