8 September - 9 November 2023
Biography
Theodore R. Schatzki is professor of Geography and Philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He is a world-leading scholar, best known for helping to develop and establish what has come to be known as ‘social practice theory’. He is author of five single-authored monographs, the co-editor of six collected volumes, and has written over eighty articles on a wide range of topics in social theory and philosophy such as flat ontology, social space, learning and educational practices, large social phenomena, institutional theory, art, social change, materiality, governance, discourse, and human activity. These works, above all his 1996 book, Social Practices, his 2002 book, The Site of the Social, and a 2001 co-edited volume, The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, have become key reference points for the practice theoretical approach to social life; they are widely cited in the disciplines in which this approach has become active, Schatzki has been a visiting professor or fellow at numerous institutions of higher learning, including the University of Exeter, Lancaster University, the University of Zürich, the Free University in Berlin, the University of Bergen, Bielefeld University, the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna. He is presently co-organizing a thriving international online community of researchers interested in practice theory. In the spring of 2018, he received an honorary degree from Aalborg University for his contributions to advancing practice theory, and in 2021 a Scopus-based Stanford University Study listed him as the thirteenth most cited philosopher in the world in 2020. Schatzki received his BA in applied mathematics from Harvard University, a BPhil in philosophy from Oxford, and a PhD in philosophy from UC Berkeley.
Research Summary
The overall project that Theodore R. Schatzki is carrying out with his host at the University, Prof Dale Southerton, is the Enhancement of Practice Theoretical Research on Digital Social Phenomena. Schatzki is one of the world’s experts on theories of practices, an approach to conceptualising and researching social phenomena that has spread through the social disciplines and that emphasizes the centrality of practices—as opposed to individuals, interactions, structures etc.—to the composition of society. His recent research uses this approach to study the digitalization of society. Southerton is co-director of the University’s ESRC Centre for SocioDigital Futures. The Centre draws on practice theoretical ideas in its research on the making of futures through the introduction of new technologies in key domains of sociodigital practice. The project joins Schatzki’s expertise and research with the work of the Centre in a varied set of forums that aims to enhance all parties’ understanding of the use of practice theory in analyzing the digitalization of social life.
Phase one of the project will take place this fall while Schatzki is the Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University. It will focus on practice theories and seek to establish a foundation for the theorisation of and research on digitalization that will make up the second phase of the project. This second phase is scheduled to take place in the 24-25 academic year. Phase one will draw on Schatzki’s vast knowledge of theories of practices. He will teach workshops or master classes on practice theoretical accounts of social phenomena and the use of practice theories in empirical research. He will also lecture about the nature of digitality and its embedment in social practices.
Professor Schatzki is hosted by Professor Dale Southerton in the School of Managment and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures.
Planned lectures and seminars include:
Dates, times and venues will be posted in due course in the meantime please contact Professor Schatzki's host if you are interested to attend.
