Over 40 years ago, in 1981, a group of us based at the University of Essex published the book, The Making of the Modern Homosexual. And very recently, one of the contributors – Gregg Blachford – has written a very lively reflection on this book, and his own engagement, in his wonderful new blog: A…
Today, I have updated my publications and articles section. See All Publications 1973-2022. The opening listing now provides a coverage from 1973, my first published article, to 2022, where several forthcoming publications and listed. There are around 170 publications in all, listed by type and date. This is more or less complete. Beyond this All…
White. A-blank-page-or-canvas. So-many-possibilities. Sunday in the Park with George I have long been fascinated with Sondheim’s lyrics, writings, and musicals. They help bring alive an inspiring sense of a deeply human relational, moving, and contingent world stuffed full of everyday precariousness and ambiguity. Here we can sense negotiated social structures formed through fragile human beings…
Earlier this year I was interviewed by two dynamic sociologists, Ashley Barnwell and Signe Ravn – both at the University of Melbourne (see picture below). They run a regular podcast series NARRATIVE NOW. These look at different approaches to narrative and‘how to employ them. For episode 4 they interviewed me about my engagement over the…
NARRATIVE POWER: A SHORT INTERVIEW In this short interview, Ken Plummer tells a little about his new book. Q: Why did you write Narrative Power? Narrative has become a contemporary buzzword: everybody’s talking about it. There’s now a vast amount of writing by academics in all kinds of different disciplines from literature and the…
STORYTELLING CONFERENCE 10th and 11th July 2018 University of Suffolk, UK We are excited to announce that the call for papers for our Storytelling Conference is now open. We invite papers that theoretically and empirically engage with a broad range of disciplines reflecting the diverse nature of storytelling and stories substantively and methodologically. Keynote Speakers…
Whose side are we on? Power, Stigma, Transgression and Exclusion in Everyday Life 4,5,6 July 2018 University of Lancaster For more info: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/sssi2018/ Ken Plummer: “Whose Side Are We On?” Revisited: On Narrative Power, Inequality and Hope ‘To have values or not to have values: the question is always with us’. And so Howard S.…
On Thursday February 11 2016, my dear friend, mentor and guru John Gagnon died at the age of 84. He had experienced problems with his leg and his eye, but the final period starting in October brought a terminal pancreatic cancer. He has been an inspiration and will be loved and missed by many.…
Today, March 9th, marks the 10th anniversary of my ‘illness’. It is this day in 2005 I was rushed to hospital in Santa Barbara, diagnosed with ‘alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver’, told to give up drink or die. It was also the day I first heard the word ‘transplant’ It…
Announcement of forthcoming seminar 50 Years of Essex Sociology: A seminar sponsored by the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship ‘The Making of the Modern Homosexual’ Revisited A discussion between Ken Plummer and Jeffrey Weeks and other contributors chaired by Gregg Blachford and an update with Róisín Ryan-Flood. Thursday March…