Thinking with Affinities: a Morgan Centre Conversation Event
| Dates: | 22 May 2024 |
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| Times: | 11:00 - 16:00 |
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| What is it: | Conferences |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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This event is inspired by ideas put forward in Jennifer Mason’s book Affinities: Potent Connections in Personal Life (2018). We want to create an occasion where people for whom some of the ideas in Affinities have resonance or have been stimulating can come together in conversation. The day will not be a conventional conference with formal papers where people have ‘applied’ the concepts, but – and we think this is in the spirit of Affinities – it will be an occasion where we can think with Affinities and with some of the ideas it suggests. We are hoping to facilitate a generative conversation amongst interested participants. Jennifer and others from Morgan Centre will join us for the day.
Background
Affinities sought to highlight the potential of opening our perspectives to the idea of potent connections that rise up and matter in everyday and personal lives. Jennifer conceptualised these as ‘encounters where it is possible to identify a spark or charge of connection that makes personal life charismatic, or enchants or even toxifies it’. Perhaps the most distinctive part of her argument was that affinities are ‘connective charges and energies that are of interest in themselves and not because of what they connect’, and that these charges emanate from encounters of some kind. The aim of the book was ‘to tantalise and beckon us to think more boldly, freely and poetically about how we understand living in the world’. We would like that spirit to underpin this event.
We have aimed to design a programme where the emphasis and purpose is for participants to come together in conversation with others for whom ideas or concepts from Affinities have resonated or been stimulating in their own work, often in very different fields. We really want the emphasis to be on interesting conversation, open dialogue, and on hearing and stimulating new thoughts and lines of enquiry that connect with the work that participants are engaged in or planning. We would like participants not to come as passive listeners but as active engagers where we will all contribute and share thoughts and research ideas. The event will be collaborative and supportive.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Ellen Wilkinson Building
Manchester
