糖心TV

Take a look at video footage from our recent Max Weber conference:

• Geoff Ingham (Cambridge) - ‘Money, Capitalism, and the West’
• Scott Lash (Goldsmiths) - 'Weber and Markets: From Neoclassicism to Neoliberalism’
• Linsey McGoey (Essex) - ‘Charismatic Authority and the Rise of the 21st-Century Philanthrocrat’
• Keith Tribe - ‘Market Order and Social Rationality’
• Sam Whimster (Global Policy Institute) - ‘The Economics of Power: Max Weber on Banking’
• David Woodruff (LSE) - ‘Weber and Money as an Economic Institution’
• Roundtable discussion

Gillian Rose Room, 3rd floor, Department of Sociology, University of 糖心TV, Coventry

5:00–6:30pm, followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Ramphal Building

The film, What Does It Mean to Be Young in Modern Europe? was created by the team of research center "Region" (Ulyanovsk, Russia), and Center for Youth Studies (St. Petersburg, Russia) for international European project MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement).

The film will be shown in three parts -

• 20th February - Part 1: Anarchists
• 24th February - Part 2: Our former NASHI
• 27th February - Part 3: Precários Inflexíveis

Tickets are free and each film will be shown on campus, in Ramphal R0.12.

For more information, and to book your place,

The Enduring Love? study (ESRC RES-062-23-3056, 2011-2013) is exploring what it means and feels like to be a couple in contemporary Britain. Shifting the emphasis away from media hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims about what everyone is doing, and policy–professional practice emphasis on the ‘stressors’ which may contribute to relationship breakdown, we are focusing on the things that help people sustain their ‘enduring’ relationships. Drawing on survey (n=5494) and qualitative (n=50) data this paper will explore which factors count in shaping relationship experience, and, in particular, the in/significance of sex and sexuality. Survey findings indicate that gender, parenthood and sexuality are significant factors in shaping couple relationship experience. For example, non-heterosexual participants are the most positive about their relationship; in heterosexual relationships, parenthood appears to have an adverse impact on sexual desire. However, differences in sexual frequency and desire do not per se affect perceptions of relationship quality. To tease apart these survey patterns, I draw on rich multiple methods data to explore how couples variously work to fit themselves into the ideal or extend ‘the story’ to fit their lives. These data provoke us to rethink the couple (dyadic) relationship and its slippage into and conflation with cultural understandings of the heteronormative ‘couple norm’. For more information please see our project website:

Dashboards are now an increasingly ordinary and handy feature of everyday life. City dashboards display real-time data on transport, weather and administrative performance; mobile devices allow users to configure their own dashboards, keeping them updated on various indicators and data flows; political authorities construct their own dashboards, so as to keep performance indicators constantly available. But this type of interface or device has received little critical or theoretical scrutiny in itself. In the past 'audit' and 'risk' have been explored as foundational rationalities or templates for entire cultures or societies. What would it mean to treat 'dashboard' in a similar way?

5pm-7pm in Room R0.12 (Ramphal)

Professor Simon Williams appeared on Radio 4's 'Bringing Up Britain' on the politics of children's bedrooms. To listen to the full episode click on link below:

'Following the introduction of civil partnerships and statistics which indiacte half of all children in the UK are being born outside marriage, it appears that attitudes towards sexuality have greatly relaxed. However, there is one demographic who feel increasingly marginalised in our more openly sexual society; it is estimated that one per cent of people in this country describe themselves as asexual'.

Woman's Hour Wednesday 29th February 2012

Among the asexuals

'In a society obsessed with sex. It's hard if you have no sexual desire at all. Some are searching for a new form of intimacy'.

The Observer Sunday 26th February 2012

Church of England faces a fresh blow with the loss of leading role in prisons - read full article here