[IMCnetwork] Special invitation: an afternoon with James C. Scott, July 10

[Nick Cheesman]

Dear IMC listserv

James C Scott, the Sterling Prof of Political Science at Yale and head of the Agrarian Studies program there is coming to the ANU. He’ll be giving a public lecture and also an oratory at the graduation ceremonies mid year.

On the sidelines of his visit we’ve organised an informal meeting with him for IMC network members on Monday, 10 July, 3-5pm followed by drinks at a place of our choosing. That’s the topic of this email.

As most of you know (we suppose!), James, or Jim, is among the leading interpretivist political scientists writing in English today. In 2013 the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group gave him the “Grain of Sand” award for lifetime achievements in interpretive methodologies (the citation is here: https://connect.apsanet.org/interpretation/wp-content/uploads/sites/60/2015/10/2013-Grain-of-Sand-Award.citation.docx). In 2020 he got the Hirschman Prize, which is awarded only once every two years and is the US’s most important recognition of an interdisciplinary social scientist. His former students include Benedict Kerkvliet, emeritus prof at the ANU, and Timothy Pachirat, at UMass, whom we read in undergraduate and graduate IMC courses.

Our meeting on July 10 will be an opportunity for dialogue. We will concentrate on how Jim’s done his research over many decades so as, in the words of the Grain citation, to bring “ethnographic detail into conversation with high level theory to produce sophisticated and persuasive accounts of the centrality of contextualized meaning-making to the operation of power.” Participants will be invited to discuss their current research or research plans and seek advice.

There are no prerequisites to participate other than that you do or are interested to do interpretivist political or social scientific research and have an affiliation with the IMC, through the listserv or otherwise. However, we’ll have to cap numbers of participants so if you are interested to participate please just reply to this message at the cc-ed email address (Nick Cheesman <nick.cheesman at anu.edu.au>) and we’ll put your name on the list, on a first-come basis initially. If we have a *lot* of names then we’ll give priority to HDR students and postdocs doing interpretivist projects currently or imminently (so if you are one of those and we don’t know you or your research personally, mention it to us in the email).

Once we’ve a list of participants, prior to meeting with Jim we ought to have a couple of equally informal reading sessions — during the monthly coffee sessions and/or at some other time — to talk about some of his major works and the interpretivist traditions that he’s helped to develop in the Anglophone academy. If you are interested to join the reading sessions (no obligation — it’s just a suggestion; or for HDRs and postdocs a recommendation) then you can mention that in the reply email too. If there are any of his works that your most interest to read let us know also. We’ll share an online folder with the readings ahead of time to those who indicate interest to do this.

That’s everything to communicate about this exciting visit by Jim Scott for now, but if you’ve any questions, send an email.

Thanks,
Nick and April


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