In the UK, at least, TV coverage of India tends to be dominated by two tropes. First, there is celebrity tourism, focusing on the scenic and the exotic, interspersed by carefully choreographed interviews with colourful locals. Second, is poverty tourism, where a commentator with a social conscience on their sleeve picks their way through some… Read More »
Edgar Morin is probably the most influential French sociologist that the English-speaking world has never acknowledged… In part, this is likely to be because he does not fit the image of French sociology that has dominated the English-speaking academic world. Morin has always taken his own line on major issues of the day rather than… Read More »
One particular loss in the present emergency is Georg Simmel’s discussion of the case for cities, in his 1902 essay ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’…it presents crucial arguments against the break-up of urban life that is envisioned by some contemporary Utopians: the case against the 15-minute city needs to be heard… Simmel composed this lecture… Read More »