The early academic catches the conference…

Two days ago, we had our annual PhD conference in the department. After a little reluctance of people to present and the usual proposed streams I was fed up and I volunteered to organise the paper sessions, along with the professor. Long story short, we had 16 very interesting paper session and 2 equally interesting, and challenging, plenary sessions. The topics went from Philosophy to the financial crisis, from Britain to Sri Lanka, from chocolate to quantitative facts… The discussions were good and pushed a few papers beyond the first line. The whole day was partially sunny outside so that the final session, “Sociologists in the “Public Field”” could take place, meaning we had a splendid BBQ at the lake. Calming down, discussing the day, and plain socialising. Overall, I’m in debt to the presenters and all people who came! (even tho, I bribed some of them with cakes and harassed them on end…)

Front Page Conference Flyer

The motto of the conference was “How is society possible?” Asked by Simmel in 1908 and attempted to answer. One said to me that I have to start my opening speech for the conference with a joke as Americans do and I try to do it here now (the opening was ultimately done by the Co-Organiser). So here are my two cents of sociological wisdom:

"What happens if two sociologists discuss something? You end up with 4 different opinions (at least). While this might be annoying for non-sociologists it leads me to three aspects for today’s conference: on one side, we as sociologists, try to capture the world (whatever it actually is) by taking different perspectives. We take it not as black and white because it mostly isn’t black and white. Even if looking at the same thing there are always more questions than answers.
On the other side, as Simmel argues in his paper society and individuals are interdependent. The one can’t be understood without the other and only together both are possible. That is, why there is always (at least) 2 perspectives per sociologist. As Simmel writes the thing we understand as “real” is fragment of the real we are trying to understand. We can only get a small glimpse of the thing we are looking at. But we know about this insufficiency and impossibility of grasping the “natural” state of things. Thus, we always add something to what we are seeing. We are presented with something and we are seeing it. We think what we are meant to see and think what we should or ought to see. Both together may be similar but often vary and produce two perspectives for both society and individuals.
But above both sides, the question “How is … possible?” connotes simultaneously a fact and a contingency. Society is something which vanishes in the instant it emerges. It exists but is also constructed. So, the answer can only be a question and contingency. We as sociologists shape and are shaped by society. So are individuals. It is, after all, a very nice dilemma. And now lets go to the bbq and see how many opinions we manage to find…"

Puh, fortunately I spared the full thing and only did a brief recall of the day at the end of the conference. And then basically just said to stop thinking, no sociology anymore please, get back to the content of society, and come to the BBQ.

(oh, and the joke worked in the closing speech)