Les Back Interview
You may remember that in December I reviewed a talk given by Les Back at a conference I went to. Well last Thursday (22nd March 2007) I went to Goldsmith’s College in London to interview Les Back about some of the themes he raised in that talk. Les Back is best known for his work on ethnicity, racism and ethnic identities in the UK, but he was talking to me about his new book The Art of Listening which will be published this July and about the role of sociology in today’s rapidly changing society.
The interview covers issues around the media, politics, social change and challenges to sociology and can be listened to by clicking on the buttons below.
Introduction
Les talks about his new book, The Art of Listening
Les talks about how sociology can relate to our moral system
Big brother
The art of listening
The role of theory, the role of history, and individuals and structures
Dark times
To read an extract from the book just follow this link: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-11-15-back-en.html
Here is an image of the cover of The Art of Listening - look closely at the photo! If you want to pre-order a copy of Les’ new book you can of course do so - just click on the link below:
Religion and Politics
An interesting article from Michael Portillo in today’s issue of The Times. It’s a comment article and is therefore about the author’s views rather than a factual account. Portillo is essentially arguing that religion and politics (or rather faith and politics) don’t mix and raises some controversial and interesting points in the process. Unfortunately he seems to see faith and fanatacism as one and the same which rather spoils his argument.
If God is talking to you, too, Mr Cameron – don’t listen-TimesOnline