This open access book shows how figures, figuring, and configuration are used to understand complex, contemporary problems. Figures are images, numbers, diagrams, data and datasets, turns-of-phrase, and representations. Contributors reflect on the history of figures as they have transformed disciplines and fields of study, and how methods of figuring and configuring have been integral to practices of description, computation, creation, criticism and political action. They do this by following figures across fields of social science, medicine, art, literature, media, politics, philosophy, history, anthropology, and science and technology studies. Readers will encounter figures as various as Je Suis Charlie, #MeToo, social media personae, gardeners, asthmatic children, systems configuration management and cloud computing - all demonstrate the methodological utility and contemporary relevance of thinking with figures. This book serves as a critical guide to a world of figures and a creative invitation to "go figure!"

The landscape of contemporary research is characterized by growing interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary boundaries are blurring faster than ever. Yet while interdisciplinary methods, and methodological innovation in general, are often presented as the ‘holy grail’ of research, there are few examples or discussions of their development and ‘behaviour’ in the field. This Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research presents a bold intervention by showcasing a diversity of stimulating approaches. Over 50 experienced researchers illustrate the challenges, but also the rewards of doing and representing interdisciplinary research through their own methodological developments. Featured projects cover a variety of scales and topics, from small art-science collaborations to the ‘big data’ of mass observations. Each section is dedicated to an aspect of data handling, from collection, classification, validation to communication to research audiences. Most importantly, Interdisciplinary Methods presents a distinctive approach through its focus on knowledge as process, defamiliarising and reworking familiar practices such as experimenting, archiving, observing, prototyping or translating.

Social and cultural research has changed dramatically in the last few years in response to changing conceptions of the empirical, an intensification of interest in interdisciplinary work, and the growing need to communicate with diverse users and audiences. Methods texts, however, have not kept pace with these changes. This volume provides a set of new approaches for the investigation of the contemporary world. Building on the increasing importance of methodologies that cut across disciplines, more than twenty expert authors explain the utility of 'devices' for social and cultural research - their essays cover such diverse devices as the list, the pattern, the event, the photograph, the tape recorder and the anecdote. This fascinating collection stresses the open-endedness of the social world, and explores the ways in which each device requires the user to reflect critically on the value and status of contemporary ways of making knowledge. With a range of genres and styles of writing, each chapter presents the device as a hinge between theory and practice, ontology and epistemology, and explores whether and how methods can be inventive. The book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of sociology and cultural studies.

Brands are everywhere: in the air, on the high-street, in the kitchen, on television and, maybe even on your feet. But what kinds of things are they?
The brand, that point of connection between company and consumer, has become one of the key cultural forces of our time and one of the most important vehicles of globalization. This book offers a detailed and innovative analysis of the brand
Illustrated with many examples, the book argues that brands:
* mediate the supply and demand of products and services in a global economy
* frame the activities of the market by functioning as an interface
* communicate interactively, selectively promoting and inhibiting communication between producers and consumers
* operate as a public currency while being legally protected as private property in law
* introduce sensation, qualities and affect into the quantitative calculations of the market
* organize the logics of global flows of products, people, images and events.
This book will be essential reading for students of sociology, cultural studies and consumption.

Brands are everywhere: in the air, on the high-street, in the kitchen, on television and, maybe even on your feet. But what kinds of things are they?
The brand, that point of connection between company and consumer, has become one of the key cultural forces of our time and one of the most important vehicles of globalization. This book offers a detailed and innovative analysis of the brand
Illustrated with many examples, the book argues that brands:
* mediate the supply and demand of products and services in a global economy
* frame the activities of the market by functioning as an interface
* communicate interactively, selectively promoting and inhibiting communication between producers and consumers
* operate as a public currency while being legally protected as private property in law
* introduce sensation, qualities and affect into the quantitative calculations of the market
* organize the logics of global flows of products, people, images and events.
This book will be essential reading for students of sociology, cultural studies and consumption.

