Faculty
Associate Professor Christian Borch, LPF, CBS, Professor Urs Stäheli, Department of Sociology, University of Basel, Switzerland

Course Coordinator
Christian Borch, LPF, CBS

The course (as well as the readings) will be in English. Attendants are required to read the course literature (and preferably some of the suggested readings) in advance and to submit a short paper (five-ten pages) on their project, in which they try to explore the fruitfulness of incorporating Tardean themes in their work. Students are further expected to present parts of Tarde’s work in plenum. A selection of topics to be presented by students will be made and coordinated one month prior to the course.

The aim of the course is, first, to introduce PhD students to key topics in Tarde’s sociology and, second, to explore how and to what extent Tardean concepts and perspectives may advance individual PhD projects. Besides investigating the general sociological potentials of Tarde’s work, there will be a special focus on how to employ a Tarde-inspired perspective in management and organisation studies. Following Tarde one may analyse management or study the management of imitative affects. Key questions to be addressed in the course include: How can individual projects profit from Tarde’s notions of imitation, suggestion, and invention? How does Tarde provide means to see the social and its management in new and surprising ways? And what are the implications for management and organisation theory of incorporating Tardean concepts?

The past decade has been marked by a veritable revival of Gabriel Tarde’s (1843–1904) sociology. Tarde, who was long disregarded in social theory, is now being rehabilitated as a sociologist whose work presents new and illuminating perspectives on society and the social. One of the most important figures in the rediscovery of Tarde is Bruno Latour who has even characterised Tarde as the forefather of actor-network theory. Tarde also plays a most crucial role in Peter Sloterdijk’s sphereological theory of social foam, as well as in the work of Eric Alliez, Andrew Barry, Lisa Blackman, Maurizio Lazzarato, and Nigel Thrift, to name but a few. Previously, in particular Gilles Deleuze has celebrated Tarde.

The current discussions of Tarde's focus on his monadological understanding of society, his notions of imitation-suggestion and invention, and on his work on economic sociology. These themes are also central to this course, which will present the basic concepts in Tarde’s sociology, discuss the contemporary revival of Tarde, as well as demonstrate the potentials of his work for research in sociology, management and organisation theory.

The course consists of two lectures, student presentations, and discussions of individual projects. The first lecture focuses on how Tarde constructs a micro-sociological programme, which, compared to much classical and modern sociological theorising, offers an alternative conception of the social and its composition. This lecture also presents Tarde’s work from a historical-theoretical perspective and discusses some of his main concepts. The second lecture focuses in particular on Tarde’s notion of suggestion and relates it to recent post-structuralist thought. The student presentations will focus on specific aspects of Tarde’s work, such as his economic sociology or on the employment of his work within management and organisation theory.

The course should provide an overview of Tarde’s main concepts (notably, imitation, suggestion, and invention) as well as of his general sociological theory. Furthermore, the course should make the PhD student familiar with some of the main recent discussions and applications of Tarde’s work (for example, in the field of management). Finally, the course should illustrate how Tardean perspectives may be incorporated in individual PhD projects.

Lecture plan

Time/period	Faculty	Title
Tuesday 14 April
09.30-10.00	Christian Borch	Registration and welcome: Presentation of participants and course: Why Tarde?
10.00-12.00	Christian Borch	Lecture I on Tarde: Tarde's Alternative Sociology
12.00-13.00		Lunch
13.00-14.30		Student presentations
14.30-16.00		Discussion
Wednesday 15 April
09.30-12.00	Urs Stäheli	Lecture II on Tarde: Suggestion and Post-Structuralism
12.00-13.00		Lunch
13.00-16.00		Discussion of individual projects
Thursday 16 April
09.30-12.00		Discussion of individual projects
12.00-13.00		Lunch
13.00-16.00		Wrap-up and evaluation

Two lectures; student presentations; discussions in plenum; discussion of individual projects.

There is no exam.

Alliez, Eric (2004) ‘The Difference and Repetition of Gabriel Tarde’, Distinktion 9: 49–54
Blackman, Lisa (2007) ‘Reinventing psychological matters: the importance of the suggestive realm of Tarde’s ontology’, Economy and Society 36(4): 574–596
Czarniawska, Barbara (2004) ‘Gabriel Tarde and Big City Management’, Distinktion 9: 113–133
Latour, Bruno (2002) ‘Gabriel Tarde and the end of the social’, pp. 117–132 in P. Joyce (ed.) The Social in Question. New bearings in history and the social sciences. London and New York: Routledge
Lazzarato, Maurizio (2004) ‘From Capital-Labour to Capital-Life’, ephemera 4(3): 187–208
Tarde, Gabriel (1899) Social Laws. New York: Macmillan. (213 pp.)
Tarde, Gabriel (1962): The Laws of Imitation. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, pp. ix-88
Tarde, Gabriel (2007) ‘Economic psychology’, Economy and Society 36(4): 614–643
Thrift, Nigel (2007) ‘Turbulent passions: Towards an understanding of the affective spaces of political performance’, pp. 220–254 in Non-Representational Theory: Space, politics, affect. London and New York: Routledge
Toews, David (2003) ‘The New Tarde: Sociology after the End of the Social’, Theory, Culture & Society 20(5): 81–98.

Blackman, Lisa (2008) ‘Affect, Relationality and the “Problem of Personality”’, Theory, Culture & Society 25(1): 23–47
Borch, Christian (2005) ‘Urban Imitations: Tarde’s Sociology Revisited’, Theory, Culture & Society 22(3): 81–100
Borch, Christian (2008) ‘Foam architecture: managing co-isolated associations’, Economy and Society 37(4): 548–571
Borch, Christian and Urs Stäheli (eds) (2008/9) Soziologie der Nachahmung und des Begehrens. Materialien zu Gabriel Tarde. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp
Distinktion special issue on Tarde: Distinktion 9 (2004)
Economy and Society special issue Tarde: Economy and Society 36(4) (2007)
Latour, Bruno (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Leys, Ruth (1993) ‘Mead’s Voices: Imitation as Foundation, or, The Struggle against Mimesis’, Critical Inquiry 19(2): 277–307
Tarde, Gabriel (1969) On Communication and Social Influence: Selected Papers, ed. Terry N. Clark. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Please send your application to Anja Dupont ( ad.lpf@cbs.dk) before the 13 March, 2009.