John Urry, 1946-2016
I have
devised these two presentations as a response to a call Chia-ling Lai
made to former students (in the broadest and narrowest sense) of John to participate
in a collated video of recollections from encounters with this great scholar. Chia-ling primarily
wanted us to discuss our intellectual relationship with John – how our own
research connects to his and how we engaged with his multiple projects. I
gather that I do more than that in the longer presentation, where I say a few
things about who I thought John was as a scholar and a public intellectual as
well as a person. In the shortest presentation I specifically respond to Chia-ling’s invitation
to make a collective picture of John in relation to his colleagues,
interlocutors and students.
My
experience with new media is still limited. But recording myself externalizing thoughts about someone who stands as one of my significant others
(my list is growing with new living colleagues all the time), then watching the
complete narrative, I realized how uncomfortable I found the process. This
becomes obvious in kinaesthetic aspects in both videos. I decided to leave them
unedited – I am unable to participate in commemorative events in person, so
this is my small, if insignificant, contribution. Some clips will appear in a relevant event in the 2016 ISA Forum in Vienna.
Click hereto watch the longer clip
Click here to watch the shorter clip
2 June 2016
