 | |  | Welcome! | | | |  | Upcoming Events | | | "From Tipping Points to Meta-Crises: Management, Media, and Hurricane Katrina"
Chris Russill, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Chad Lavin, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Friday, April 11, 2008, 1:30pm
1314 Social Sciences Building
Abstract: In recent years, “the tipping point” has become one of the more unavoidable metaphors in US culture, used to explain such disparate phenomena as crime rates, marketing success, and international policy. This paper explores the history of the term and the reasons for its current popularity in discourses of crisis management, and examines the implicit presumptions about agency and responsibility that the metaphor carries. We focus in particular on Michael Brown’s use of the term in his discussions of the failed federal response during Hurricane Katrina, and how these presumptions proved particularly damaging to the federal government’s ability to provide relief to the disaster stricken Gulf Coast. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s media field theory, we then discuss why this metaphor enjoys popular support and why it proved inadequate to navigating the crisis unfolding in New Orleans. We argue that national media outlets eventually abandoned the metaphor’s presumptions and the federal government’s persistence with them, provoking a “meta-crisis” in which established metrics for recognizing crisis were themselves thrown into crisis. |
|  | SPRING 2008 | | | Theory Colloquium meets Fridays at 1:30pm in 1314 Social Sciences Building, unless otherwise noted.
25 January, 3:30pm: Beginning-of-semester Happy Hour. Nomad World Pub, 501 Cedar Ave S, Mpls.
8 February: Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
"Credibility and Certainty: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories and Psychosis."
15 February: Zenzele Isoke, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Departments of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies and Political Science, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
"Towards a Political Theory of Intersectionality: Space, Identity and Radical Black Feminist Praxis."
22 February: Panel on Arendt and Revolution.
Jason Frank, Cornell University.
"Revolution and Reiteration: Hannah Arendt's Critique of Constituent Power."
and
Lisa Disch, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
"How Could Arendt Glorify the American Revolution and Revile the French? Placing On Revolution in the Historiography of the French and American Revolutions."
29 February: Doug Casson, St. Olaf College.
"But is it an Emergency? Carl Schmitt, John Locke, and the Paradox of Prerogative."
14 March: Joel Schlosser, Carleton College/Duke University.
"Trapping the Gadfly: Socrates and the Strangeness of Political Thinking."
28 March: Michael Illuzzi, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
"The 1960s Rise of Equal Opportunity Movements: The Separation of Economic Rights from Civil Rights".
11 April: Joint Presentation:
Chris Russill, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Writing Studies, and
Chad Lavin, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
"From Tipping Points to Meta-Crises: Media, Management, and Hurricane Katrina."
|
|  | About PTC | | | For nearly a decade, graduate students in the department have put together a (roughly) bimonthly schedule of presentations relevant to political theory. Most commonly this is in the form of a paper presentation- the paper is posted online a few days beforehand, interested parties read it, the author presents the paper for 10-30 minutes, the audience asks questions, provides feedback, and offers suggestions. To offer some variety, roundtable discussions on a particular topic or forums around currents issues appear in the schedule as well. Colloquium meets roughly every other Friday at 1:30pm, with discussion lasting typically until around 3:00 or 3:30pm. Snacks and beverages are provided. Presenters are grad students, department faculty, faculty from other cognate departments at the university, other local college faculty (Carleton, Macalester, St Olaf, Hamline, etc), and the occasional out-of-town guest. Past guests have included Ernesto Laclau, Amitai Etzioni, Wendy Brown, Bonnie Honig, and Nick Xenos.
PTC is organized by graduate students through the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. |
|  | Contact | | | | For more information about either presenting at or attending the Colloquium, please contact Michael Nordquist. |
|  | Past Schedules |
|