Contents:
Part One: Genre 1. Enforced narratives: stories of another self Carolyn Steedman 2. From "self-made women" to "women's made-selves"? Audit selves, simulation and surveillance in the rise of public women Liz Stanley 3. Textualisation of the self and gender identity in the life story Marie-Francoise Chanfrault-Duchet 4. Extendign autobiolgraphy: a discussion of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar Mary Evans
Part Two: Intersubjectivity 5. Composure and performance in oral history testimony Penny Summerfield 6. Spellbound: audience, identity and self in black women's narrative discourse Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis 7. Our mother's daughters: autobiographical inheritance through stories of gender and class Sara Scott and Sue Scott 8. Matrilineal narratives revisited Tess Cosslett 9. The global self: narratives of caribbean migrant women Mary Chamberlain
Part Three: Memory 10. Subjects in time: slavery and African-American women's autobiographies Alison Easton 11. Memory frames: the role of concepts and cognition in telling life stories Magda Michielsens 12. Autobiographical times Susannah Radstone 13. Circa 1959 Nancy Miller

This book features essays by leading feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines on the latest developments in autobiographical studies. The collection is structured around the inter-linked concepts of genre, inter-subjectivity and memory. Whilst exemplifying the very different levels of autobiographical activity going on in feminist studies, the contributions chart a movement from autobiography as genre to autobiography as cultural practice, and from the analysis of autobiographical texts to a preoccupation with autobiography as method.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments.

A thorough reassessment of feminism's place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.

Feminist thought has made an indelible mark on the social and political life of the twentieth century. But in the wake of these and other wider social transformations can it be said that feminism's project is now obsolete? transformations argues for it's continued relevance.
Refusing to accept the notion that transformation of gender relations has simply taken place, or that feminism is inherently transformative, this book provides a thorough reassessment of feminism's place in contemporary life. With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments. The authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalisation, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.
This book will be essential reading for students and scholars working in the area of gender studies.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415102936

In a fascinating account of how technology is altering our postmodern consciousness, Celia Lury shows how the manipulation of photographic images and ways of seeing can so redefine the relation between consciousness, the body and memory as to create a "prosthetic culture" whose capacities both extend and threaten our humanity. We live in a society in which body parts are traded commodities, in which some memories can be falsely implanted in the individual while others are stored in video archives of images, in which the powers of cartoon superheroes break through the limitations of time and space. Using the examples of photo-therapy, family albums, Benetton advertising campaigns, the phenomenon of false memory syndrome and the "lives" of cartoon characters, this book argues that the "eyes" made available by contemporary visual technologies involve not simply specific ways of seeing, but also ways of life.

"Cultural Rights" combines the critical approaches of both sociology and cultural studies to provide an innovative interpretation of contemporary culture. While the book's theoretical origins lie in Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking thesis about the effects of mechanical reproduction, Celia Lury takes his analysis one step further in her examination of the near obsolete concepts of "originality" and "authenticity" in postmodern culture, where reproduction and simulation blur the border between what is real and what is fabricated.
Celia Lury establishes a clear framework of analysis by comparing a range of cultural rights through copyright, authorship and originality with those defined by trademark, branding and simulation. She provides concise and accessible histories of three major cultural technologies--print, broadcasting and information technology--and the presentation of research into the contemporary culture industry. She also explores the gendered dimensions of this transformation by looking at the significance of the category of "women" in the process of cultural reproduction.

"Cultural Rights" combines the critical approaches of both sociology and cultural studies to provide an innovative interpretation of contemporary culture. While the book's theoretical origins lie in Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking thesis about the effects of mechanical reproduction, Celia Lury takes his analysis one step further in her examination of the near obsolete concepts of "originality" and "authenticity" in postmodern culture, where reproduction and simulation blur the border between what is real and what is fabricated.
Celia Lury establishes a clear framework of analysis by comparing a range of cultural rights through copyright, authorship and originality with those defined by trademark, branding and simulation. She provides concise and accessible histories of three major cultural technologies--print, broadcasting and information technology--and the presentation of research into the contemporary culture industry. She also explores the gendered dimensions of this transformation by looking at the significance of the category of "women" in the process of cultural reproduction.

An anthology of recent work in the spheres of feminism and cultural studies, this text is divided into three areas, namely representation and ideology, science and technology, and Thatcherism and the enterprise culture. The authors argue for the amalgamation of these areas in the analysis of contemporary culture, stating that this combination would be of value. Students of cultural studies, women's studies, sociology, film studies, literature and popular culture may find this book of interest.

Social and cultural research has changed dramatically in the last few years in response to changing conceptions of the empirical, an intensification of interest in interdisciplinary work, and the growing need to communicate with diverse users and audiences. Methods texts, however, have not kept pace with these changes. This volume provides a set of new approaches for the investigation of the contemporary world. Building on the increasing importance of methodologies that cut across disciplines, more than twenty expert authors explain the utility of 'devices' for social and cultural research - their essays cover such diverse devices as the list, the pattern, the event, the photograph, the tape recorder and the anecdote. This fascinating collection stresses the open-endedness of the social world, and explores the ways in which each device requires the user to reflect critically on the value and status of contemporary ways of making knowledge. With a range of genres and styles of writing, each chapter presents the device as a hinge between theory and practice, ontology and epistemology, and explores whether and how methods can be inventive. The book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of sociology and cultural studies.

