Alec (Alexandru) Balasescu
anthropologist by training (PhD 2004, UC Irvine; M.A. 1998
University of Lyon II) specialized in material culture, body, consumption, and cultural aspects of economy; author of “Paris Chic, Tehran Thrills. Aesthetic Bodies, Political Subjects.” ZetaBooks 2007.
He taught at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest, American University in Paris, University of California, Irvine, Royal University for Women, Bahrain and Galatasaray University, Istanbul.
He worked as deputy director for the Romanian Cultural Institute "Dimitrie Cantemir" in Istanbul.
Since 2011 he is involved in a variety of artistic projects as organizer, curator, or performer.
He is currently Visitor Scholar at UC Riverside Center for Global Studies, founder member of the Moving Matters Traveling Workshop based at UC Riverside, and co-founded and curates Nature, Art and Habitat multidisciplinary residency in Taleggio Valley, Italy. He lives and works in Vancouver.
Supervisors: Bill Maurer
University of Lyon II) specialized in material culture, body, consumption, and cultural aspects of economy; author of “Paris Chic, Tehran Thrills. Aesthetic Bodies, Political Subjects.” ZetaBooks 2007.
He taught at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest, American University in Paris, University of California, Irvine, Royal University for Women, Bahrain and Galatasaray University, Istanbul.
He worked as deputy director for the Romanian Cultural Institute "Dimitrie Cantemir" in Istanbul.
Since 2011 he is involved in a variety of artistic projects as organizer, curator, or performer.
He is currently Visitor Scholar at UC Riverside Center for Global Studies, founder member of the Moving Matters Traveling Workshop based at UC Riverside, and co-founded and curates Nature, Art and Habitat multidisciplinary residency in Taleggio Valley, Italy. He lives and works in Vancouver.
Supervisors: Bill Maurer
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such as myth, ritual and magic that structure and explain our behaviour, and by extending the concept of agency from human to non-human. We also point to the possibility of better understanding our position in the mythological cycle using the new social media data. The aim of the article is to offer a holistic framework of interpretation of causes and circumstances of economic crises, using the tools of economy, semiotics, and economic anthropology that would account for both the universality of these crises and for their particular occurrences that always seem unique.
“Adopt a Canadian” raises those questions placing the story in a not so far future when climate change and political choices provoke a change in the direction of refugee flows. It is a world that is not yet re-settled, in which new values and hierarchies did not emerge, while the old ones are shaken and reinterpreted.
The short story is a stand alone piece but could be seen also as departing point for a “Climate Change” novel. As Amitav Ghosh recently remarked, the climate change fiction does not have the prominence it deserves, because it tackles a sensitive subject. Its necessity is incontestable, and it may itself be an instrument of knowledge that enables us to think in terms of an ethnography of the future.
Currently I am working into developing the story into a film script together with 88FilmWorks production company based in Southern California.
http://allegralaboratory.net/adopt-canadian-short-story/
The question that emerges and constitutes the key of this argument may be puzzling by its simplicity: Is it “women’s oppression” and “religious belonging” that upsets French politicians? In the present article, I will argue that an intricate relation between space and visibility is at the core of the dispute, revealing to us more the structure of French citizenship assumptions and its link with architecture, than anything about Islam. Thus, the article will approach the aesthetic, social, and political implications of the training of the eye. The argument will concentrate on ways of seeing in the public space, and how the visible is structured there. As there is no visibility in the absence of the invisible, it is often necessary to close our eyes to understand the image through its lack. Therefore, the public space does not emerge without its complementary private realm.
such as myth, ritual and magic that structure and explain our behaviour, and by extending the concept of agency from human to non-human. We also point to the possibility of better understanding our position in the mythological cycle using the new social media data. The aim of the article is to offer a holistic framework of interpretation of causes and circumstances of economic crises, using the tools of economy, semiotics, and economic anthropology that would account for both the universality of these crises and for their particular occurrences that always seem unique.
