Congratulations to Joaquim -Again!

Congratulations again to CMCI’s recent PhD graduate Dr Joaquim Negreiros. He’s now won a post-doctoral award from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, the public Portuguese institution that supports scientific research.

The grant will enable Joaquim to carry out a research project focusing on the connections between citizenship and family life, and how these are affected by different living arrangements.

This will in turn involve the close study of two groups of people: those in “conventional” family units and those in “solo living” situations.

At the end of the project, both a book and an international conference are planned. Joaquim’s doctoral study at CMCI was supervised by Dr Richard Howells.

Forever Jung

As Culture, Theory and History leads… the BBC follows! Dr Richard Howells’ lecture on psycho-analytic theories of culture was followed this week by a Today programme item on Carl Jung and his recently published Red Book.

You can read all about it at the Today programme site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8318000/8318707.stm
But the item also explains why Jung is still so important today. It even defines archetypes and the collective unconscious…

You might think that the article following the lecture is a coincidence. But what did Jung tell us about synchronicity….?

Media Clusters

CMCI’s Professor Andy C Pratt gave a paper at an international seminar held in London on the topic of media clusters. The conference, organised by Prof R.Picard of Jonkoping International Business School in Sweden is one of three that has been held in the last 18 months and has as its objective the production of a research book comparing media clusters across the world.

Andy gave his presentation on the London media cluster that builds upon the work he has carried out in the last 5 years on film, television, new media and advertising clusters in London. Other cities in the project include: Toronto, Vancouver, Johannesburg, Hilvershum, Singapore, Dubai, Munich, Sydney, Trollhattan, and Manchester.

Shadow (Minister) Boxing

Centre Director Dr Richard Howells will be debating Shadow Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey, MP at the annual Battle of Ideas this weekend.

“Can the Arts Save the Economy” will be the topic under dispute at the event, staged by the Institute of Ideas and held at the Royal College of Art in London.

Joining the discussion with Richard and Ed will be James Boyle, former controller of BBC Radio 4, Angus Kennedy, IT consultant, and Karl-Erik Norman the opera singer and Secretary General of the European Cultural Parliament.

The Battle of Ideas is an annual event, dedicated to “shaping the future though debate.” Participants include journalist, academics, politicians and public figures from across the UK. Sponsors include The Times online, the Economic and Social Research Council, SAB Miller, Shell Oil and the Welcome Trust.

For more details of this and the whole weekend, including tickets and booking, go to www.battleofideas.org.uk

Museums and Urban Regeneration

CMCI’s Professor Andy Pratt has been busy presenting ongoing work about museums and urban regeneration.

He recently presented a joint paper at a seminar at LSE, written with Corinna Dean and Caroline Donnellan of LSE Cities Programme, entitled ‘The Tate Modern: pushing the limits of regeneration’. The paper discussed a range of tensions created within and without the museum through the multiplicity of audiences that the modern museum has to appeal to. The paper will be re-written for a special issue of Cities, Culture and Society on regeneration in London in the last decade.

He also presented a paper entitled ‘The museum, the cultural economy and the creative city‘ at a conference ‘Museums, the cultural industries & social inclusion: outlining & unearthing alternative perspectives’ supported by DCMS and ESRC, and Leicester University held at the Sackler Centre of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

MediaFest

CMCI joined with the National Media Museum to present “MediaFest”, which concentrated on the role of women in today’s media. The event as hosted by Professor Ros Gill, and also attended by our Media Liaison Officer, Fernanda Fain-Binda.

Fernanda reports a “stirring and provocative” key note speech from Emily Bell of the Guardian, who argued that changes in the media create more opportunities for women by breaking down institutional frameworks created by men.

This change was contrasted with the current state of women’s representation within the film industry, as Rachel Millward, CEO of Birds Eye View pointed out that statistically, the artistic and financial side of the movie business were still very much part of the old boys’ network.

Professor Gill’s presentation on her research of working conditions in the digital media industries had heads nodding across the conference.

Finally, a critique of Lady Gaga was made in the analysis on sexualised imagery, but Fernanda was quick to come to her defense!

Podcasts on the event will be available from the NMM shortly.

After the Fall

CMCI’s Professor Andy Pratt is one of the organizers of the “Creative Cities: after the fall of finance” event at the World Congress of Sociology in Sweden next year. He’s also calling for people to take part.

The session will explore whether the global financial crisis is changing prospects and policies for cultural and creative knowledge in different urban and national contexts.

They will also be asking whether the meltdown of finance is generating hardships or relief for cultural and knowledge ensembles -or perhaps even new opportunities for development?

Paper proposals should be sent to session organizers as well as the conference coordinators: Fernando Diaz Orueta, Fernando.diaz@ua.es and Kuniko Fujita, fujitak@msu.edu by October 31, 2009.

For more details, see: http://www.isa-sociology.org/congress2010/rc/rc21.htm

Culture, Creativity -and Recession

Recession is all over the news –but what does this mean for the creative industries? Traditionally it was thought that culture and creativity would be the first victims of recession.

However, CMCI’s new Professor of Culture, Media and Economy Andy C. Pratt argues in a new paper that this has changed and we need to rethink the role of culture and the economy.

You can read all about it in Andy C. Pratt, “The Creative and Cultural Economy and the Recession,” Geoforum, 40(4) (2009): 495-496.

Andy says that the latest inflation data in the UK points to culture and leisure leading us out of the recession – and that this seems to confirm the hypothesis put forward in his paper. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/18/inflation-higher-than-expected

Fragile

Current MA CCI student Alexia Achilleos is exhibiting at an exhibition called Fragile, the central theme of which is the humble cardboard box. There’s a map on the flyer above showing how to get to Post Gallery. CMCI people are all very welcome to the private view!