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This open access book shows how figures, figuring, and configuration are used to understand complex, contemporary problems. Figures are images, numbers, diagrams, data and datasets, turns-of-phrase, and representations. Contributors reflect on the history of figures as they have transformed disciplines and fields of study, and how methods of figuring and configuring have been integral to practices of description, computation, creation, criticism and political action. They do this by following figures across fields of social science, medicine, art, literature, media, politics, philosophy, history, anthropology, and science and technology studies. Readers will encounter figures as various as Je Suis Charlie, #MeToo, social media personae, gardeners, asthmatic children, systems configuration management and cloud computing - all demonstrate the methodological utility and contemporary relevance of thinking with figures. This book serves as a critical guide to a world of figures and a creative invitation to "go figure!"

The landscape of contemporary research is characterized by growing interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary boundaries are blurring faster than ever. Yet while interdisciplinary methods, and methodological innovation in general, are often presented as the 'holy grail' of research, there are few examples or discussions of their development and 'behaviour' in the field. This Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research presents a bold intervention by showcasing a diversity of stimulating approaches. Over 50 experienced researchers illustrate the challenges, but also the rewards of doing and representing interdisciplinary research through their own methodological developments. Featured projects cover a variety of scales and topics, from small art-science collaborations to the 'big data' of mass observations. Each section is dedicated to an aspect of data handling, from collection, classification, validation to communication to research audiences. Most importantly, Interdisciplinary Methods presents a distinctive approach through its focus on knowledge as process, defamiliarising and reworking familiar practices such as experimenting, archiving, observing, prototyping or translating.

What is at stake socially, culturally, politically, and economically when we routinely use technology to gather information about our bodies and environments? Today anyone can purchase technology that can track, quantify, and measure the body and its environment. Wearable or portable sensors detect heart rates, glucose levels, steps taken, water quality, genomes, and microbiomes, and turn them into electronic data. Is this phenomenon empowering, or a new form of social control? Who volunteers to enumerate bodily experiences, and who is forced to do so? Who interprets the resulting data? How does all this affect the relationship between medical practice and self care, between scientific and lay knowledge? Quantified examines these and other issues that arise when biosensing technologies become part of everyday life. The book offers a range of perspectives, with views from the social sciences, cultural studies, journalism, industry, and the nonprofit world. The contributors consider data, personhood, and the urge to self-quantify; legal, commercial, and medical issues, including privacy, the outsourcing of medical advice, and self-tracking as a "paraclinical" practice; and technical concerns, including interoperability, sociotechnical calibration, alternative views of data, and new space for design. Contributors Marc Boehlen, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Sophie Day, Anna de Paula Hanika, Deborah Estrin, Brittany Fiore-Gartland, Dana Greenfield, Judith Gregory, Mette Kragh-Furbo, Celia Lury, Adrian Mackenzie, Rajiv Mehta, Maggie Mort, Dawn Nafus, Gina Neff, Helen Nissenbaum, Heather Patterson, Celia Roberts, Jamie Sherman, Alex Taylor, Gary Wolf

This book demonstrates how and why vitalism - the idea that life cannot be explained by the principles of mechanism - matters now. Vitalism resists closure and reductionism in the life sciences whilst simultaneously addressing the object of life itself. The aim of this collection is to consider the questions that vitalism makes it possible to ask: questions about the role and status of life across the sciences, social sciences and humanities and questions about contingency, indeterminacy, relationality and change. All have special importance now, as the concepts of complexity, artificial life and artificial intelligence, information theory and cybernetics become increasingly significant in more and more fields of activity.

Understandings of globalization have been little explored in relation to gender or related concerns such as identity, subjectivity and the body. This book contrasts `the natural' and `the global' as interpretive strategies, using approaches from feminist cultural theory. The book begins by introducing the central themes: ideas of the natural; questions of scale and context posed by globalization and their relation to forms of cultural production; the transformation of genealogy; and the emergence of interest in definitions of life and life forms. The authors explores these questions through a number of case studies including Benneton advertising, Jurassic Park, The Body Shop, British Airways, Monsanto and Dolly the Sheep. In order to respecify the `nature, culture and gender' concerns of two decades of feminist theory, this highly original book reflects, hypothesizes and develops new interpretive possibilities within established feminist analytical frames.