On February 15th 2017, 5-6:30pm we will have the pleasure to have with us Prof. Dr. Antoine Hennion, Research director at the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI), Mines ParisTech.

His talk, titled Attachments: A pragmatist approach to things that matter, will take place at the MCTS's Room 270 (Augustenstr. 44-46, Rear Building). It it he will offer a panorama of his most recent research. Or in his own words:

Attachments are what people hold to and what helps them hold on. I first developed the notion on taste and amateurs, then on care, in order to make sociology recover its capacity to speak of matters of concern, be they objects of passion or fragile beings. Being both a constraint and a resource to people confronted to destabilising problems, attachments do not belong to people nor define them: depending on situations, forging their persistence and history through debates, trials and confrontations, they have to be continuously done and re-done. Better than identities or belongings, the notion may then help at renewing forms of social inquiry on delicate or critical issues involving uncertainty and vulnerability, but also rich potentialities. I will elaborate this on care situations, and on past and present ‘problems’ of migration in France (urban areas/Calais).

Prof. Dr. Antoine Hennion is one of the most interesting contemporary thinkers in the sociology of mediation, and has been working on many different topics that could be appealing for people working in different areas, such as sociology of culture, social studies of design and innovation, sensory anthropology, sociology and anthropology of art (in particular music), and the study of care practices. For a fuller bio and publications, you could check his bio here.