London SE14 6NW
UK
Weird Science includes all kinds of phenomena, entities and practices, which present puzzling anomalies and challenges to conventional thinking. In some cases phenomena are associated with the occult or supernatural, as well as forming the focus of anomalistic psychology and cognitive science. In recent years the area of weird science has also become of interest to media and cultural studies scholars interested in contagion, suggestion and imitation, within the context of the ‘turn to affect’. In this talk Lisa will explore some of these productive interchanges and intersections and invite an opening to some of the submerged narratives and displaced actors and agencies that govern the field. She will present material from her new book, Haunted Data: Transmedia, Affect, Weird Science and Archives of the Future. The book explores the relationship between science and storytelling and argues that science is always governed by more stories than can be told at any particular moment. These stories re-surface and are re-moved (that is put back into circulation) in relation to two contemporary controversies in the area of weird science that gained a reach and traction across social media within the context of post-publication-peer-review. These controversies (John Bargh priming controversy and Daryl Bem Feeling the Future) will form the subject of the talk. Lisa will invite the audience to suspend their disbelief and open to what it might mean to experiment with the improbable and the impossible.
Biography
Lisa Blackman works at the intersection of body studies, critical psychology and media and cultural theory and is particularly interested in subjectivity, affect, the body and embodiment. She has published four books in this area. The most recent is Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation (2012, Sage). Her work in the area of embodiment and voice hearing has been recognized and commended for its innovative approach to mental health research and it has been acclaimed by the Hearing Voices Network, Intervoice, and has been taken up in professional psychiatric contexts. This includes her book, Hearing Voices: Embodiment and Experience (Free Association Books, 2001). She has just completed a manuscript Haunted Data: Transmedia, Affect, Weird Science and Archives of the Future. She is currently the co-Head of the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London.