“Adopt a Canadian” raises those questions placing the story in a not so far future when climate change and political choices provoke a change in the direction of refugee flows. It is a world that is not yet re-settled, in which new values and hierarchies did not emerge, while the old ones are shaken and reinterpreted.
The short story is a stand alone piece but could be seen also as departing point for a “Climate Change” novel. As Amitav Ghosh recently remarked, the climate change fiction does not have the prominence it deserves, because it tackles a sensitive subject. Its necessity is incontestable, and it may itself be an instrument of knowledge that enables us to think in terms of an ethnography of the future.
Currently I am working into developing the story into a film script together with 88FilmWorks production company based in Southern California.
http://allegralaboratory.net/adopt-canadian-short-story/
The question that emerges and constitutes the key of this argument may be puzzling by its simplicity: Is it “women’s oppression” and “religious belonging” that upsets French politicians? In the present article, I will argue that an intricate relation between space and visibility is at the core of the dispute, revealing to us more the structure of French citizenship assumptions and its link with architecture, than anything about Islam. Thus, the article will approach the aesthetic, social, and political implications of the training of the eye. The argument will concentrate on ways of seeing in the public space, and how the visible is structured there. As there is no visibility in the absence of the invisible, it is often necessary to close our eyes to understand the image through its lack. Therefore, the public space does not emerge without its complementary private realm.
of humanity’s decisions regarding their habitat; it is the material form of human emotions, desires, and ways of understanding of (and relating to) the world. We shape the city and the city shapes us. Taking Bucharest and Istanbul as examples, he discusses urban sustainability from the perspective of conflict solutions and futures. He reproblematizes the goal of sustainability, which he sees as locked up in the rhetoric of economic growth, and brings into the conversation on sustainability the concepts of cohabitation, negotiation, and harmony.
KEYWORDS Istanbul; Bucharest; economic growth; cities; cohabitation; star architecture; transport
Click for Audio Presentation: http://staff.washington.edu/learner/Documents/FinBubble_Seminar_112015/FinBubble-sourceEdirol_Final.mp3
Pour ce faire, et sur la base des théories du changement socio-technologique, la présentation mettra au centre de son sujet, le concept de subjectivation en sciences sociales. Il s’agit d'une compréhension théorique des changements culturels et de leur relation avec les transformations dans les pratiques de production, de transfert et d’utilisation/usage de l'énergie. La première partie proposera un schéma de subjectivation en triangularisation, qui relie le niveau biologique avec la culture matérielle et avec le champ représentationnel des normativités dans notre société. La deuxième partie traitera de la modélisation de ces trois éléments comme un système énergétique processuel, en utilisant le concept de dépense et d’excès. Nous montrerons notamment comment des perturbations dans l'un des pôles de ce modèle de triangularisation, influence les autres pôles et apporte ainsi des changements dans l'ensemble du complexe anthropo-social. La troisième partie discutera des types potentiels de subjectivités émergentes, et avancera l'idée d'approfondir la connaissance et la conscience des transferts énergétiques entre les systèmes, à partir d’une sémiologie qui combinerait les différentes formes d’énergie.
EN : Rather than changing technics, would the question not be to change culture ? It seems to us that the contribution of sociology should be to blend the cultural changes with the technical changes, on anthroplogical and historical levels. Shouldn’t we seek to combine the different forms of energy ? Following this aim, based on previous analysis of theories of socio-technological change and putting at its center the concept of subjectivation in social sciences, this paper proposes a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and their relationship with changes in the practices of production, transfer and use of energy. The paper is structured in three parts: first part proposes a schema of subjectivation in triangulation, that links the biological level with the material culture and with the representational realm of normativities in our society. The second part deals with the concept of expenditure of surplus in this model and how disruptions in one of the poles of this model influences the others and bring about changes in the entire Anthropo-Social level. The third part proposes possible types of emerging subjectivities and advances the idea of extending the realm of consciousness to the energetical transfers and their potentiality, working on a semiology which would combine the different forms of energy.