Events at The University of Manchester
  • University home
  • Events
  • Home
  • Exhibitions
  • Conferences
  • Lectures and seminars
  • Performances
  • Events for prospective students
  • Sustainability events
  • Family events
  • All Events

Material potencies and dormant things - inaugural lecture by Professor Sophie Woodward

image
Dates:9 December 2021
Times:16:00 - 17:00
What is it:Lecture
Organiser:School of Social Sciences
How much:Free
Who is it for:University staff, External researchers, Adults, Current University students, General public
Speaker:Professor Sophie Woodward
See travel and contact information
Add to your calendar

More information

  • Register to attend the lecture

Other events

  • In category "Lecture"
  • In group "(SoSS) Sociology"
  • In group "(SoSS) Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives"
  • By School of Social Sciences

Join us for Professor Sophie Woodward's inaugural lecture:

"Material potencies and dormant things: expanding a vital sociology of the everyday"

There is perhaps no more striking example of the ordinary, unnoticed, and mundane than cables stashed away in an attic, old clothing boxed away in a cupboard or a drawer full of ‘junk’. Drawing on sociological accounts of ordinariness and everyday life, I explore these dormant things (items people keep but are not using) to argue that their material vibrancy and potencies invite us to expand how we think about everyday life as part of a ‘vital sociology’ (Back and Wright, 2021) which illuminates and re-enchants the unnoticed, locating the shared, public and moral in the everyday. I argue that attention to the vibrancy and potency of everyday things (Bennet, 2010) is key to theorising and developing a vital sociology. Forgotten things covered with dust on a shelf may seem ‘dead’ or inert, yet framing these as ‘dormant’ exposes their histories, hauntings and traces of former users, as well as futures and imagined lives. By developing an ‘attentiveness’ (Stewart, 2007) to things, their affects and potencies things through a series of material methods (Woodward, 2019), I seek not what things symbolise but resonances, potencies and possibilities. I theorise the material possibilities that dormant things speak to: for the self, relationships to others, and other potential uses. Potential relationships or lives haunt us, or objects chide us for failing to use things as dormant things resonate through future and past and parallel lives.

Followed by Q&A (chaired by Professor Alice Bloch)

Price: Free

Speaker

Professor Sophie Woodward

  • https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/sophie.woodward.html

Travel and Contact Information

Find event

Online via zoom (register for joining details)

 

Contact us

  • +44 (0) 161 306 6000

Find us

The University of Manchester
Oxford Rd
Manchester
M13 9PL
UK

Connect with the University

  • Facebook page for The University of Manchester
  • X (formerly Twitter) page for The University of Manchester
  • YouTube page for The University of Manchester
  • Instagram page for The University of Manchester
  • TikTok page for The University of Manchester
  • LinkedIn page for The University of Manchester

  • Privacy /
  • Copyright notice /
  • Accessibility /
  • Freedom of information /
  • Charitable status /
  • Royal Charter Number: RC000797
  • Close menu
  • Home
    • Featured events
    • Today's events
    • The Whitworth events
    • Manchester Museum events
    • Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre events
    • Martin Harris Centre events
    • The John Rylands Library events
    • Exhibitions
    • Conferences
    • Lectures and seminars
    • Performances
    • Events for prospective students
    • Sustainability events
    • Family events
    • All events