Realising the Future

A half-day workshop on the politics, methodologies & technologies of economic prediction & expectation

2-6.30pm, 20th December 2017

Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths

Register to attend

Modernity, capitalism and finance involve distinctive orientations towards the future, in which a degree of uncertainty, risk and change are assumed. Various techniques of calculation and representation promise to render this condition manageable and profitable, from actuarial risk assessment, through the design of business models, to the hedging instruments of private finance. Epochal crises and upheavals, such as climate change and financial crisis, stretch these techniques to their limit, placing their legitimacy and capability in question. Under these conditions, the appeal of collective planning or tradition – which seek to reduce uncertainty overall – become more politically attractive.

This half-day workshop explores the calculative devices, experts, discourses and images through which the future becomes available as an economic concern in the present, and considers the politics and controversies that arise in and around the future today. It brings together perspectives from economic sociology, STS, anthropology and political economy, to address the future as an ontological, epistemological, methodological, political and cultural problem which shapes the character of capitalism.

Speakers:

• Jens Beckert – Max Planck Institute and author of Imagined Futures: Fictional Expectations and Capitalist Dynamics
• Liliana Doganova – Ecole des Mines and co-author of Capitalization: A Cultural Guide
• Fabian Muniesa – Ecole des Mines and co-author of Capitalization: A Cultural Guide
• Nick Taylor – Goldsmiths and Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity

If you would like to attend, please register here.

This event is hosted jointly by PERC and the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity.

To find Goldsmiths, click here. The Ben Pimlott Building is one minute walk from New Cross Gate, and easily visible by the large metal GOLDSMITHS lettering on the roof.